Hernán Cortés’ Conquest of Mexico

choi

The conquest of Mexico | On the Trail of Hernán Cortés; A journey into a past most Mexicans would rather forget. Economist, Dec 20, 2014.
www.economist.com/news/christmas ... forget-trail-hern-n

Note:
(1) "THE state of Veracruz, on the Gulf coast, is Mexico at its most fertile. Along the tropical coastline, vast sugar-cane plantations shimmer in the heat. Climb the mountains towards the balmier state capital of Jalapa [the letter ‘j’ in Spanish is pronounced the same as ‘h’ in English] and the landscape changes into a canopy of coffee plants and orange trees, with cattle and horses grazing."
(a) Veracruz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracruz
(the Mexican "state of Veracruz was named after the city of Veracruz" within its border)
(b) Veracruz (city)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracruz_(city)
(90 km (56 mi) north of the state capital Xalapa [here, “x” is pronounced like “h” in English]; the state's most populous city)

Quote: "When the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519, he founded a city here, which he named Villa Rica [‘rich village’--section 1 Etymology of this Wiki page; see also note (3) below] de la Vera Cruz, referring to the area’s gold and dedicated to the ‘True Cross,’ because he landed on the Christian holy day of Good Friday, the day of the Crucifixion. It was the second Spanish settlement on the mainland of the Americas but the first to receive a coat-of-arms.

(2) "Hernán Cortés´s march in 1519-20 from the Gulf of Mexico to Tenochtitlán, seat of the Aztec empire."
(a) Hernán
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n
(the Latinized version of the compound name Fard-nanth [whose Germanic form in modern time is ‘Ferdinand’], which seems to mean ‘gentle traveler’ or ‘spiritual pilgrim.’ The House of Hernan gave its name to those with the surname Hernández [qv])
(b) Cortes (surname)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortes_(surname)
(c)
(i) Tenochtitlan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan
(section 3 History; section 4 The coming of Cortés)
(ii) pronunciation:
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenochtitlan
(iii) map:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texcoco_(altepetl)
(d)
(i) Aztec Empire (1428-1521)  Wikipedia (in a page under this title)
(ii) Aztec. Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated.
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/46981/Aztec

Quote:

"Aztec, Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. The Aztec are so called from Aztlán (‘White Land’), an allusion to their origins, probably in northern Mexico.

"Later, by commerce and conquest, Tenochtitlán came to rule an empire of 400 to 500 small states, comprising by 1519 some 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 people spread over 80,000 square miles (207,200 square km). At its height, Tenochtitlán itself covered more than 5 square miles (13 square km) and had upwards of 140,000 inhabitants, making it the most densely populated settlement ever achieved by a Mesoamerican civilization.

"The Aztec empire was still expanding, and its society still evolving, when its progress was halted in 1519 by the appearance of Spanish explorers.

* There is no need to read the rest of the encyclopedia.

choi

(3) “From the very start they [Spaniards] bred with the Indians too, creating a mixed race through mestizaje, with a common language and religion that defines Mexico today.”

Spanish English dictionary
* mestizaje (noun masculine): "a miscegenation, especially between Spaniards and natives of their former colonies"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mestizaje
* villa (noun feminine; Latin [noun feminine] villa [country house, villa]):
“1: small town
2: villa”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/villa
* cacique (noun masculine; from indian word(s)): "chieftain; an Indian chief, in a tribe"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cacique
* pico (noun masculine): "peak, summit"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pico
* triste (adjective masculine and feminine; from Latin trīstis): "sad"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triste
* templo (noun masculine): "temple"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/templo
* mayor (adjective masculine and feminine): "bigger (comparative form of grande)"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mayor
* Nazareno (noun and adjective masculine): "Nazarene"--a person from Nazareth, of Nazareth
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nazareno

choi

(4) "Cortés disembarked on the sand-banks of Veracruz on April 22nd (Good Friday) in 1519, after a long journey from Cuba via the Yucatán and Tabasco. * * * the alluring Malintzin, or La Malinche, who had been given to him as a slave a few weeks before and whose linguistic skills and womanly wiles helped him penetrate the great Aztec empire by brokering pacts with its enemies. * * * Today there is no trace of the mosquito-infested dunes where he established the first Villa Rica de la Veracruz, a make-believe town created solely to hold a rigged election that would give him powers to conquer. San Juan de Ulúa is a historic fort near an esplanade where marimba music flutters and elderly men play chess and drink coffee."
(a) Hernán Cortés
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés
(1485-1547; section 4 Conquest of Mexico (1518–1520); section )
(b) Yucatán
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucatán
(section 1 Toponymy)
(c) Tabasco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabasco
(section 2.1 Pre-Columbian period: name meaning uncertain but the name appeared in the chronicles of Bernal Díaz del Castillo [a foot soldier under Cortés in the conquest of Mexico])

