Hernán Cortés, a la conquista de México. - Ep.3 (La conquista de América)

“Os haré señores de lo que nuestros paisanos ni siquiera han alcanzado a soñar”. Con frases y promesas tan ambiciosas como esta, un aventurero convertido en capitán general arengó a sus hombres en el cabo San Antonio, la punta más occidental de la isla de Cuba, justo antes de partir en pos de lo desconocido. Era el 18 de febrero de 1519. "Sois pocos en número, pero fuertes en arrojo”. Seiscientos sesenta y tres hombres escuchaban a Hernán Cortés, líder de una escuadra comisionada por el gobernador de Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, para ir al otro lado del mar Caribe a buscar al capitán Grijalva, comandante de una expedición anterior al mismo lugar. Debían hallar a sus compatriotas perdidos o presos, traer la máxima información sobre aquellos enclaves desconocidos y, sobre todo, comerciar con los nativos, a los que invitarían a convertirse al cristianismo y ofrecer lealtad al rey de España. “Si he trabajado duramente y me he jugado todas mis posesiones en esta empresa es por amor de ese renombre que constituye la más noble recompensa del hombre”, resumió Cortés. Había invertido todo el dinero ganado como rico terrateniente en Cuba, más el que pudo obtener hipotecando sus haciendas en la colonia, para financiar una expedición que, según sus seguidores, casi corría completamente a su cargo, pese a tratarse de una misión oficial española. Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a [e-mail] Comparte nuestro podcast en tus redes sociales, puedes realizar una valoración de 5 estrellas en Apple Podcast o Spotify. Texto: Jose Angel Martos Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego Contacto de publicidad en podcast: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I will use, gentlemen, whatour countrymen have not even managed to dream
of with such ambitious phrases and promisesas this. An adventurer who became captain
general toured his men at Cape SanAntonio, the westernmost tip of the island
of Cuba, just before leaving inpursuit of the unknown. It was the

(00:21):
eighteenth of February of 1, 500nineteen. Great reports of very history presents
the conquest of America lights and shadows. Chapter three Hernán Cortés to the conquest

(00:55):
of Mexico, a text by JoséÁngel Martos you are few in number,
but strong in boldness. Six hundredand sixty- three men listened to Hernán
Cortés, leader of a squadron commissionedby the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez,

(01:17):
from Cuellar to go across the CaribbeanSea to look for Captain Grijalva commander
of an earlier expedition. In thesame place, they were to find their
lost or imprisoned compatriots, bring themaximum information about those unknown enclaves and,
above all, trade with the nativeswho would be invited to convert to Christianity

(01:38):
and offer loyalty to the King ofSpain. If I have worked hard and
have played all my possessions in thisenterprise, it is for the sake of
that renown, which constitutes man's noblest reward. He summed up Cortez.
He had invested all the money earnedas a wealthy landlord, in addition

(02:00):
to the money he could obtain bymortgaged his estates in the colony to finance
an expedition that, according to hisfollowers, was almost entirely in his charge,
despite being an official Spanish mission,which encouraged him to do so.
Apart from his enormous personal ambition andalso the promising news that came at that

(02:20):
time about the existence of a greatempire in the West. That empire would
know months later it was Mexico.Hernán Cortés, born in Medellin, Extremadura
in one thousand four hundred and eighty- five, had arrived in the Indies
at the age of nineteen. In1, 500 four, after discarding a

(02:44):
university career in Salamanca and scrapping thedaisy between serving in the armies of the
Grand Captain in Italy or leaving forthe new world. His restless, troubled
and dreamy spirit preferred this last destinybecause, with respect to the European wars
of the Empire, he added thepromise of adventures in unknown places, where

(03:04):
gold seemed to wait around the cornerand a much greater glory could be achieved
through discovery. When he arrived onthe island of the Spanish, then still
the only Spanish colonial domain. Hisadministrators encouraged him to accept a land concession
that included a distribution of Indians tocultivate them. Both were free for the

(03:29):
Spanish colonists, so the profits wereassured. But I have come for gold
not to till the land like apeasant. He initially answered the bustling courteous.
They ended up convincing him that thesafest thing was to make money,
as a farmer. So it wasseven years, although during them it was

(03:54):
involved in any adventure that arose,like the expeditions of punishment to the insurgent
natives carried out by Diego Velázquez.When Velázquez was commissioned in 1, 500
eleven to conquer the great island tothe east that Columbus had called Juana,
then known as Cuba, Cortés willinglyjoined the broadcast. He was one of

(04:15):
his most active members, so that, when he was appointed governor Velázquez,
he became one of his secretaries.By then he was already popular for his
recklessness towards Red. However, therelationship between the two was to grow bitter
when Cortés, also conqueror of hearts, did not fulfill the promise of marrying
Catherine Suarez or Juárez, the ladyof a family protected by the governor.

