"The bones of Cortes"
by Virginia Miller
May 1992

     Hernán Cortés, conqueror, adventurer and traveler of the known world, yet a resting place for his weary bones was hard to find. The history of Cortes’ remains is a complicated one. He died in 1547 near Seville, at the age of sixty two, on his way to Mexico.

     Cortés last years in Spain were plagued by frustration and ill health. His reception at the royal court was cool, he feuded with Antonio de Mendoza over the rights of exploration and discovery, his advice on military strategy was ignored. Faced with failure on the Paciic and lacking any real power in New Spain, he decided to return to New Spain but fell ill and died.

     He was first buried in the family vault of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. Fifteen years later, Don Martín, his eldest son, fulfilling the terms of his father’s will, removed the body to New Spain and buried it, not in Coyoacán as directed, but in the Monastery of San Francisco in Texcoco, then a small town on the shores of one of the three lakes encircling Mexico City. Some years later Cortés was given yet another funeral and moved to the church of San Francisco in the capital itself. The ceremony was intended as a tribute, conducted in great pomp by the archbishop and attended by all the dignataries following the cortege to appropriate funeral music. The next move, in 1794, is not easily explained. Perhaps the foundations of the church deteriorated. Whatever the reason, the moldering remains were transported to the chapel of the Hospital de Jesús, and placed in a crystal coffin bound in silver and surmounted by a bronze bust.

     For 29 years the curious were allowed to peer at the remains. In 1823, when Mexico was already a Republic after its independence, the remains were moved again, this time surreptitiously at night to forestall the extremist zeal of patriots.

     Anticipating the worst, the historian Lucas Alamán took it upon himself to hide the relics, burying them in the thickness of the chapel walls. For years their whereabouts remained a secret. In 1946 the hiding place was discov- ered.

     Were they really the bones of Hernán Cortés? A doctor examined them and declared that they were those of a small man with a small head. One of the limbs had an old fractutre which seems to be verifaible with facts of his life. There seemed to be no doubt of their authenticity.

     As discovered the bones reposed in a glass urn wrapped in a cloth with Cortes’ arms ernbroidered in red silk. This was placed in two metal caskets, one inside the other. A small ceremony took place. Only twelve people partici- pated, Mass was said and those who took part subscribes to the modest plaque one sees today. Anything was deemed unwise.

     No town or village bears his name. Mexico never honored Cortés with an official statue. Instead, his rnonument is the Spanish colony he founded in Mexico and which lasted three hundred years.