Both Yucatán and Tabasco are Mexican states. (Tabasco sauce, a US product, is made from Tabasco pepper--named after the state.)
(d) La Malinche
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche
(She was one of twenty women slaves given to the Spaniards by the natives of Tabasco [state] in 1519)
(e)
(i) San Juan de Ulúa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_de_Ulúa
(on an island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico overlooking the seaport of Veracruz, Mexico; construction starting in 1565 [ie, well after Cortés arrived])
(ii)
(A) Kahlúa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlúa
(Kahlúa was Hispanicized as Ulúa, forming the name of modern San Juan de Ulúa fortress)
(B) pronunciation:
dictionary.reference.com/browse/kahlua
(iii) The origin of the name of the fortress--and the island?
(A) Thomas Southley, Chronological History of the West Indies. vol I of three. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green (1827), at page 138
books.google.com/books?id=vK_iYSGZVjoC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq="San+Juan+de+Ulúa"+name+"st+john"&source=bl&ots=4tEw0lsVS9&sig=t5cdi7Mz_bP1ibu64HfWT8dlfjc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GqWxVMSqPNPGsQSdrICwBw&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q="San Juan de Ulúa" name "st john"&f=false
(in 1518: "Juan de Grijalva, with thirty soldiers, went to the island, he found a temple with idols, and four men dressed in very large black mantles, with hoods like friars: they were the priests of that temple, and that same day had sacrificed two boys, who were seen with their breasts opened and their hearts taken out. Grijalva asked why this was done? and an Indian, whom he had brought from the river 'De Vanderas,' interpreted the answer to be, that the orders to do so came from Ulua. I being St John's Day, and Grijalva's name being 'Juan,' he named the island 'San Juan de Ulua.' The Indian made a mistake--he was told Culua, not Ulua")
(B) Chapter XIV How We Came Into teh Harbour of San Juan de Culua. in Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, containing a true and full account of the discovery and conquest of Mexico and New Spain (translated by John Ingram Lockhart). Vol I of two. London: J Hatchard and Son (1864), at page 32
books.google.com/books?id=1eACAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq="San+Juan+de+Ulúa"+name+"st+john"&source=bl&ots=XXMqCFPJ7F&sig=zh5dS4sn-jDIyd1e0hf54pf7lXw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GqWxVMSqPNPGsQSdrICwBw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q="San Juan de Ulúa" name "st john"&f=false
("the island, to which our general now proceeded with thirty men all well armed. Here we found a temple on which stood the great and abominable-looking god Tetzcatlipuca, surrounded by four Indians, dressed in wide black cloaks, and with flying hair, in the same way as our canons or Dominicans wear it. These were priests, who had that very day sacrificed two boys, whose bodies they had ripped up, and then offered their bleeding hearts to the horrible idol. They were going to perfume us in the same way they had done their gods; and though it smelt like our incense, we would not suffer them, so shocked were we at the sight of the two boys whom they had recently murdered, and disgusted with their abominations. Our captain questioned the Indian Francisco whom we had brought with us from Bandera stream as to what was meant by all this, for he seemed rather an intelligent person; having, at that time, as I have already stated, no interpreter, our captain put these questions to him by means of signs. Francisco returned for answer that this sacrifice had been ordered by the people of Culua; but, as it was difficult for him to pronounce this latter word, he kept continually saying, Olua, Olua. From the circumstances of our commander himself being present, and that his Christian name was Juan, and it happening to be the feast of St John, we gave this small island the name of San Juan de Ulua. This harbour was ever after much frequented")
(f) marimba
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimba

