Imagine a man just following his dream. A man with a vision to explore and to pursue those who inspired him. Hernán Cortés, born in Medellin, Spain 1485, was a Spanish conquistador who sailed out from Cuba to Mesoamerica and discovered the Aztecs during the age of exploration. He would then go on to conquer the Aztecs and claim the land for Spain in the year 1521.
Hernán Cortés has overlooked the orders that have been given to him just to sail out to the Aztecs, but he would then go on to meet the Aztecs. After that, he would try to convert the natives of the land to Christianity. He thought that he was doing the right thing to the natives that whole time by saving their lives from an eternity in hell by stopping sacrificing, but he ended up going to war with the Aztecs. He would then take all of the Aztecs lands and claim it for Spain. After that, he oversaw the building of Mexico City and helped with the creation of Mexico. Hernán Cortés has a topic of interest for a while now with whether or not he helped with the greater incline or decline of the human race. But when looking at the rights and wrongs of Hernán Cortés, it is shown that he helped with the overall progress of the human race.
This can be seen because the Aztecs were terrorizing local tribes and making them part of the Aztec empire so that they could take tributes from them and captives to sacrifice. This was a significant factor in the conquering of the Aztecs because there was a weak sense of unity between the tribes and the Aztecs. Later Hernán Cortés would go on and oversee the building of Mexico City which is still the Capital of Mexico today. With this new civilization, it created new trade routes between the new old world bringing both exotic items and new ideas around the world giving the world both more information and more innovations.
The Aztec empire was very violent and a warmongering people. If you were to look at a map of the Aztec civilization you would see that there were core states of the kingdom with the capital being known as the city of Tenochtitlan. But you would also see the tributary states which were areas that the Aztecs had conquered through war. They had gone to war with these tribes around them just to get more land and more people to give them tributes and captives to sacrifice to their gods. According to Historyonthenet.com “Many reputable scholars today put the number between 20,000 and 250,000 per year for the whole Aztec Empire”.
This just shows how many people that the Aztecs would take from other tribes to sacrifice. With the Tribes having to both give heavy tributes and people for the Aztecs to sacrifice they were no happy with them. This proves that the Aztecs would terrorize local groups of people and take everything from for power.
This is a big reason that Cortes tried to stop this. The surrounding tribes did not want to be part of the Aztecs anymore so they joined Cortes’s side to try and overthrow the Aztecs so that they could be saved. If Cortes had not come to help the tribes, they would be suffering and have to give up everything, but when Cortes arrived they had hope. With Cortes having claimed the Aztecs land for Spain it had created many more trade routes between the new world and the old world. It had brought back new ideas and items back such as gum, cocoa beans, maize, and tobacco. Without Cortes, we wouldn’t have these as commercialized items. We wouldn’t know their uses as well as we do now, without Cortes we wouldn’t have discovered the many different innovations that the Aztecs have made. Something else that Cortes brought back was information.
He had found an area of the world that no one knew about. He brought back ideas such as artificial lakes. He gave the world a lot of valuable things. One of the most significant exports out of Mexico though was silver. It was their primary source of economy, and it spread throughout the world giving the world more materials and Mexico more money.
This made Mexico be able to stay up and keep running. According to gettysburg.edu,”Mexico, or New Spain, as it was referred to at the time, emerged as one of the world’s chief suppliers of silver. This newfound colonial wealth was realized and capitalized upon during this era.” This was important because it helped with trade and spreading ideas and items around the world. With Cortes discovering Mesoamerica it opened a lot of doors regarding money and trade. With the Cortes taking the Aztecs land he decided to rebuild. He ended up overseeing the building of Mexico City which was built right on top of the old Capital of the Aztecs.
But with this new civilization, it still had some Aztec culture and the people. This is backed up by aztec-history.com as they said “It should be noted, however, that this was not simply a brand new city. Much of the Aztec culture and layout, and of course many of the people, remained the same. To understand Mexico City history, it’s important to remember that it’s not so easy to wipe out an empire.” This is saying that he never wiped out the Aztecs culture and people but left most of it. He had left many of the Aztecs alive, and they lived in this new civilization.
Cortes had then become a governor of Mexico and helped colonize it and Cuba. Cortes had helped create what is now Mexico and helped give it its vibrant culture. Without Cortes, no other explorers would have been inspired to move up north to what is California and colonize it. Without Cortes, we would be here in San Diego. Without Cortes, there would be no Mexico, and without Mexico, the world would be losing out on everything that Mexico has given to our world.
Though Hernán Cortés has been considered to be a monster and inhumane he has made a monumental impact on our world. He had been doing what he thought was right by conquering the Aztecs and saving many other tribes around them. He had created more trade routes which spread ideas and new exotic items around the globe. He oversaw the building of Mexico City and helped paint the Western Hemisphere. He may have lived 500 years ago, but he was an important person in history. People may not agree if he helped or not but what is true is that the world would be a much different place. With Hernan Cortes, the west coast of the US would be much different.
Without Hernán Cortés no explorers would have been inspired to go north from Mexico and colonize the now west coast of the US. Without him, we would have certain popular foods such as chocolate and gum. People argue whether he was a right person or not but something people should see is how much he has helped the progress of our world.
