Hernan Cortes

National
His statue is dyed with red painting, because treads the head of in American indigenous
Hernan Cortes
By: Carlos Damian August 13, 2010
It is a cruel glorification of the American genocide and an affront for Mexico
México. - El he Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), had by parents to Martin Cortes and Catalina Pizarro, living in Trujillo, Caceres. He had difficulties with Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, to be married in 1514 with Catalina Juarez Marcaida, achieved that he would be his godfather. Due to this union and the trickery of Cortes, after that were sponsored the two expeditions to firm land: the first to cargo of Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba and the second of the captain Juan de Grijalva. For the third expedition the governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez of Cuellar, gave to him the responsibility to Cortes of going to Mexico.

In 1519 was established in Mexico, and in 1520 using this territory was returned victorious on the hosts of Panfilo de Narvaez, sinking his ships so that they did not return the fearful Spanish that was not decided yet. In 1519 directed a marine expedition compound of 11 ships, with this flotilla was intending to go to Indias of Christopher Columbus, departing of Cuba to arrive to the State of Yucatan, Mexico. He it be not consider expired yet, with his troops decreased of the flotilla it being directed to land inside being its goal Tenochtitlan where the reports that had received was of a huge city fills with gold, Tenochtitlan.

In that moment was governing an Aztec emperor, Montezuma, which was revered as a God, thinking that was a sent of Huitzilopochtli received it with hospitality. But betraying his amiability and comity, Genteel is taken advantage of the cloddish God and made it prisoner. After some battles and the sad night, in 1521 Hernan Cortes had conquered the Aztec empire together with their allied the tribe Tlaxcalteca, the Malinche and the diseases of the old world.

Sad night of Cortes in Medellin, Extremadura
Red ink and a message so much "ethical" as "aesthetic": one must to replant the statue of Hernan Cortes in his natal people, Medellin, in Extremadura, by be a gesture "cruel and arrogant" with the indigenous America peoples. In the monument built around the end of century XIX and that received the guarantee from the public and religious authorities, appears the Spanish conqueror gotten dressed of military uniform, with haughty gesture, heroic and with his left foot on the head of a Mexican indigenous, apparently Aztec, and other religious symbols of the pre-Columbian culture.

The designated collective Anonymous Citizens (AC), decided to accomplish an act of protest to criticize a sculpture, that vulnerable the basic principles of aesthetics and ethics. Therefore they threw to him red painting more than half of the statue of three meters of height and four of broad. This monument is erected in homage to the Spanish emperor of Mexico. This town where is found located this polemics racist and odious sculpture was a poor zone and sailors town, soldiers and farmers without intellectual preparation. Even in this zone of Spain as curiosity "its boss" is the Virgen de Guadalupe, that say the natural was carried to Mexico.

This " national historical patrimony" that exalts the figure of Cortes, that projects the image of the Spain racist at all the America towns has engravings in its cost the principal four battles that permitted, after the settling, but that at the same time form important part of the genocide of the Latin America towns. It is considered the battles of Otumba, Tlaxcala, Tabasco and Mexico. The authors consider (AC) that the statue is a " cruel glorification, arrogant of the genocide and an affront to the people of Mexico and Latin America", therefore urge to the responsible public of the region “extremeña” to the fact that is attempted "to check" the cited sculpture created in 1890 for Eduardo Barron, and to eliminate the part denigrator it with the America towns.

In the statue can be observed "symbols that represent to the political institutions, religious and to fight near cut the head of an Indian that it is under the foot of the murderous genocides Hernan Cortes", and is warned that the head of the Indian "possesses a different plastic treatment, more uncouth, less realistic and with character semi-humane in comparison with that of the dominant figure", according to AC.


It is in a nutshell a fascist representation of Genteel Hernan, a cartoon tragicomic Nazi that would have to be changed additionally, as "a monument to all the arrears in these invasions, in the one which also is tried with dignity to the people expired in that navy aggression".

En respuesta el alcalde de la ciudad, Antonio Parral, informó que se llevará a los reponsables ante la justicia. Con indignación reaccionaron los integrantes de la Asociación Histórica Metellinense, emitiendo un comunicado en el que condena la “cobarde y antidemocrática” acción “vandálica contra el patrimonio artístico y monumental de Medellín”, España.

In response the mayor of the city, Antonio Parral, informed that will be carried to the responsible bring face to face the justice. Indignantly they reacted the integrating of the Historical Association “Metellinense”, issuing a communiqué in penalty the one which the "coward and anti-democratic" action “of vandalism against the artistic and monumental patrimony of Medellin", Spain. (La Jornada, p. 36, August 13, 2010).