The Spanish conquistador who destroyed the Aztec Empire in two years, though with an army mostly not his own. Landing in Mexico in 1519 against his governor’s orders, with a few hundred soldiers and scuttled ships, he won by three things Spanish arms alone could not: the armies of the Tlaxcalans and other peoples who hated Aztec rule, the indispensable work of La Malinche as interpreter and guide, and a smallpox epidemic that killed more than any sword. He built Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. In Spain he became a hero; in Mexico he has almost no monuments.
Hernán Cortés brought down an empire with an army that was mostly not his own. He landed in Mexico in 1519 with a few hundred Spaniards, sailed against his governor's orders, and scuttled his ships so no one could turn back. The Aztec Empire he faced numbered in the millions. He did not defeat it by European genius. He found peoples who hated their Aztec overlords, above all the independent Tlaxcalans, and tens of thousands of their warriors did much of the killing. La Malinche, an enslaved Nahua woman given to the Spaniards, translated, negotiated, and guided him. And a disease the Spanish carried, smallpox, swept through a people who had never met it, killing more than any sword. In two years the great city of Tenochtitlan was rubble, and Cortés built Mexico City on its bones. In Spain he became a hero of conquest. In Mexico he has almost no monuments, and his name still means invasion and ruin.