Bernal Díaz del Castillo (c. 1492 – 3 February 1584) was a Spanish conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistador (/kɒnˈk(w)ɪstədɔːr/, also US:, Spanish:, Portuguese:; from Spanish and Portuguese for "conqueror") is a term which is widely used to refer to the knights, soldiers and explorers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors saile…
Who Was Bernal Diaz and what was his importance?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo rose from impoverished origins to become an influential historian and powerful colonial official. His True History of the Conquest of New Spain detailed Hernán Cortés' 1519-1521 military expedition against the powerful Aztec Empire from the perspective of Díaz's fellow foot soldiers.
What did Bernal Diaz del Castillo write about?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was born in 1492, the year Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. He joined Hernán Cortés on his expedition to Mexico and was with him as he marched on Tenochtitlan. At the age of seventy, he began to write his True History of the Conquest of New Spain.
Who Was Bernal Diaz del Castillo exploring for and why was he exploring for them?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1495-1584) was a Spanish conqueror and chronicler. In 1514, he sailed to America with Pedro Árias Dávila to explore Central America. Then he was part of the three expeditions to explore Mexico: 1517: with Hernández de Córdoba.
Why did Bernal Diaz write?
Díaz was writing a few decades after the fighting began with the aim to correct what had been written about the expedition before him. Previous works by Spanish writers had been critical of the conquistadors' brutality. Díaz writes that Cortés (whom Díaz admired) and his men did what they had to do.
How did Bernal Díaz view the Aztecs?
From his almost lyrical descriptions of Tenochtitlán, it is clear that Bernal Díaz had high respect for Aztec political and social organization, for the skills and talents of Aztec workers and craftsmen, for the remarkable city that stood on pilings and built-up land in the middle of Lake Texcoco.
What was Bernal Diaz del Castillo famous?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, (born c. 1495, Medina del Campo, Castile [Spain]—died 1584, Guatemala City, Guatemala), Spanish soldier and author, who took part in the conquest of Mexico. In 1514 he visited Cuba and five years later accompanied Hernán Cortés to Mexico.
When did Bernal Diaz del Castillo describe Tenochtitlan?
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of Cortés' men, describes Tenochtitlán: When we saw all those cities and villages built on water; and the other great towns on dry land, and that straight and level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded.
When did Bernal Diaz del Castillo write?
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1963) [1632]. The Conquest of New Spain. Penguin Classics.
Who was the Spanish leader who met with the Aztec Montezuma?
conquistador Hernán CortésWhile Aztec emperor, Montezuma had a famous confrontation with Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.
Why was the conquest of New Spain written?
Late in life, when Díaz del Castillo was in his 60's, he finished his first-person account of the Spanish conquest of the West Indies and Mexico. He wrote "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain" to defend the story of the common-soldier conquistador within the histories about the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
What was the name of the Aztec capital?
TenochtitlanThe Aztec region of Mesoamerica, called Anáhuac, contained a group of five connected lakes. The largest of them was Lake Texcoco. The Aztec built their capital city, Tenochtitlan, on Lake Texcoco.
Where is Bernal Diaz from?
Medina del Campo, SpainBernal Díaz del Castillo / Place of birthMedina del Campo is a town and municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Part of the Province of Valladolid, it is the centre of a farming area. Wikipedia
Bernal Díaz del Castillo: Historian of the Spanish Conquest
One of the most famous chroniclers of Spain's conquests in the Americas came from humble origins. Bernal Díaz del Castillo was born to a poor family in Medina del Campo, Castile in the mid-1490s. The exact date of Díaz's birth is hard to pin down, but the events he detailed are well-known in world history.
Díaz Goes to the Americas
Díaz, like many of his fellow conquistadors, came from a poor economic background and saw adventuring in the Americas as a path toward wealth and fame. He sailed to the Indies in 1514 and found himself in Cuba just as a series of major expeditions to the American mainland began.
Later Life and the Writing of the True History
'I say again that I stood looking at it, and thought that no land like it would ever be discovered in the whole world.... But today all that I then saw is overthrown and destroyed; nothing is left standing. ' - Excerpt from Díaz's True History, describing the destruction of the Aztec Empire.
History of the Conquest
Possibly while still in Mexico, Díaz conceived the idea of recording his memories of the Conquest, but it was not until the early 1550s that he really began to write. The project progressed slowly.
Further Reading
Genaro Garcia's edition of Díaz's history was translated into English by Alfred Percival Maudslay and published by the Hakluyt Society as The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (5 vols., 1908-1916). Volume 1 contains useful notes on Díaz and his work. Several abridged English editions appeared subsequently.
Overview
Expedition to Yucatán
In 1516, Diaz sailed to Cuba with about 100 other soldiers looking for a share of the gold and native laborers that were said to be found on the island. They discovered that gold was scarce and the native labor was in short supply, leading Díaz, in 1517, to join an expedition organized by a group of about 110 disaffected soldiers and settlers to "discover new lands". They chose Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, a wealthy landowner, to lead the expedition. It was a difficult …
Early life
In 1514, when Díaz was about eighteen years old, he left home to join an expedition to the New World led by Pedrarias Dávila. It was the largest fleet yet sent to mainland America, consisting of 19 vessels and 1,500 persons. Díaz served as a common foot soldier and hoped to make his fortune but when they reached Darien in present-day Colombia, they were quickly overcome by famine and an epidemic that killed more than half of the settlers. Many of the colonists grew dis…
Conquest of Mexico
In this third effort, Díaz took part in the campaigns against the Mexica, later called the Aztec Empire. During this campaign, Díaz spoke frequently with his fellow soldiers about their experiences. These accounts, and especially Díaz's own experiences, served as the basis for the recollections that Bernal Díaz later told with great drama to visitors and, eventually, a book entitled Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (English: The True History of the Conque…
Governor of Antigua Guatemala
As a reward for his service, Díaz was awarded an encomienda by Cortés in 1522. That was confirmed and supplemented by similar awards in 1527 and 1528. In 1541, he settled in Guatemala and, during the course of a trip to Spain, was appointed regidor (governor) of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, present-day Antigua Guatemala, in 1551.
True History
His Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, finished in 1568, almost fifty years after the events it described, was begun around the same time as his appointment as regidor and was well in progress by the mid-1550s when he wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor (and king of Spain), Charles V, describing his services and seeking benefits. That was a standard action of conquerors t…
Death
Bernal Díaz died in January 1584. He was alive on January 1, but on January 3, his son, Francisco, appeared before the Cabildo of Guatemala and informed them that his father had died. Miguel León-Portilla accepts this date in his Introduction (dated July 1984 "a cuatro siglos de la muerte de Bernal") to the anthology of extended excerpts from the Historia verdadera. Alicia Mayer (2005) praised that edition, its selection, and León-Portilla's introduction, saying they remained, down t…
External links
• Works by Bernal Díaz del Castillo at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Bernal Díaz del Castillo at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by or about Bernal Díaz del Castillo at Internet Archive
• La Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (in Spanish)