Bernal Díaz del Castillo

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Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Bernal Díaz del Castillo (* between October 1495 and March 1496 in Medina del Campo ; † February 3, 1584 in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala , Guatemala ) was a Spanish conquistador who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico under Hernán Cortés .

Life

His father, Francisco Díaz del Castillo, was the Regidor (Governor) of Medina del Campo. The immediate ancestors were in the service of the Spanish crown. The family certainly wasn't rich. Bernal Diaz del Castillo must have had some means, however, as he traveled to Cuba at his own expense. There he equipped himself for various expeditions in which he personally participated. He grew up in an environment characterized by work and religiosity and received a low level of school education, corresponding to his class. According to his own account, he sailed to Cuba in 1514 in the fleet of the newly appointed governor of Panamá, Pedrarias Dávila, in search of his fortune. A significant amount of the island's indigenous population had already fallen victim to disease and forced labor, so in 1517 an expedition was sent to the smaller Caribbean islands to find more labor. Díaz joined the group under the command of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba . It was a difficult undertaking and although they discovered the Yucatan coast , by the time they returned they were in dire straits.

In April 1518, Díaz returned to the Yucatán coast with an expedition led by Juan de Grijalva with the intention of exploring the newly discovered lands. After returning to Cuba, he enrolled on a new expedition, this time led by Hernán Cortés. In this third attempt with 9 ships, Díaz took part in one of the most successful military trains in history on February 10, 1519, which marked the end of the Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica . During this campaign, Díaz regularly spoke to his comrades about their experiences and collected them in a coherent narrative. The resulting book was the True History of the Conquest of New Spain ( Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España ). In it he describes many of the 119 battles in which he claims to have participated and which culminated in the fall of the Aztec Empire in 1521.

He also took part in Cortés' unfortunate expedition to Hibueras (Honduras) from 1524 to 1526, which led across the Yucatán and touched the Maya settlement of Peten Itzá.

Bust of Bernal Díaz del Castillo in Medina del Campo , Spain.

He worked for a very long time as a regidor (governor) in Coatzacoalcos . He made two trips (1539–1541, 1550–1551) to Spain in order to obtain further-reaching rewards from the king. He also appeared as a proponent of the permanent allocation of encomies at a hearing of the Council of India in Seville, where he came into sharp opposition to Bartolomé de las Casas , which is also reflected in his writings. As a member of the King's India Council, he was well respected in Spain and certainly wealthy, if not rich. As a reward for his services, Díaz was appointed governor of Santiago de los Caballeros, today's Antigua Guatemala , in whose cathedral he was buried.

plant

Already between 1552 and 1557 Díaz began to write a report on the conquest of Mexico, which was probably conceived as Probanza de méritos , as evidence of his merits with the aim of obtaining royal support. Later he read Francisco de Gómara's book about the conquest, published in 1552. He only partially agreed with Gómara's work and decided to write a representation from his point of view as a simple soldier. The first version was completed in 1568 and sent to Spain, another, more complete version in 1575. Díaz made changes to a retained copy until his death. Díaz died in 1584 without having seen the publication of his book. The first manuscript sent to Spain was published in a significantly revised version in 1632. Other manuscripts are also in Spain. The manuscript edited by Bernal Díaz until his death, which was later edited by his son Francisco, is in Guatemala .

Editions and translations

  • Bernal Díaz del Castillo: Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España , Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2005
  • Bernal Díaz del Castillo: Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Edited by Guillermo Serés. Real Academia Española, Madrid 2011
  • Bernal Díaz del Castillo: Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Manuscrito Guatemala . Ed .: José Antonio Barbón Rodríguez. El Colegio de México, México, DF 2005, ISBN 968-12-1196-0 ( review by F. Hinz at H-Soz-u-Kult ).
  • Bernal Díaz del Castillo: History of the Conquest of Mexico . Ed .: Georg Adolf Narziss. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-458-32767-3 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ J. Benedict Warren: An introductory survey of secular writings in the European tradition on Colonial Middle America, 1503-1818 . In: Handbook of Middle American Indians Vol. 13. University of Texas press, Austin 1973. ISBN 0-292-70153-5 . Pp. 66-67
personal data
SURNAME Díaz del Castillo, Bernal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish soldier and chronicler under Hernán Cortés
DATE OF BIRTH between October 1495 and March 1496
PLACE OF BIRTH Medina del Campo
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1584
Place of death Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala , Guatemala