Talk:Hernán Cortés/Archive 2

Scuttled Ships
I thought Matthew Restall's book mentioned that Cortes/Cortez never scuttled his ships and that the story was part of the myth surrounding Cortes/Cortez. Please see page 19 of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest byron — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.173.214 (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Natural children?
Is 'natural children' (as in the first sentence of section Children) some kind of standard phrase in English, meaning something like 'he made them himself', not another guy? Just curious... (since unnatural children would be weird). Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 17:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * "Natural Children" is a polite way of saying "illegitimate" or "bastards". This mattered in the 16th century. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 18:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Early Life
This section contains incorrect information regarding Cortés's studies. The second paragraph states: "At the age of 14, Cortés was sent to study at the University of Salamanca in west-central Spain. This was Spain's great center of learning, and while accounts vary as to the nature of Cortés's studies, his later writings and actions suggest he studied Law and probably Latin." It is a myth that Cortés studied at the University of Salamanca. There is no record of his name in the comprehensive register of students of this university, and he himself made no such claim, despite his penchant for self-promotion; others who knew him well also said nothing of the sort. His biographer, Francisco López de Gómara, states in the first chapter of his History of the Conquest of Mexico (1552): "When he was fourteen years of age, his parents sent him to study in Salamanca, where he studied for two years, learning grammar in the house of Francisco Núñez de Valera, who was married to Inés de Paz, the sister of Cortés's father." These are clearly pre-university studies, and the phrase "in Salamanca" refers to the city, not the university. When Cortés returned home, Gómara continues, "his parents regretted it greatly, as they wished that he study Law, a rich faculty honored among all others." A good analysis of the myth of Cortés's university education and its sources is: David A. Boruchoff, “Hernán Cortés,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd edition (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008), 2: 146a-49a. Available online at http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Hernan_Cortes.aspx. I would correct the article, but it is protected. Maybe someone with authority can correct it instead. Onlythefactsmaam (talk) 15:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You have more than sufficient authority to make that change (which is correct and impportant) yourself. Authority is a funciton of the quality of sources you have at your disposal, and Boruchoff is a fine and very reliable source.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Made the change requested. User:Onlythefactmaam would not have been able to, not enough edits to qualify as autoconfirmed yet. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 19:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't the article include the interesting information discussed here on the talk page? There are also a number of unreferenced notes in the article. My teachers always insist that our footnotes include the complete name of the authors cited and the titles and page numbers of the works, etc. A lot of the notes in the article are missing these things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.31.178 (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Narrative confusion
In the section, Last years and legacy, Cortés is described as "heavily in debt". The narrative continues that "he made a claim on the royal treasury, but was given a royal runaround". But in the following paragraph, we are informed that "he died a wealthy ... man" who "left his many mestizo and white children well cared for in his will". The story is self contradictory. — O'Dea (talk) 09:45, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It was a confusing time. He died wealthy in property (Marquis of the valley of Oaxaca), but deeply in debt because of cash flow problems. This was a not uncommon situation. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you. If this is the case, a reliable verification needs to be found so the article can be clarified. It also needs to be explained how he could be "heavily in debt" and yet leave his family "well cared for in his will". How could he not leave himself well cared for while he was alive? Could he not liquidate his assets? The explanation raises questions. — O'Dea  (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Generally feudal nobility could not liquidate their assets since titles could not be traded, and property was dependent on titles. But I agree that we should look at some reliable biographies to resolve his actual financial status at the end of his life.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

173.89.14.170 (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay first of all I want to announce that all the comments made by bcr were made by me! bcr wasn't a real account. That was just a name I came up with to sign under. This was something I signed under with a different IP address before. However, I was wondering if I could remove all the comments I made on this page. I don't think it's fair to leave my comments if nobody cares about them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.89.14.170 (talk • contribs) 11:34, March 8, 2009

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Chontal?
The book referenced in the citation about Jerónimo de Aguilar refers to Aguilar as a "Maya Language" Speaker, but the Mayan languages are several related ones (among those Chontal, Yucatec, Cholan, Chortí) not a single one. It doesn't especifically say thet he was a "Chontal" speaker, as the article claims.

the book can be consulted here:

Soparamens (talk) 18:20, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

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IPA incorrect
The name Pizarro is not pronounced [piˈθaro], but rather [piˈθarro] or [piˈθarːo], depending on the convention adopted. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 17:04, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of Cholula massacre
A recent back-and-forth tried to leave the following text in the article:
 * Cortés, either in a pre-meditated effort to instill fear upon the Aztecs waiting for him at Tenochtitlan or as he claimed, when he was being investigated) having been informed that they were about to be killed in their sleep, massacred thousands of unarmed members of the nobility gathered at the central plaza, then partially burned the city.

