US returns to Mexico stolen manuscript signed by conquistador Hernan Cortes
Special Agent Jessica Dittmer, a member of the FBI's Art Crime Team in New York, said the document contains a detailed accounting of the logistics related to Cortes' journey to what eventually became New Spain - a territory that stretched from Central America to modern-day Washington state.
"This is an original manuscript page that was actually signed by Hernan Cortes," she said in a statement. "Pieces like this are considered protected cultural property and represent valuable moments in Mexico's history."
Cortes landed in Mexico with a small army in 1519, when he formed alliances with local groups that opposed the Aztec empire, which helped him capture the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan - modern-day Mexico City - just two years later.
The document is dated February 20, 1527, just days before one of Cortes' top lieutenants was appointed co-governor of the conquered territory. It was a key year for the formation of royal and religious institutions that would rule over the indigenous peoples of Mexico until its 1810 war of independence.
The manuscript was initially stored in Mexico's national archives, but archivists preserving the documents on film in 1993 found that 15 pages had gone missing. Based on its wax numbering system, the FBI said the document was likely stolen between 1985 and 1993.
This marks the second repatriation of a Cortes manuscript to Mexico, after a letter from April 1527 authorizing the purchase of rose sugar was returned in 2023.
No one will face prosecution in connection with the theft, Dittmer said, because investigators assessed the manuscript had changed hands several times since it disappeared.
The U.S. antiques market is valued in the tens of billions of dollars, largely concentrated in New York auction houses.
Mexico has for decades sought the repatriation of cultural artifacts, including a delicate headdress made of iridescent quetzal feathers thought to have belonged to Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, currently housed in an Austrian museum.
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