Latest news with #SpanishConquistador
New York Times
3 days ago
- New York Times
A 500-Year-Old Receipt for Supplies to Conquer an Empire Is Returned to Mexico
About 30 years after it was discovered to be missing — and 500 years after it was written — the F.B.I. has returned a document bearing the signature of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés to Mexico. The manuscript, a register of payments from 1527, is one of 15 pages believed to have been stolen from Mexico's national archives between 1985 and 1993, the F.B.I. said. It was signed by Cortés, who led the overthrow of the Aztec empire for the Spanish crown. The F.B.I. said that it returned the document on Wednesday, and that no one would face prosecution in the theft because the document had changed hands many times since it vanished. The document 'outlines the payment of pesos of common gold for expenses in preparation for discovery of the spice lands,' Special Agent Jessica Dittmer, a member of the F.B.I.'s Art Crime Team, said in a statement, 'so it really gives a lot of flavor as to the planning and preparation for unchartered territory back then.' Those 'spice lands' that Ms. Dittmer spoke of were eastern and southeastern Asia. European explorers sailed west in the hopes of finding a faster route to the region, and instead landed in the Americas. In 1993, while archivists at the General Archive of the Nation in Mexico were creating microfilms of their collection of documents signed by Cortés, they discovered that 15 pages of the manuscript were missing. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Washington Post
FBI returns stolen Hernán Cortés manuscript to Mexico
MEXICO CITY — Nearly five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés signed it and decades after someone swiped it from Mexico's national archives, the FBI returned a priceless manuscript page to Mexico on Wednesday. The FBI said in a statement that the document had changed hands various times over the years, so no one will be charged.