(04:40):
The disagreement led the Extremaduran to approacha group of critics with Velázquez who wanted
to promote his relief. They decidedthat Cortés would bring a complaint letter to
the Spanish to inform the governor ofthis island. But Velázquez, who knew
about the conspiracy and without contemplation,arrested Cortes. The bars were not enough

(05:04):
brake for the fearless adventurer. Cortesescaped twice, surely helped by his popularity
among soldiers and guards, and thensought reconciliation with the governor, for which
he finally agreed to marry Catherine.The restoration of Velázquez' s comfortable relations

(05:27):
brought great material advantages to Cortés inCuba, receiving a large territory and its
corresponding Indians in the vicinity of Santiago. He returned to the life of a
farmer and was not too late tobe appointed mayor of the incipient settlement.
In these years Cortés dedicated himself toincreasing his fortune. Velázquez sent two expeditions

(05:51):
and investigated to the west, onein 1, 500 seventeen led by Francisco
Hernández de Córdoba, which ended tragically, and another the following year led by
Juan de Grijalva. The fate ofthis second one was much better. He
explored the entire Yucatan peninsula, discoveredTabasco province and managed to establish trade relations

(06:14):
with the indigenous people. In thesecond half of 1, 500 eighteen,
the first new of the Grijalva expeditionarrived in Cuba. Not brought by him
personally, but by one of hislieutenants, Pedro de Alvarado, who had
confronted his superior and had been returnedfor him to Cuba earlier in time.
In his boat, Alvarado brought amultitude of products from the marketing with the

(06:40):
natives, and this increased Velázquez's interest and greed, which decided to
organize a larger expedition. For thishe sought someone who, in exchange for
leading it, would co- financeit with him. That person ended up
being Hernán Cortés, who by thenalready had a great fortune, but who
continued to have the same impetus forundertaking adventures. Listening to the numerous voices

(07:04):
of his closest surroundings that recommended it, Velázquez decided to grant the important company
to Cortés. The governor would orchestrateeverything so that the operation would be beneficial
to him from the first moment,since he would even sell the provisions to
him at an exorbitant price, accordingto the chroniclers favorable to Extremadura. But

(07:33):
at one point, Velázquez' sconfidence in his appointee broke, giving way
to a mixture of suspicion and envy. It is said that it all began
when a buffon shouted at him ashe walked with Cortes through the port.
Be careful, Master Velázquez, orone day we' ll have to go
out hunting that same captain of yours. Family members of the Governor, perhaps

(07:55):
annoyed by the rise of Cortes,have just predisposed him so that Velázquez will
have his opinion and decided to givehim the command of the expedition to another.
Once again, Cortés was helped byhis considerable popularity, as he was
informed of the Governor' s intentionsby the Governor' s own advisors and

(08:16):
he had just saved his cast,as, instead of waiting meekly for his
dismissal, he took a surprising path. He decided to leave early. The
same night he heard the news,he prepared everything and at dawn the next
day, he and his crew leftSantiago de Cuba to surprise the whole city.

(08:39):
Navigation bordering the island became a gameof mouse and cat between the captain
disk and its governor. Although heissued orders to arrest him, no one
dared to do so, not eventhe Mayor of Havana, who feared a
bloody confrontation between Spaniards. Eleven shipsgathered to face the open sea only five

(09:00):
hundred and fifty- three soldiers,one hundred and ten sailors and about two
hundred Indians as servants, were onboard a tiny company that, without knowing
it, was still running to meetthe most developed civilization of the new world,
whose capital Tenoxtitlán, had on itsown more than three hundred thousand inhabitants.

(09:22):
The excessive ambition of Captain General HernánCortés could replace his overwhelming numerical inferiority
and only a few days were enoughto reach the mainland. The distance between
the place of departure from the Yucatancoast is just a couple of sea degrees.

(09:45):
So, in retrospect, and consideringthat Columbus had already traveled to the
same place, although further south,seventeen years ago, in 1, 500
two. It may be shocking thatthat distance had not been crossed before.
The first port of the Cortés expeditionwas on the cozumel island opposite the Yucatan
Peninsula, located on the periphery ofthe Maya Empire. By then already periclite.

