Jeronimo de aguilar y hernan cortes biography

By Charles Hilbert

In March 1519, a small square of 400 Spanish adventurers under the command of Hernándo Cortés stood at bay on the plain of Cintla in Tabasco, Mexico. The conquistadors were surrounded by thousands of Indian warriors whose hunger for human sacrifices was equaled only by that of their gods. With no avenue of retreat, the Spaniards faced death in battle or an even more horrible death on the sacrificial altars of the Indians’ strange, blood-nourished gods. As their enemies advanced, shooting clouds of sharp arrows and slinging deadly stones, the invaders replied with muskets, cannons, and heavy bolts from their European crossbows. Fighting for his life among the beleaguered Spaniards was a castaway priest-turned-conquistador named Jeronimo Aguilar.

Jeronimo Aguilar: Catholic Warrior Priest of the Xamanzana

Eight years before Cortés set foot in Yucatan, Aguilar had been a passenger sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo on a ship, captained by Enciso y Valdivia, that struck a reef near Jamaica. Aguilar boarded the ship’s lifeboat along with 15 other men and two women, hoping that the currents would take them to Cuba or Jamaica. The boat had no sails, water, or food, and half the men died of starvation as they drifted helplessly toward the Yucatan peninsula.

After two weeks at sea, the survivors reached land. Upon arrival they were quickly rounded up by the locals, who immediately sacrificed Valdivia and five of his men. The Indians then butchered the bodies and cooked and ate their victims. Aguilar and six others were imprisoned in a wooden cage so that they could be fattened up for the next round of sacrifices. Somehow they managed to escape. Stumbling through the thick, tropical jungle, Aguilar was recaptured by the tribesmen of Xamanzana, who brought him to their chief, Aquinouz. Aguilar spent the next three years at hard labor. When he wasn’t working in the fields, he was hauling wood, water, and fish

Spanish conquistador (1485–1547)

For the Bolivian Olympic weightlifter, see Hernán Cortez (weightlifter).

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.

Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. She later gave birth to his first son. When the governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of being punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died six years later of natural caus

Jerónimo de Aguilar (b. ca. 1490; d. 1531), colonist and translator. Born in Écija, Spain, Aguilar was aboard a ship proceeding from Darién to Santo Domingo in 1511. When it struck shoals off Jamaica, he was among twenty men who escaped in a longboat that drifted to the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The local cacique soon sacrificed thirteen of the men, but seven, including Aguilar, escaped into the territory of another ruler, who maintained them as servants. When Hernán Cortés's expedition arrived in 1519, Aguilar was one of only two Spaniards still surviving; the other chose to remain among the Mayas. Aguilar, fluent in Spanish and Maya, proved invaluable as a translator for Cortés. Unable to speak Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, he teamed up with Cortés's mistress Doña Marina (Malinche), who spoke Nahuatl and Maya, to translate from Nahuatl to Spanish once the expedition reached the Aztec Empire. Rewarded with an encomienda after the Conquest, Aguilar died without marrying.

See alsoCortés, Hernán.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555 (1991).

Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (1993).

Additional Bibliography

Butterfield, Marvin Ellis. Jerónimo de Aguilar, Conquistador. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1969.

                                       John E. Kicza

For thousands of years, Mesoamerica was one of the cultural centers of the New World. Civilizations such as the Olmec and the Maya left an indelible mark on America that influenced countless cultures that came after them. However, during the 15th century, it was all about the Aztecs. Their empire was the largest and strongest in Mesoamerica, and many of the smaller kingdoms and city-states were forced to pay tribute if they wanted to avoid the wrath of the Aztecs. 

And then…the Spanish came, led by a conquistador named Hernan Cortes. Just two years later, the empire was no more: the people had been massacred or killed by disease, the capital of Tenochtitlan lay in ruins, and the last Aztec emperor was in chains. All to satisfy one man’s grand ambitions and his lust for gold. 

Early Years

Hernán Cortés was born Hernándo Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano in 1485 in Medellin, a town in what was back then the Crown of Castile. His parents were Martín Cortés de Monroy and Catalina Pizarro Altamarino. Both were minor nobles with a distinguished lineage but empty pockets. This irked Cortes from a young age and the pursuit of fortune became a powerful motivator in his life, even an obsession, that guided most of his actions.

His parents hoped to provide Hernando with a cushy and respectable life, if not particularly lavish or exciting. That’s why they sent him to study in Salamanca when he was 14, perhaps hoping that he might become a lawyer, a lawmaker, or some other kind of legal official one day. It has been stated on occasion that Cortes gained a law degree from the University of Salamanca, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. All he did was some preparatory studies and an apprenticeship with a notary.

After two years of this, young Hernando had had enough. Much to his parents’ annoyance, he returned home with a desire to do something more exhilarating in life. Tales of adventure and riches in the New World had gripped Spain and Hernando was a 16-year-o