Book: La conquista de México

Overview
Hernán Cortés’s 1520 account commonly known as “La conquista de México” is the second of his Cartas de relación, a long epistolary report to Emperor Charles V narrating the campaign from the Gulf coast to Tenochtitlan and the dramatic reversal of fortune in the summer of 1520. Written to secure royal approval and authority, it blends battlefield narrative, ethnographic observation, legal justification, and religious rhetoric, presenting the enterprise as carried out “in the service of God and Your Majesty.”

Scope and structure
Cortés opens by explaining how he broke with the Cuban governor Diego Velázquez, founded the cabildo of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, and thereby claimed to act directly under the Crown. He stresses careful procedure, election of officials, oaths, notaries, so that conquest appears lawful rather than rogue. From this base the letter follows the inland march through Totonac and Tlaxcalan territories, the tense passage at Cholula, the first entry into the Mexica capital, and months of uneasy coexistence that culminate in uprising, Moctezuma’s death, and the Spanish retreat known as the Noche Triste. Cortés concludes from the newly founded Segura de la Frontera, framing losses as temporary and promising a return.

Main events
Moving from Vera Cruz, Cortés forges alliances with Totonacs aggrieved by Mexica tribute demands and then with the Tlaxcalans after a bloody trial of arms. He highlights interpreters Jerónimo de Aguilar and Malintzin (Doña Marina), whose mediation enables diplomacy and intelligence gathering. At Cholula he claims to uncover a plot and preempt it with a devastating strike, simultaneously terror and demonstration of resolve.

The approach to Tenochtitlan yields the letter’s most celebrated pages. Cortés marvels at causeways, canals, marketplaces, and temples, judging the city greater in order and population than Seville or Córdoba. He depicts Moctezuma as urbane, ceremonious, and ultimately malleable, accepting Spanish presence and a cross erected atop temples. Cortés then arrests the emperor, justifying the act through a legal narrative around an attack on Spaniards at the coast by a Mexica commander. He describes the dismantling of idols and the preaching of Christian doctrine, insisting on minimal coercion and maximal consent.

News that Pánfilo de Narváez has landed to arrest him forces Cortés to leave a garrison under Pedro de Alvarado while he marches to Cempoala, defeats Narváez, and absorbs his men. Returning to Tenochtitlan, he finds the city in revolt after Alvarado’s massacre during the Tóxcatl festival. Moctezuma attempts to calm the populace and is mortally wounded; Cortés portrays the death as caused by his subjects’ stones. The siege tightens, supplies dwindle, and the Spaniards attempt a nocturnal breakout across the causeways. He recounts heavy losses of men, horses, and treasure, but recasts the retreat as providential schooling and swiftly describes refuge and renewed alliance in Tlaxcala.

Themes and voice
Throughout, Cortés is a consummate advocate. He constructs a chain of legitimacy, municipal authority at Vera Cruz, indigenous alliances, just-war reasoning, and evangelization, to argue for retroactive royal sanction. He praises native allies’ valor, contrasts their service with Mexica tyranny, and frames conversions and idol-smashing as acts of liberation. The letter’s vivid urban and commercial descriptions, especially of the Tlatelolco market, the causeways, and chinampa agriculture, reveal acute observational talent alongside strategic self-fashioning as discoverer and governor.

Historical value and limits
The report is indispensable for its immediacy and detail, yet it is also a partisan brief. It minimizes Spanish provocations, exaggerates consent, and deflects blame for atrocities and Moctezuma’s death. Read against other testimonies, its rhetoric and silences are as revealing as its descriptions, making it both a cornerstone source and a crafted plea for imperial endorsement of the conquest of Mexico.