(10:11):
It was a poor and sparsely populatedisland, but some of the constructions
indicated its relationship with a civilization ofmuch greater capacity than the Spaniards had known
in Spanish or Cuba. Cortes wasimpressed by a huge cross of ten palms
of height built with lime and rollededges. The fact that a non-
Christian people worshiped a cross and caughthis attention soon. He knew, however,

(10:35):
what was the symbol of his god, of the rain the Idolatry scandalized
Cortes from the first moment. Theconversion to Christianity of all the infidel natives
they were encountering was one of thetop priorities of the journey. It was

(10:56):
an obligation for the Spanish discoverers,according to the Alexandrian bulls granted by the
Pope, and to this they appliedwith the help of the two ecclesiastics who
were part of the expedition, thechaplain Juan Díaz, who had already accompanied
Grijalva and returned to Cuba with Alvarado, and the friar mercedario Bartolomé de Olmedo.

(11:16):
Both worked hard in great preaching aboutthe mysteries and dogmas of the Catholic
faith, although initially little did theMayan indigenous people understand surprised that yes by
the great pomp and ceremonial rituals oftheir visitors. Communication was the heel of
aquiles of the Spaniards, not onlyfor their spiritual objectives, but also for

(11:39):
materials. They had to know thefate of Grijalva and other Spaniards who had
been rumored about their captivity for yearsand, of course, needed to communicate
to trade. Happily, for allthis, in Cozumel the Spaniards received the

(12:07):
visit of a canoe coming from mainlandwith an unexpected guest, the Clérigo Sevillano,
Jerónimo de Aguilar, who had beenon the expedition of Pedro de Valdivia
to Panama from 1, 500 tento 1, 500 eleven and had suffered
an authentic odyssey. Since then,saving himself from being sacrificed by entering the
service of an eagle chieftain. Hespoke the Mayan dialect of the Yucatan and

(12:31):
would be the first translator of courtesy. On the fourth of March the ships
of courtesy of Cozumel departed and aftercrossing the Bay of Campeche, they decided
to go up the river of Tabasco, also called Grijalva. Upstairs. The
first armed clashes would take place withhostile natives who would not allow them to

(12:56):
land. The most prominent was inthe battle of the Annunciation for the day
it happened on the 21st of March, when they faced no less than four
zero men. Fear of Europeans beganto grow in that battle. It didn
' t matter their numbers, becausethey dominated lightning and thunder. That'
s what the natives saw. Thecannon fire or Arcabuz fire and the horses

(13:18):
that seemed to them to be centaursmounted beasts, believing that Horseman and Mount
were one and the same thing.His victory was unappealable. The frightened leaders
offered a multitude of material and goldtributes, as well as slaves and slaves,

(13:39):
among whom was a malinche of Aztecorigin and destined to have a very
special role. Their knowledge of themain languages spoken in the Mexican territories would
reach courteous ears on their next scale. The beach, which, when set

(14:03):
foot by the Spaniards, was theirfirst incursion into Aztec territory, was a
wide plain bounded by sandy hills onwhich they installed cannons. It was situated
in front of an islet that Grijalvahad baptized as Saint John of Ulua.
In it they received the visit ofthe governor of the province, before which

(14:24):
Cortés brought out the great material objectiveof the expedition to obtain gold. According
to the story of the chaplain ofthe group, Cortes told the Aztec noble
that the Spaniards were suffering from aheart disease for which gold was a specific
remedy. He also asked to meetwith Emperor Moctezuma, the Mexican leader.

(14:48):
I had no intention of agreeing.He feared that those powerful visitors would be
those announced by the prophecy of thereturn of Quetzalcoal, a god whose second
avenue would mark the end of hisdynasty. The coincidences seemed many, since
quetzal who was represented with Barba asthe Spaniards. Understanding the wishes of the

(15:09):
newcomers, he intended to satisfy theirthirst for gold at the same time as
keeping them away. His emissaries firstbrought Cortés the excuses and then the direct
refusal to be visited, at thesame time that they offered him a Spanish
soldier' s helmet that had beengiven to them previously full to the edges
of gold nuggets, as well astwo large rodelas, a type of shield,

(15:33):
also made of gold metal. Needlessto say, the vision of these
riches, which only increased their ambition, gave the adventurers the impression. The
opposite effect to that sought by theMexican leader, Cortes was at a crossroads.
His mission had very strict limits ofexploration, commerce and evangelization, but

(15:58):
he wanted to go much further.In the way of other great political leaders
of history, he decided to launchan ordago, convert that beach camp into
a colony of the King of Spainand put himself at the service of the
municipal administration council of this previously selectedfrom among his faithful. According to Spanish
law, such a city was autonomous, so that it would no longer depend

