Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 or 1493 - 1581) was a Conquistador which took part in the conquest of the Mexico carried out by Hernán the Cortes. It was born in Spain in Medina del Campo. Its family was modest but it profited from an appreciable level of education: it could read and write, which in this time was extremely rare. It went to Cuba in 1514 in the hope to make fortune there, but after two years it found few opportunities there. In 1517 a forwarding was sent in other islands of the the Antilles. Díaz takes part in forwarding, under the command of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. They discovered the coast of the Yucatán then returned to Cuba where prepared a more important forwarding.
Díaz set out again on the coast of Yucatán the following year with Juan de Grijalva, in the intention to explore the territories discovered. Returned in Cuba he enlisted in a new forwarding, this time under the direction of Hernán the Cortes which undertook the conquest of the Aztec empire of Mésoamérique. Reconsidering its memories towards the end of its life, Bernal Diaz writes the veracious History of the Conquest of the News Spain ( Historia Verdadera of Conquista de Nueva España ). It described the daily life of the soldiers there, but also that of the Aztec ones. It presents to it the portrait of the emperor Moctezuma II of which he was the personal friend. Its narration is a precise report on Aztec civilization, a meticulous report describing the few 119 battles in which it took part, culminating with the fall of the Aztec empire in 1521.
In reward for its services, Díaz was named governor of Santiago of los Caballeros , nowadays Antigua Guatemala. It started to write its book in 1568, almost fifty years after the events described, in reaction to an account on this subject written by the confessor of the Cortes, the Gomara historian, who had not taken part in the countryside.
A manuscript was found in a library of Madrid in 1632 and finally published. It offers the realistic point of view of an eyewitness having taken part in the Conquest of Mexico. It constitutes the most important source to include/understand the circumstances of this major historical swing.
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