Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (1485 – 2 December 1547) was a Spanish conquistador and nobleman, best remembered as the conqueror of the Aztec Empire. He brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Born to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as magistrate of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.
Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. She later bore his first son. Cortés was able to fend off efforts by his own government to halt his arrest long enough to overthrow Aztec Empire and gain a measure of fame and fortune, though he did not receive the amount to which he felt entitled. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died six years later of natural causes.
Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec over a decade before Estevánico came into position of his magical eyewear. When Esperanza/Amal told Estevánico that Cortés had possessed a similar device during the conquest, Estevánico was willing to believe it. However, he could not believe that Montezuma himself had given the device to Cortés, although this was precisely what had happened in multiple timelines.[1]