(16:22):
on the Governor of Cuba. Inthis way it was created in the Villa
Rica de la Veracruz, the greatMexican city, known today only by the
last of the names Veracruz. Thestrategy caused the first fight with the faithful
to the Governor, but Cortés gotaway with it. Determined to conquer that

(16:45):
vast empire, he found a perfecttool in the various peoples subjected by the
Aztecs, to whom they had topay tribute. The first ones to help
him were the Totonacas, with capitalin zempoala who addressed the Spaniards with a
enthusiasm diametrically opposed to the coldness ofthe emissaries of Moctezuma Cortés demonstrated himself as

(17:06):
a consummate specialist in political manipulation,encouraged them to stop paying the tax and
to plant face, obtaining from themone thousand three hundred warriors, at the
same time that the Aztecs offered tocalm the moods with the Totonacas and recover
normality With this first alliance and planningto march to Tenotitlán, their biggest obstacle

(17:30):
were the internal discrepancies. They wereexecuted or imprisoned by the Spanish rebels who
wanted to return to Cuba and todeter future uprisings or escapes, he gave
the one that is undoubtedly his mostfamous order, sinking the ships that had
taken them there. There was noturning back. The small army of Cortés

(17:53):
began to travel the more than athousand kilometers that separate Veracruz from Tenochtitlán,
current Mexico City. Along the wayhe encouraged other subjugated peoples to rebel against
the Aztecs. They had the advantageof being considered demigods, even immortal by
the natives. Their greatest success wasto bring favor to the Chacaltecs, a

(18:15):
very large nation that at first wasopposed to them, they even fought them
twice, but kept a much greateradversion to the Aztecs who had dominated them
for more than seventy years. TheChacaltecas provided the Spanish captain with four zero
warriors, making his contingent more fearsomein the city of Cholula, allied with

(18:40):
the Aztecs. The Army of Cortezanticipated a possible ambush of these with an
indiscriminate fraventine attack. The house friarBartholomew speaks of thirty zero people murdered,
although other estimates lower the number fivezero. Those who survived joined the Spaniards.

(19:00):
After crossing the gorge between two volcanoestoday known as Paso de Cortés,
the expeditionaries arrived in the valley ofMexico. There, Moctezuma made the last
attempts to dissuade them from entering itscapital, Tenochtitlán, the famous city built
in the middle of Lake Tescoco onan island, but nothing could stop Cortés

(19:22):
anymore. On November 8, 19, Moctezuma received the Spaniards amicably and housed
them in the important palace of Axayacatal. He used to host them and teach
them the city. He was evenright to declare his vassalgia to King Charles

(19:45):
I of Spain. In December of1, 500 nineteen. Malinche advised him,
as before to the leaders of othernative peoples, not to irritate the
Spanish warlords. The visitors, whiledevoting themselves to locating the riches of the
pros out capital and to inquiring aboutthe origin of the gold to seize them
Cortés once again needed another excuse togive him a justification. He got it

(20:15):
when news came from the coast ofan Aztec attack on the Totonacas. For
not having paid tribute in that action, they killed Spanish Juan de Escalante,
who, as chief sheriff, wasthe highest authority in Veracruz in the absence
of Cortés. The information also impressedMoctezuma, whom his general in the battle,
Cacique Cuaupopoca, sent Escalante' scut head. It was proof that

(20:37):
the demigods were not immortal. Cortesordered the arrest of Moctezuma, who,
despite everything, continued to show thisconciliator with the Spaniards. It will be
difficult to clarify why he was stillin this position. If he still harbored
superstitious fears, or simply believed thatthe Spanish fierces would exterminate his own.

(21:03):
In any case, the affront ofseeing his captive emperor began to indissipate the
population against foreigners and was not theonly reason for anger. Cortes ordered the
Aztec noble who had defeated them tobe killed in the aqua popoca fire and
on 22 May, Pedro de Alvaradocarried out a calculated massacre between the Aztec
aristocracy, gathered entirely in the maintemple for the feast of his main deity,

(21:27):
hitchilopozliy in this way, intended tolead a revolt that seemed imminent at
the return of Cortés, who hadgone to stifle the attack of an expedition
sent by Velázquez and commanded by Panfilode Narváez. The situation was unsustainable.
Cortes asked Moctezuma to go to theMexicans to calm them down. He gave

