"Battle of Otumba The Battle of Otumba was a battle during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The battle was fought at Otumba de Gómez Farías, Mexico in 1520. Around the end of March 1519, Hernán Cortés landed with a Spanish conquistador force at Potonchán on the coast of modern-day Mexico. Cortés had been commissioned by Governor Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar of Spanish-controlled Cuba to lead an expedition in the area, which was dominated by the Aztec Empire. At the last moment, though, Velázquez revoked Cortés's commission, but he decided to launch his expedition regardless. Through a combination of"
"burned rather than sunk. This misconception has been attributed to the reference made by Cervantes de Salazár in 1546, as to Cortés burning his ships. This may have also come from a mis-translation of the version of the story written in Latin. With all of his ships scuttled, Cortés effectively stranded the expedition in central Mexico. However, it did not completely end the aspirations of those members of his company who remained loyal to the governor of Cuba. Cortés then led his band inland towards Tenochtitlan. In addition to the Spaniards, Cortés force now included 40 Cempoalan warrior chiefs and"
"a Spanish galleon, described by one account: He attacked the Spanish settlements on the coast of Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico. He also raided settlements in the Antilles and in Honduras, capturing Vera Cruz and Cartagena. Defending his act of vengeance against the Spaniards, he became known throughout the Spanish Main as ""Montbars the Exterminator"" for exacting his own cruelties against the Spanish. He looted and set fire to Porto Caballo, San Pedro, Gibraltar and Maricaibo, among other Spanish strongholds, and captured or destroyed numerous other forts and settlements. Although he did not murder in cold blood, as did some"
"ships at sea were boarded by Puerto Ricans, who defeated those aboard. After a long battle, the Spanish soldiers and volunteers of the city's militia were able to defend the city from the attack and save the island from an invasion. On October 21, Enrico set La Fortaleza and the city ablaze. Captains Amézqueta and Andrés Botello decided to put a stop to the destruction and led 200 men in an attack against the enemy's front and rear guard. They drove Enrico and his men from their trenches and into the ocean in haste to reach their ships. Enrico upon"
"Fortún Ximénez Fortún Ximénez (; died 1533) was Spanish sailor who led a mutiny during an early expedition along the coast of Mexico and is the first European known to have landed in Baja California. Ximénez was the pilot of a ship, the ""Concepción"", sent by Hernán Cortés and captained by Diego de Becerra. The ship set out November 30, 1533, to travel north along the coast of New Spain from present-day Manzanillo, Colima, in search of two ships that had been lost without a trace on a similar voyage the previous year. The previous voyages had been in search"
"1518, and made its first landfall upon the island of Cozumel, off the east coast of Yucatán. The Maya inhabitants of Cozumel fled the Spanish; the fleet then sailed south from Cozumel, along the east coast of the peninsula. The Spanish spotted three large Maya cities along the coast. On Ascension Thursday the fleet discovered a large bay, which the Spanish named Bahía de la Ascensión. Grijalva did not land at any of these cities and turned back north to loop around the north of the Yucatán Peninsula and sail down the west coast. At Campeche the Spanish opened fire"
"to the Caribbean, along with three Spanish ships. These were the ""Magdalena"", the ""San Luis"", and the ""Soledad"". He destroyed the Magdalena and burned the San Luis by sending a dummy ship full of gunpowder to explode near them, after which the crew of the ""Soledad"" surrendered. By faking a landward attack on the fort, thereby convincing the Spanish governor to shift his cannon, he eluded their guns and escaped. In June 1678, Michel de Grammont French commander of six ships and 700 men captured Maracaibo then followed the plundering of several smaller towns as Gibraltar, penetrating as far inland"
"invasion. On October 21, Enrico set La Fortaleza and the city ablaze. Captains Amézqueta and Andrés Botello decided to put a stop to the destruction and led 200 men in an attack against the enemy's front and rear guard. They drove Hendrijks and his men from their trenches and into the ocean in their haste to reach their ships. Hendrijks, upon his retreat, would leave behind him one of his largest ships stranded and over 400 of his men dead. He then tried to invade the island by attacking the town of Aguada. He was again defeated by the local"
