How Did Hernan Cortes Influence The World

Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conquistador that has greatly affected history. He conquered one of the greatest empires known to mankind, the Aztecs, and overthrew them in a matter of months. He also was one of the major factors that caused Spain to be the dominant country in the world. His discoveries have been overlooked even though he has had achievements that have effects that are still shown to this very day.

Hernán Cortés was born in the year 1485 in Medellin, western Spain and studied law there at a university for a while but later he chose to leave and seek a fortune in America. In 1504 Hernán Cortés left Spain and travelled to America, specifically Santa Domingo or Hispaniola. He settled in a town called Azua and served as a notary for

a few years.
Later Hernán Cortés moved to Cuba in 1511, there in Cuba he made a good reputation because him and another man, Diego Velazquez, conquered the area. Everybody thought of him as a courageous and daring man with no fears. In 1518 Hernán Cortés wanted to be a commander of an expedition to Mexico, so he asked Diego Velazquez who was governor at the time to make him the commander. They wanted to go to Mexico because it was rumored to have many resources and wealth. Later though Diego was not sure if he wanted to let Hernán Cortés go out and conquer Mexico because of his motives. In a rebellious act Hernán Cortés gathered up 11 ships and many men, horses, and cannons.
Hernán Cortés then proceeded to go to conquer Tabasco, Mexico where he met his future wife, she was an indigenous woman who helped him with translating.

Her name was La Malinche. She told Hernán Cortés about all the riches of the Aztec empire. In July of 1519 Hernán Cortés and his men took over Veracruz and were going to Tenochtillan. Along the way Hernán Cortés started to make alliances with native tribes. They helped Hernán Cortés and his men conquer the second biggest city, Cholula. It has been said the Hernán Cortés’ arrival was also in an Aztec prophecy of white people heading from the east to the west. They thought of him as an emissary from their god Quetzlcoatl. This meant the Aztecs were peaceful towards the Spanish and the leader of the Aztecs at the time, Moctezuma II, was showering them with lavish gifts. Their relationship did not last long at all, anxiety of an attack from the Aztecs caused Hernán Cortés to take the king, Moctezuma II, hostage and asked for a huge ransom. He also demanded their allegiance to the king of Spain. His way to conquering the Aztecs wasn't that smooth because he had to face and overcome many challenges along the way. Velazquez sent people to stop Hernán Cortés but failed to stop

him.
He finally conquered the Aztecs on August 13, 1521. He burned the capital of the Aztec empire Tenochtitlan down and captured the Aztec leader for a while. The Aztec empire collapsed in matter of months by one man and his small crew of people. One of the biggest civilizations ever was taken down by a few hundred men and their guns and horses. The territory that Hernan Cortes conquered was called New Spain. Emperor Charles I made Hernan Cortes into captain general and chief justice of land.
Hernan Cortes governed Mexico and was suffering a lot of bitter rivalries. These rivalries in Mexico were mostly with his fellow country men who didn’t like him. These rivalries started to strain his relationship with the Spanish king. After all these conflicts cause Hernan Cortes to lose his position as captain general and chief justice of land. He even was exiled. This caused him to sail to Spain to plea with the Emperor Charles V who did not give him a position as powerful as his previous one but still got some power back.
Hernan Cortes after failing to get his previous power back eventually returned to Mexico. He still did not give up exploring and went out from 1530-1541 to the northwestern part of Mexico. By doing this he discovered the Baja Californian Peninsula. In 1541 he decided to go back to Spain, he was not given any recognition for his discovery and contribution of conquering the New World. He was annoyed and infuriated by this and wanted to return back to Mexico again. He died in 1547 because of dysentery in Seville on December 2.
The conquering of the Aztecs was just the beginning of the colonization of Spain in the New world.

Spain found out about all the precious metals in the Americas. In the 15th through 16th century America imported a lot of metals specifically gold to Europe. The Spanish got the most out of this because they were the first to find it. This caused them to rise to the top of the world economically. Spanish were exporting a lot of these precious metals. Silver and gold from Peru and Mexico were taken to Europe. This boom in metal also was the downfall. Spanish had a lot of gold but it was too much. Gold was losing it’s rarity because of its abundance. This caused the prices of the metal to drastically decrease and cause inflation. Inflation is a fall of prices of something. This caused Spain many economic problems and their reign as top of the world economically was about to end. This didn’t cause their fall, it was their loss to British later that kicked them from the top officially. All of these events were a chain reaction because of Hernan Cortes conquering the

Aztecs.
Hernan Cortes greatly affected history by conquering one of the biggest civilizations known to mankind in a matter of months. His contributions to Spanish colonization have been ignored even though his achievements influenced history dramatically. His conquering caused a chain reaction and affected Spain dramatically. Spain went to the top in the world but fell all because of his discoveries. Spain found a lot of gold and metals but that was also the downfall. They had found too much of it and it caused a lot of inflation. This caused the prices to drop and Spain to lose power.This is why he’s an influential person in Spanish and American history.