The result is unreadable. There is an un-matched parenthesis, and it's a horrible run-on sentence. Please read it carefully, and come up with a better result. I'm not clear a vague claim that they were going to be killed in their sleep is more meaningful than fearing treachery - they say the same thing. A cite on being informed about the specifics of the treachery would be good, too. Tarl N. ( discuss ) 15:08, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Tarl N. Isn't just easier to fix the grammar then, than reverting? The point is still valid. Should coincide with content of cholula massacre article which is properly sourced.Gaditano23 (talk) 18:20, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Not when I think the change isn't meaningful to begin with. The precise form of alleged treachery is of, at most, passing interest - but it certainly shouldn't be added without a reference. I'm certainly not going to be fiddling around fixing sentence grammar and other messes in an un-cited change which I'm not convinced is a good idea. Discuss what you think you meant to put in there, and I can be convinced. But I'm not going to fix it for you. Tarl N.  ( discuss ) 01:20, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Cortés and his men entered Cholula without active resistance. However, they were not met by the city leaders and were not given food and drink on the third day. Cempoalans reported that fortifications were being constructed around the city and the Tlaxcalans were warning the Spaniards.  Finally, La Malinche informed Cortés, after talking to the wife of one of the lords of Cholula, that the locals planned to murder the Spanish in their sleep.  Although he did not know if the rumor was true or not, Cortés ordered a pre-emptive strike, urged by the Tlaxcalans, the enemies of the Cholulans. Cortés confronted the city leaders in the main temple alleging that they were planning to attack his men. They admitted that they had been ordered to resist by Moctezuma, but they claimed they had not followed his orders. Regardless, on command, the Spaniards seized and killed many of the local nobles to serve as a lesson. 

The paragraph/sentence should condense/summarize this at least.Gaditano23 (talk) 12:32, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

bOI — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.205.108.81 (talk) 22:34, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

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Mexico City
Of course the Spanish did not name Tenochtitlán "Mexico City" but Ciudad de México. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.234.222.153 (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Quite right. Spaniards were not in the habit of assigning English labels to places, and claiming that they did so in this case is simply false. Someone seems to have taken it upon themselves to lock the edit at present, but Mexico City in that passage needs to be corrected. The full name was presumably Muy Noble, Insigne, Muy Leal e Imperial Ciudad de México. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 13:37, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I think this discussion is mute since Mexico City is just the translation, although the article should remain clear that name Mexico City came about an ongoing confusion amongnst foreigners which think that the Mexican capital was named after the country and it's the other way around. The name "Kingdom of Mexico" which covered much of the Valley surrounding the rivers in what now is Capital was named by the Spaniards but roughly corresponded to the area of influence of the triple alliance, of which the Mexica were the main component.  The name Tenochtitlán might have been a more neutral name for the combined entity as the arriving Aztecs had to forge alliances and pacts before building a successful and sustainable empire.--12.22.88.125 (talk) 03:03, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 January 2018
i would like to add a resource to secondary sources and/or "see also" section for sources. Adding to Hernán Cortéz page.

A Film (DVD) titled > The Other Conquest [La Otra Conquista]- 105 Minutes - 2007 - Rated R - Spanish & Nahault languages with English subtitles Produced by Alvaro Domingo * Written, Directed, & Edited by Salvador Carrasco can see film webpage at > www.theotherconquest.com

Thank you, Anthony Wikiitime (talk) 03:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Request refused, no specific information is claimed to be present in this DVD. This seems to be simply WP:SPAM or WP:PROMO. Tarl N. ( discuss ) 17:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

hernan cortes invented basket ball in spain in 1511. he used a peach basket and what looked like a volley ball.
hernan cortes invented basket ball in spain in 1511. he used a peach basket and what looked like a volley ball. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.4.114.12 (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, he didn't.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Source for Article Contrubution
I plan on elaborating on Cortés' destruction of his ships and would like to add a source.

Reynolds, Winston A. “The Burning Ships of Hernán Cortés.” Hispania, vol. 42, no. 3, 1959, pp. 317–324. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/335707. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjelle2714 (talk • contribs) 03:39, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Status of letters?
The passage below doesn't make a whole lot of sense:

''His first letter was considered lost, and the one from the municipality of Veracruz has to take its place. It was published for the first time in volume IV of "Documentos para la Historia de España", and subsequently reprinted.''

''The Segunda Carta de Relacion, bearing the date of October 30, 1520, appeared in print at Seville in 1522. The third letter, dated May 15, 1522, appeared at Seville in 1523. The fourth, October 20, 1524, was printed at Toledo in 1525. The fifth, on the Honduras expedition, is contained in volume IV of the Documentos para la Historia de España. The important letter mentioned in the text has been published under the heading of Carta inédita de Cortés by Ycazbalceta.''