"local natives. The survivors returned to New Spain with the story of having black pearls, which prompted further exploration of the ""Island"" of Santa Cruz, as Cortés named the peninsula. The stories of the survivors prompted several follow-up expeditions by Cortés in the following years, which resulted in very short-lived pearl fisheries. Fortún Ximénez Fortún Ximénez (; died 1533) was Spanish sailor who led a mutiny during an early expedition along the coast of Mexico and is the first European known to have landed in Baja California. Ximénez was the pilot of a ship, the ""Concepción"", sent by Hernán Cortés"
"After Francis Drake's successful negotiation of the Strait of Magellan to enter the Pacific Ocean, Spain determined to fortify the strait to hinder further piracy on its ships. Initially two forts commanded by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa were planned for Primera Angostura, but that location was discarded because the tide there would aid ships in crossing the narrow passage. A Spanish fleet of 23 ships and almost 3,000 men and settlers sailed from San Lucar de Barrameda on 27 September 1581, but storms destroyed two of the ships and caused the fleet to return to Spain. Two months later Sarmiento"
"and fled to the mountains and forests. The greater part of the districts of San Pedro and Gracias a Dios were at war, and the Spanish position was again precarious. Francisco de Montejo meanwhile borrowed heavily to finance his expedition to Honduras, offering his extensive holdings in Mexico as guarantee on the loans, as well as selling some of his property outright. He announced his expedition in Mexico City and in Santiago de Guatemala, and attracted large numbers of recruits, whom he equipped often at his own cost. Additionally, he purchased ships at Veracruz. In 1537, Francisco de Montejo took"
"Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ""Conquistador"" who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in"
"Francisco de Montejo Francisco de Montejo y Álvarez (; c. 1479 in Salamanca – c. 1553 in Spain) was a Spanish conquistador in Mexico and Central America. Francisco de Montejo was born in 1479 in Salamanca, Spain, to Juan de Montejo and Catalina Álvarez de Tejeda. He left Spain in 1514, and arrived in Cuba in time to join Juan de Grijalva's expedition along the coast of Yucatán and the Gulf of Mexico. There he had the rank of Captain, and command of 4 ships. On his return to Cuba, he joined the Hernán Cortés expedition, and helped found the"
"Juan Guartem Juan Guartem was a Spanish renegade pirate who raided Spanish settlements in New Spain during the late 17th century, most notably his raid against Chepo in 1679. According to Spanish records, Juan Guartem traveled up the Manginga River with buccaneers Eduardo Blomar and Bartolomé Charpes. Once across the Isthmus of Panama, they arrived at the coastal town of Chepo and then looted the town before burning it in 1679. Although forces were sent by Spanish by the Viceroy of Panama, they failed to capture them as the buccaneers escaped into the jungle. Despite this, the three were tried"
"day northern New Mexico, where he engaged with Pueblo Indians. Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, a captain of the expedition, chronicled Oñate's conquest of New Mexico's indigenous peoples in his epic ""Historia de la Nueva México"", published in 1610. In October 1598, a skirmish erupted when a squad of Oñate's men demanded supplies from the Acoma Pueblo, although the Acoma themselves needed their stored food to survive the coming winter. The Acoma resisted and 11 Spaniards were killed, including Oñate's nephew, Juan de Zaldívar. In January 1599, Oñate condemned the conflict as an uprising and ordered the pueblo destroyed, a mandate"
"the pirate Jean Lafitte, who took up residence there after having been driven from his stronghold in Barataria Bay off the coast of New Orleans, Louisiana. Lafitte organized the island's settlement into a pirate ""kingdom"" he called ""Campeche"", anointing himself the ""head of government."" Lafitte remained at Campeche until 1821 when he and his raiders were given an ultimatum by the United States Navy: leave or be destroyed. Lafitte burned his settlement to the ground and sailed under cover of night for parts unknown. Following its successful revolution from Spain, the Congress of Mexico issued a proclamation on October 17,"
"the Conquest of Mexico. Hernández did not live to see the continuation of his work: he died in 1517, the year of his expedition, as the result of the injuries and the extreme thirst suffered during the voyage, and disappointed in the knowledge that Diego Velázquez had given precedence to Grijalva as the captain of the next expedition to Yucatán. In 1523, Ángel de Villafañe sailed toward Mexico City, but was shipwrecked en route along the coast of Padre Island, Texas, in 1554. When word of the disaster reached Mexico City, the viceroy requested a rescue fleet and immediately sent"