choi

(5) “About 50km (31 miles) north of modern-day Veracruz is Quiahuiztlán, a breathtaking Totonac settlement in a clearing halfway up a jagged mountain overlooking the coast. There Cortés spent many weeks with the [’]fat cacique[‘] [a chieftain of Totonac tribe] * * * The fat cacique gave the Spanish conquistador and his commanders a gift of eight noblewomen in ornate clothing, with gold collars and earrings, to breed with. The gift was not gracefully received, perhaps because Cortés got the ugliest one, the chieftain’s niece. He repaid the favour by throwing down the Totonac idols at the cacique’s feet, saying he and his men could take the women only if they [women] first became Christians. La Malinche may already have become his lover by then. Later she bore his first child.”
(a) “About 50km (31 miles) north of modern-day Veracruz is Quiahuiztlán.”  It should be “was.” See Quiahuiztlan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiahuiztlan
(b) For definition of “cacique,” see (3).
(c) “a gift of eight noblewomen in ornate clothing, with gold collars and earrings, to breed with”
(i) Wikipedia in several pages--under various titles--says “twenty” instead of eight. Wikipedia implies these are not noble women, but slaves (view the Wiki page for “La Malinche” in (4)(d) above, about her background).
(ii) Cempoala
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cempoala
(Nahuatl: 'Place of Twenty Waters;' was the Totonac capital; section 2 Alliance)
(iii) This link will make it easy to understand the events: Cempoala and Quiahuiztlan were different locales of Totonac people--and sequence in the locales.

La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. Part 2 of the "Spanish Invasion of Mexico."  MEChA, California State University, Los Angeles,  
web.calstatela.edu/orgs/mecha/nochepart2.htm
("The Totonacs, however, may already have been looking at the Spaniards as potential allies against the Aztecs, to whom they had recently become subject[s]. When the conquistadors entered the Totonac capital of Cempoala, they were greeted with cheers and flowers. Shortly after, at Quiahuiztlan, Cortés cajoled Totonac leaders into arresting five Aztec tax collectors; after that, they were in open rebellion against the leaders of Mexico, and whatever their misgivings, they had to hope for protection from their new sovereign, King Charles of Spain")

* MEChA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEChA


(6) "Beneath Quiahuiztlán is the first Spanish settlement in the Americas. Visitors might expect such a place to be marked, if not celebrated, yet it is almost lost to history. Villa Rica, like most Mexican seaside resorts, is an appealing mixture of thatched palapas (huts) selling fish and beer, and hammocks to sleep off lunch."
(i) Contrast
Spanish colonization of the Americas
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Americas
(section 1 Conquest: Cumaná in Venezuela was the first permanent settlement founded by Europeans in mainland America,[2] in 1501 by Franciscan friars, but due to successful attacks by the indigenous people, it had to be refounded several times, until Diego Hernández de Serpa's foundation in 1569. The Spanish founded San Sebastian de Uraba in 1509 but abandoned it within the year. There is indirect evidence that the first permanent Spanish mainland settlement established in America was Santa María la Antigua del Darién [in present-day Colombia].
(ii) The palapa is coconut palm tree in Javanese, with whose leaves a hut was thatched. Filipinos brought the skill of constructing such huts to Mexico.

palapa (disambiguation)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palapa_(disambiguation)
(may refer to:
• palapa, the Javanese word for kelapa (Malay), the coconut tree, fruit, or leaves;
• palapa (Mexico) (Nahuatl, Maya), a thatched roof made of palm tree leaves [with photo])
(iii) Filipino immigration to Mexico
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_immigration_to_Mexico

choi

(7) "There is nothing in Villa Rica [de la Vera Cruz] * * * to mark the remains of the fortress that Cortés personally helped to build that lies just above the beach. It is now surrounded by barbed wire and hidden under a thicket of brambles. The contrast with meticulously excavated Jamestown, where English settlers first disembarked on the coast of Virginia in 1607, speaks volumes about how differently two neighbour-nations can treat their early history. In America, where the conquerors wiped out most of the past, the place of arrival is celebrated with the pride of victory; in Mexico, where the settlers mixed with the indigenous people, it is regarded as the starting-place of a painful conquest, best ignored. This attitude to Cortés prevails in poor, lethargic areas, strongholds of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that has ruled Mexico for most of the past century, often by peddling to Mexicans a narrative of oppression at the hands of outsiders."

bramble
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramble
(8) "The guide, a spiky-haired 19-year-old called Sergio, * * * is personally scornful of the conquistadors * * * Horse culture, which played an outsized role in the conquest, runs deep. Chroniclers delight in describing how the conquistadors on their horses galloped in front of wide-eyed Indians to make them believe that this strange beast and man were one creature, either a monster or a god."

spiky (adj): "sharply irritating or acerbic (as in temper or manner)"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spiky

(A spike is a long nail, sometimes 10 inches long)