It is implied that the first letter is now found (since it formerly "was considered lost"), but what the letter "from the municipality of Veracruz" consists of is not made clear. It's also not clear what "the important letter mentioned in the text" refers to. 850 C (talk) 19:16, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Yucatan Peninsula
change ((Yucatan Peninsula)) to ((Yucatán Peninsula)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:541:4500:1760:58cd:ca45:8cd0:9bc1 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

✅ Tarl N. ( discuss ) 22:58, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Category:Spanish slave owners
Could someone please add Category:Spanish slave owners? - 2600:1702:31B0:9CE0:B17D:1077:68C8:A57F (talk) 16:01, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2019
2601:181:4480:877:E8A3:E972:D489:8B9 (talk) 23:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC) Hernan cortes knowed about christofer columbus
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Egsan Bacon (talk) 23:13, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2019
In the L3 section "Cultural depictions" there is no mention of Chapman's Homer. Requesting addition:

In On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats the work likens the writer's discovery of Homer's poetry in translation (Keats could not read the original Greek) to the supposed delight felt by Cortés on the explorer's first sight of the Pacific Ocean.

Thanks.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. This is the cultural depictions section of the Cortes page, not the cultural depictions section of the Homer page.  Keat's sonnet is not about Cortes, it is about Homer.   Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:54, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:38, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Ruta de Cortés.svg

Cortez
Is there a reason the commonly encountered English spelling “Cortez” is not included here? It seems worth mentioning as an Anglicization.—Ermenrich (talk) 17:39, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's worth mentioning. I've been looking for reliable sources, but the closest mention I can find is the lede of the Britannica article that says, "also spelled Cortéz" which would be an alternative Spanish spelling. There are many examples of the "Cortez" usage in reliable sources, but haven't been able to find one that discusses the alternative English spelling explicitly; it's also sometimes spelled "Cortes" in English, as I'm sure you know. Carlstak (talk) 19:22, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It is probably because Cortez is a misspelling. Cort-ez would mean "son of *Cort", while Cortés is the same word as courteous. The -ez ending cannot be confused with the suffix of cortés in standard Spanish (-eθ vs. -es). Confusion is only possible in southern dialects in Spain and in Latin American Spanish.--Berig (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Berig, of course you are correct about Spanish orthography. Not to contradict a linguist, whose knowledge of languages is vastly superior to mine, but aren't pretty much all anglicizations of Spanish proper names misspellings in Spanish? Carlstak (talk) 15:36, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, unless you are referring to Anglophones not using the acute accent, e.g. writing Maria instead of María. However, many hispanophones skip the accent too, especially when writing in social media.--Berig (talk) 16:15, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've spent a good bit of time fixing the orthography (mostly missing acute accents) of submissions by Spanish editors to articles I watch, but I was thinking more along the lines of the English "Saragossa" for the Spanish "Zaragoza", for example. Carlstak (talk) 16:58, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, many European cities have different spellings in different languages, and it doesn't count as a spelling error in those cases.--Berig (talk) 17:13, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Never mind! Cortez seems to be a variant form. Often names and words are reinterpreted that way.--Berig (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Berig. Carlstak (talk) 18:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There's an interesting discussion of the naming of the Sea of Cortez here, endnote 4, page 16. In part the author says, "The “z” spelling (i.e., Sea of Cortez) first appeared in the mid-1700s in the French literature, presumably as a phonic transliteration of the “és” ending. The “Cortez” spelling appeared in America as early as 1870, and it been increasing in popularity and use in recent decades." Not sure if these comments apply just to the Sea of Cortez or the spelling of Cortez more generally. Glendoremus (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It also says that although Hernan Cortes spelled his name in various ways, he probably never spelled his surname with a -z.--Berig (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 8 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mjelle2714.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Spanish Conquistador ?
Correct me if I´m wrong. But wasn't the conquest of Latin America joint Spanish - Portuguese operations (or Iberian in words). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.148.98.50 (talk) 08:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

You are wrong. Cortés was the leader of an expedition that, first of all, was private, and second, was made in a moment in which the Spanish (Castille + Aragon) and Portuguese Crwons were held by different monarchs. 81.39.6.118 (talk) 01:36, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

for the pop culture section. he'll be in the movie bardo
a Normal Bates (talk) 02:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2022
Add a citation:

Change "Citation needed" in Arrival section; 4.1 Arrival, to source from nutritional geography.

Why is nutritional geography credible? It features research based content by Dr. Louis E. Grivetti of the University of California.

Specific source: https://nutritionalgeography.faculty.ucdavis.edu/hernando-cortes/ MisFit701 (talk) 01:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: I'm unclear on how your source supports the statement in question. Actualcpscm (talk) 23:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Replace "Indians" with "Native Americans"
I got really confused while reading the article when I see "Indians" instead of "Native Americans" all over the place again and again. Could somebody please replace them all? We are not quoting anything ancient using that mistaken word, it's just plain history telling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oguzalb (talk • contribs) 17:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)