History of New Spain

Fray Diego Durán
"De como el Marquis del Valle
Don Hernando Cortes. . . salio
a conquistar las demas Provincias . . ."
[Cortés and Soldiers Confront the Indians]
La Historia antigua de la Nueva España, 1585
Early nineteenth-century facsimile.
Manuscript Division
Purchased from Peter Force, 1867 (17.5)

Fray Diego Durán (d. 1588?) was a Spanish Dominican priest who worked to convert the Aztec, or Mexica, people to Christianity. In the 1570s, in order to understand their culture more fully, he recorded the history of their society in a manuscript that was not published until the nineteenth century. Shown here is a confrontation between the Mexica and the powerful Spanish forces of Hernando Cortés (1485-1547) during his campaign of 1519-1521.