The Spanish Conquest of Mexico

A Milestone Documents E-text

Table of Contents

https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844605.book.part.012

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Abstract

The Spanish conquest of Mexico marks the true beginning of the Spanish Empire in America. Like many other early Spanish colonial projects in the Americas, it was initially less an effort of the Spanish state than of an independent military entrepreneur, or “conquistador,” Hernán Cortés, who from his base in the Spanish colony of Cuba gathered a small army of adventurers to establish contact with the mainland. The Spanish governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, who had initially appointed Cortés as commander of the expedition, changed his mind and cancelled the expedition shortly before the scheduled departure date, but Cortés ignored him and departed anyway. He landed in Mexico near the site of present-day Veracruz in 1519.