Hernando Cortes

After Columbus’s journey in 1492 there had been a series of explorers who tried to establish colones for Spain. One of these explorers was Hernando Cortes. Cortes was born in 1485. When he was 14 he went to the study Latin at school. Then at 16 he heard about Columbus’ adventures and wanted to become and explorer himself. By 1504 joined his first American expedition traveling to Cuba and working in civil government for a few years. In 1518 he finally led his first expedition to explore Mexico. The expedition was supposed to have been canceled but Cortes was hardheaded ignored the orders and set sail anyway. Cortes found in Mexico many friendly native and made alliances with them. Cortes is known best of conquering the unfriendly and hostile natives. The great Aztec Empire greatly outnumbered Cortes’s and his men however he manged to defect them anyway. After Cortes was made the governor of New Spain by King Charles I. Cortes rebuilt Tenochtitlan and explored others parts of Mexico.