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

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

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