"Chepo expedition The Chepo expedition was a pirate voyage led by Spanish renegades Juan Guartem, Eduardo Blomar and Bartolomé Charpes in the Spanish Main during 1679. Sailing up the Mandingua River, the expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific where they raided shipping for several months as well as looting and then burning the town of Chepo, Panama. They were tried ""in absentia"" by the Viceroy of Bogotá and on his orders were burned in effigy at Santa Fe de Bogotá. However, the three continued committing piracy on both coasts of Central America and were never caught for"
"1519, the year Hernán Cortés began his Conquest of Mexico, only two from the original shipwreck remained alive: Gonzalo Guerrero, who by this time had become famous in the Mayan world as a war leader for Nachan Can, Lord of Chactemal (which included parts of Mexico and Belize); and Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain. Guerrero had by then married Nachan Can's daughter Zazil Há and had fathered the first mestizo children in the region. Cortes also learned that it was Guerrero's suggestion which led to the earlier attack on Cordoba's expedition. On arriving"
"on Providence Island, home of the puritan Providence Island colony. A force of ten or eleven ships and two sloops under the Dutch pirate Cornelis Jol and Diego el Mulato Martín attacked Campeche on 11 August 1633. The total force was 500 men. When the defenders of the city claimed that they did not have the money to pay the ransom, the pirates burned it down. Thomas Gage, an English Dominican priest, wrote an account that mentions Diego ""el mulato"". Gage arrived in Mexico in 1625, where he decided to abandon the religious life. He traveled in the region and"
"Cristóbal de Olid Cristóbal de Olid (; 1487–1524) was a Spanish adventurer, conquistador and rebel who played a part in the conquest of Mexico and Honduras. Born in Zaragoza, Olid grew up in the household of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. In 1518 Velázquez sent Olid to relieve Juan de Grijalva, but en route a hurricane caused the loss of Olid's anchors, and he returned to Cuba. On January 10, 1519, Olid sailed with Hernán Cortés' fleet, as his quartermaster, and took an active part in the conquest of Mexico. He fought at the Battle of Otumba"
"send idle veterans from the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire away, to keep them from trouble-making, using the El Dorado myth as a lure. A year later, Aguirre participated in the overthrow and killing of Ursúa and his successor, Fernando de Guzmán, whom he ultimately succeeded. He and his men reached the Atlantic (probably by the Orinoco River), destroying native villages on the way. While the existence of a sacred lake in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes, associated with Indian rituals involving gold, was known to the Spaniards possibly as early as 1531, its location was only discovered"
"the inshore squadron, where he continued to distinguish himself. In one particular instance he destroyed the beached transport ""Mary"", which had run aground carrying stores for 25,000 troops, and which Buller burnt to prevent them falling into enemy hands. On another occasion while ""Malta"" was refitting at Gibraltar, Buller learnt that a Portuguese frigate had been wrecked on the Spanish coast. Buller at once went out and attempted to save the crew, working for several hours in pounding surf and twice being swept away, but refusing to leave until there were no more men to be saved. Perhaps because of"
"Mexico, one ship of the expedition was put under the joint command of Alonso del Castillo Maldonado and Andrés Dorantes de Carranza. In early November, this ship captained by Andrés Dorantes de Carranza and manned by Castillo, Cabeza de Vaca, the slave Estevanico, and about 40 other men, was wrecked by storms on or near the western end of Galveston Island, on the coast of what is now Texas. The fifteen survivors, who had no clothing, food, or weapons, suffered heavy privations and were forced to feed on the cadavers of their peers. Through the good grace of the Native"
"such violence and leads the delegation away. Cortés orders Alvarado to sink the ships, as a precaution against mutiny. While watching the ships burn Cortés laments that stepmother Spain ignores her true sons, who bring ""infinite lands"" to the king and ""infinite souls"" to God. During the fire Marina passes by and she and Cortés notice each other. She expresses conflicting thoughts and feelings about meeting this strange man. Cortés leads his troops inland towards Tenochtitlan. The conquistadors set out across inaccessible mountains and after a long march fraught with many fights with the local tribes they reach Paso de"