(21:49):
a speech, but the people,who had lost respect for him, reacted
against him. They threw stones athim and one hit him, causing a
wound that he would die of Threedays later. With him died the only

(22:10):
containment wall that avoided open war.The Spaniards and their allies, Totonacas and
Sacaltecas, were surrounded in the Palaceof Asaya catal A. Cortes did not
remain without ordering the withdrawal that theyintended to carry out stealthily and taking away
all possible treasures at midnight from 30June to 1 July of 1, 500
twenty. The plan did not workand they were discovered as they tried to

(22:36):
cross the roads between the canals tothe sound of the drums of the Witchilopogli
temple. Thousands of canoes rushed quicklyover them. The retreat generated in desperate
flight, having to abandon almost allthe treasures they had gathered with so many
efforts. The Aztecs avenged themselves witha massacre. They murdered almost the entire

(22:56):
thousand jackalteces that in turn, nn n n n NS behaved very harshly
before with their until then dominators,as well as about six hundred Spaniards who
accounted for more than half the menof courtesy in the city. The conqueror
cried that night at the evidence ofthe deaths and the failure immediately circulated accounts

(23:17):
of his sadness, so the episodeis known in Spain as the sad night,
but Cortés survived and after winning onJuly 7 the Battle of Otumba,
called so because the conqueror said ohTomb of a thousand soldiers, managed to
reach the scale. He feared thathis indigenous allies would withdraw him in support
of him, but on the contrarythey renewed him and since then he had

(23:41):
had large contingents of Bolshevik soldiers.Thus he was able to carry out different
actions of conquest throughout the Aztec territory. While preparing with more patience than before
a definitive assault on Tenochtitlan, usingthe remains of the treasure plus everything previously

(24:02):
conquered, Cortés designed a more ambitiouswar operation, sent men to acquire weapons
to the Spanish and Jamaica and orderedthe construction of thirteen bergantines to execute an
amphibious attack on Tenochtitlan, but didnot act on the capital until previously all
the important populations around it were dominatedto leave it completely isolated, a process

(24:22):
that took months. The siege ofTenochtitlán began in May of 1, 500
twenty- one and lasted ninety-three days. The chronicler Bernal Díaz del
Castillo wrote about him. Every day. There were so many battles, not

(24:44):
always victories, that if I hadtold them all, it would look like
a book of amadis or cavalry.Hernán Cortés himself was about to be taken
prisoner in one of the refrigerants,but he would be saved in extremis by
a Vallicholatan soldier, Cristóbal de Olea, who found death by rescuing his boss.
The captured Spaniards ended up being torturedand sacrificed in the Aztec major temple,

(25:08):
as was the ancestral and barbaric customin the wars between the Mexican peoples.
For the Spaniards who listened and sawfrom afar the tremendous night ritual a
chronicler refers in particular to the unbearablenoise of the drum. This turned out
to be one of the hardest momentsof the siege. Finally, on the

(25:33):
13th of August of 1, 500twenty- one, Emperor Cuautemoc, successor
of Moctezuma, gave himself to theSpaniards in the face of the desperate situation
of the city between one hundred andtwenty thousand and two hundred and forty zero
dead, and asked the courtesy himselfto kill him with his dagger. He
kept him alive, although he wouldbe tortured to extract information about the alleged
hidden treasure of the Aztecs. TheSpaniards were very angry because the gold obtained

(25:57):
was much more on the case thanexpected. One hundred and thirty- zero
Castilians with coins of the time ofwhich one fifth corresponded to the king.
By the way, it was capturedby corsario, the French is when it
was taken to Spain, after deductingother quantities. By dividing the remainder only
if it remained for each soldier lessthan the value of his sword, Cortes

(26:22):
should organize in the future new expeditionsto please his troops. But in the
military and the political, the adventureculminated in an absolute triumph. It brought
to an end the powerful Aztec empireand gave possession of the enormous Mexican territory
to the far smaller Kingdom of Spain. Someone would have bet for it when

(26:48):
the fearless Hernán Cortés left Cuba almostin hiding, as the 19th- century
American historian William Prescott wrote in hisindispensable work The Conquest of Mexico. Let
us think what we think of Cortesfrom a moral point of view, seen
as a military achievement, we wereamazed that all this was done by a

(27:10):
mere handful of destitute adventurers. Itis a little less than miraculous fact,
too surprising for the probabilities demanded offiction and unparalleled in the pages of history.
But thanks for listening to the podcastsof very history, you can also

(27:33):
subscribe to great reports of very interestingand the daily podcast of very up-
to- date and, of course, all the information on our very interesting
website. It' s