(9) "The Spaniards rode close to what is now Xico, a mountain town that seems to float on the air amid the brightly coloured paper decorations strung along the streets. The Spaniards introduced its most famous crop, coffee. Its centre of gravity is a Catholic church—another Spanish import—whose tower is silhouetted by the snow-covered Pico de Orizaba behind. * * * From Xico, the conquistadors flogged through freezing mountain passes and waterless terrain to arrive in Tlaxcala, Mexico’s smallest state. * * * The idea that the conquest is all Cortés’s dirty work is incorrect. 'The conquest was a war of Indians against Indians. The Spaniards were far too small a force to do it by themselves,' says Andrea Martínez, a historian and expert on Tlaxcala."
(a) Xico, Veracruz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xico,_Veracruz
(produces coffee, among other things)
(b) coffee
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
(section 2.2 Historical transmission)

In other words, the Spanish brought coffee to New World, rather than th4 other way around.
(c) Pico de Orizaba
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_de_Orizaba
(the highest mountain in Mexico; 5,638m; The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century; section 1 Toponymy)

The definition of "pico" is shown in (3).
(d) flog (vi): “British :  to move along with difficulty : SLOG”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flog

choi

(10) "The path between the two volcanoes that tower above Cholula is called the Paso de Cortés. It is spectacular. From there he had his first awe-inspiring sight of what is now Mexico City. The lakes that shimmered below him are mostly now drained and cluttered with some of Latin America’s biggest slums"
(a) Paso de Cortés is a mountain pass between the Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl volcanoes. Wikipedia. Find it in Google Map.
(b) The "lakes" are a body of water surrounding Tenochtitlán. See (2)(c)(iii), where the red lines were "causeways" (consult key in the map).

(11) "Along one of them, the Calzada Mexico-Tacuba, Cortés fled on a rainy night in 1520, pursued by enraged Aztecs avenging the death of their emperor. Many of his panicked followers fell into the surrounding lake, drowning under the weight of their armour and turning the water red with blood. Today, next to the burnt husk of a giant ahuehuete tree, with buses spewing their fumes alongside, is a sign saying that Cortés wept there for the fate of his men. The event has passed down in history as la noche triste (the sad night), because it is the moment when the Spaniards came closest to defeat. The sign, however, erected in 2013, takes the Aztec view and calls it la noche victoriosa."

See (3) for definition of “triste.”

(12) "For now, though, the national dilemma lingers. At the journey’s end, the centre of Mexico City, a mural in a stairwell in the baroque sanctuary of San Ildefonso, beside the remains of Tenochtitlán’s dazzling Great Temple, depicts a uniquely Mexican version of Adam and Eve. Painted by José Clemente Orozco, a stern Cortés is clasping the hand of the dark-skinned La Malinche. Both are naked. Beneath their feet is a dead, faceless Indian."
(a) San Ildefonso College
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ildefonso_College
(This school and the building closed completely in 1978, then reopened as a museum and cultural center in 1992; many murals painted on its walls by José Clemente Orozco)

* Most likely it was named after Ildefonsus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ildefonsus
(c 607-667; bishop of Toledo, Spain)
, because this Wiki page states, "This portal has a relief named 'La imposición de la casulla a san Ildefonso' (Putting on the chasuble on Saint Ildefonso of Toledo) and opens to a hall that leads to the largest patio."
(b) Templo Mayor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templo_Mayor
("Construction of the first temple began sometime after 1325, and it was rebuilt six times after that. The temple was destroyed by the Spanish in 1521")

* Check (3) for Spanish definitions.

(13) "A few streets away, at the site where the conquistador first met Moctezuma, another mural [also by José Clemente Orozco, but without a dead Indian] offers a gentler version of the story. Behind the plain façade of the Hospital de Jesús, which Cortés built in 1524 to train Indian doctors, are two porticoed courtyards, with perhaps the only bust of Cortés to be found in a public building in Mexico. Upstairs, a mural depicts Spanish, Indian and mestizo doctors and nurses working side by side. In the next-door church, which is closed for refurbishment, lie Cortés’s bones."
(a) Hospital de Jesús Nazareno
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_de_Jesús_Nazareno
("The hospital is still in operation, housed in a Modernist building, located in front of the original one, and beside the former church. Both historic buildings and their courtyards are 17th century Spanish colonial era architecture"/ section 2.2 Church: the choir and part of the nave conserve a mural done by José Clemente Orozco; section 2.2.1 Cortés tomb)
(b) For the Spanish word "Nazareno," see (3).
(c) Nazareth
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth
(In the New Testament, the city is described as the childhood home of Jesus)
(d) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés
(10.3 Last years, death, and remain: stricken with dysentery and died in Seville, having requested in his will that his remains eventually be buried in Mexico--After his death his body has been moved more than eight times for several reasons)