"at nearby Pole. Xelha was renamed Salamanca de Xelha and became the first Spanish settlement on the peninsula. The provisions were soon exhausted and additional food was seized from the local Maya villagers; this too was soon consumed. Many local Maya fled into the forest and Spanish raiding parties scoured the surrounding area for food, finding little. With discontent growing among his men, Montejo took the drastic step of burning his ships; this strengthened the resolve of his troops, who gradually acclimatised to the harsh conditions of Yucatán. Montejo was able to get more food from the still-friendly Aj Nuam"
"intercepted a Spanish ship, a Manila galleon named ""Santa Ana"", off the coast of Baja California (at Bernabe Bay, some 20 miles east of Cabo San Lucas). Cavendish disembarked the crew onshore, took the rich cargo, and put the ship on fire. But he also chose to keep with him several of the crew in view of his future voyages. In particular he selected two young Japanese men: On the 6 day of November following, we went into a harbour which is called by the Spaniards, Puerto Seguro. Here the whole company of the Spaniards, to the number of 190"
"about what happened to Hernán Cortés's ships. Some think that he burned the vessels, and others believe he beached them. The notion that he burned his ships did not become accepted until 250 years later. However, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, while attending an expedition with Cortés, gives reason to believe that Cortés ran them ashore. In a letter to King Charles, Cortés states that his ships were incapable of sailing, telling his men the reason was shipworm. However, after establishing the town of Vera Cruz, five Aztec emissaries arrived which made Cortés anxious to visit Tenochtitlán. Therefore, he destroyed all"
"both sides the Isthmus"""". Chepo expedition The Chepo expedition was a pirate voyage led by Spanish renegades Juan Guartem, Eduardo Blomar and Bartolomé Charpes in the Spanish Main during 1679. Sailing up the Mandingua River, the expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific where they raided shipping for several months as well as looting and then burning the town of Chepo, Panama. They were tried ""in absentia"" by the Viceroy of Bogotá and on his orders were burned in effigy at Santa Fe de Bogotá. However, the three continued committing piracy on both coasts of Central America and"
"shipwrecked Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had been enslaved by a Maya lord. Aguilar had learnt the Yucatec Maya language and became Cortés' interpreter. From Cozumel, the fleet looped around the north of the Yucatán Peninsula and followed the coast to the Tabasco River, which Cortés renamed as the Grijalva River in honour of the Spanish captain who had discovered it. In Tabasco, Cortés anchored his ships at Potonchán, a Chontal Maya town. The Maya prepared for battle but the Spanish horses and firearms quickly decided the outcome. The defeated Chontal Maya lords offered gold, food, clothing and a group of"
"those counties, two volunteer groups under captains William Kimbro and Benjamin Bryant arrived to join Houston on March 29. Kimbro was ordered to San Felipe de Austin to reinforce Baker's troops, while Bryant's men remained with the main army. After an erroneous scouting report of approaching Mexican troops, Baker burned San Felipe de Austin to the ground on March 30. When Baker claimed Houston had given him an order to do so, Houston denied it. Houston's account was that the residents burned their own property to keep it out of the hands of the Mexican army. San Felipe de Austin's"
"known as the ""Invincible Captan."" Ruy Diaz Melgarejo Ruy Diaz Melgarejo (Salteras 1519 – Santa Fe 1602) was a miner, military, conqueror and statesman who established the Spanish Crown in the region of Río de la Plata in South America. His life was marked by wars, conspiracies, persecutions and family conflicts. Melgarejo enjoyed the favor of the Spanish crown. He almost absolutely ruled the independent province of Guayrá for 30 years. Melgarejo left Italy on November 1, 1540, on an expedition led by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca to Río de la Plata. He remained with de Vaca until, in"
"Famous Thirteen The Famous Thirteen (Spanish Los trece de la fama, ""the thirteen of the fame"", or Los trece de Gallo, ""the thirteen of [Isla del] Gallo"") were a group of 16th century Spanish conquistadors that participated in the Spanish conquest of Peru (second expedition) along with their leader, Francisco Pizarro. In 1527 Pizarro and his men were waiting on the Isla del Gallo, in bad conditions, when the supply ship returned from Panama with orders from the Spanish governor to abandon the expedition. According to the traditional version of the story, Pizarro drew a line in the sand with"