|
|
Hernán Cortés, the conquistador who brought the Aztec Empire under the sway of the Spanish crown, named two of his sons Martín Cortés (presumably after his own father).
One Martín Cortés (1523 – ?) was the son of Cortés and La Malinche, born in Tenochtitlan shortly after the Conquest; the other was his half-brother Martín Cortés (1533 – 1589), Second Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, the son of Cortés and his second Spanish wife, Juana de Zúniga. The mestizo Martín lived in the shadow of his half-brother, becoming a servant to him; not being himself of pure Spanish blood, he was often treated as a second-class citizen.
In 1563, the two brothers returned to Mexico from Spain, where they were caught conspiring against the Spanish crown in 1568 (a plot whereby the Spanish Martín would have set himself up as King of Mexico), but they were caught, brought to trial, and sentenced to perpetual exile from Spain's American possessions.
Reference
- John Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, 2001