Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in eastern Mexico, Veracruz is bordered by seven states, which are Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Veracruz is divided into 212 municipalities, and its capital city is Xalapa-Enríquez.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a soldier in the conquest of the Aztec Empire under Hernán Cortés and late in his life wrote an account of the events. As an experienced soldier of fortune, he had already participated in expeditions to Tierra Firme, Cuba, and to Yucatán before joining Cortés. In his later years he was an encomendero and governor in Guatemala where he wrote his memoirs called The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He began his account of the conquest almost thirty years after the events and later revised and expanded it in response to the biography published by Cortés's chaplain Francisco López de Gómara, which he considered to be largely inaccurate in that it did not give due recognition to the efforts and sacrifices of others in the Spanish expedition.
Francisco de Ulloa was a Spanish explorer who explored the west coast of present-day Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula under the commission of Hernán Cortés. Ulloa's voyage was among the first to disprove the cartographic misconception of the existence of the Island of California.
Veracruz, also known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico and the most populous city in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located along the coast in the central part of the state, 90 km (56 mi) southeast of the state capital Xalapa.
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España is a first-person narrative written in 1568 by military adventurer, conquistador, and colonist settler Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1584), who served in three Mexican expeditions; those of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (1517) to the Yucatán peninsula; the expedition of Juan de Grijalva (1518), and the expedition of Hernán Cortés (1519) in the Valley of Mexico; the history relates his participation in the fall of Emperor Moctezuma II, and the subsequent defeat of the Aztec Empire.
Francisco Hernández de Córdoba was a Spanish conquistador, known to history mainly for the ill-fated expedition he led in 1517, in the course of which the first European accounts of the Yucatán Peninsula were compiled.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.
Nicholas van Hoorn was a merchant sailor, privateer and pirate. He was born in the Netherlands and died near Veracruz after being wounded on the Isla de Sacrificios. Nikolaas or Klaas was engaged in the Dutch merchant service from about 1655 until 1659, and then bought a vessel with his savings. With a band of reckless men whom he had enlisted, he became a terror to the commerce of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire. Later he had several ships in his employment and obtained such notoriety that some governments were willing to employ him against their enemies.
Human sacrifice was common in many parts of Mesoamerica, so the rite was nothing new to the Aztecs when they arrived at the Valley of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Purépechas and Toltecs, and the Maya performed sacrifices as well and from archaeological evidence, it probably existed since the time of the Olmecs, and perhaps even throughout the early farming cultures of the region. However, the extent of human sacrifice is unknown among several Mesoamerican civilizations. What distinguished Aztec practice from Maya human sacrifice was the way in which it was embedded in everyday life. These cultures also notably sacrificed elements of their own population to the gods.
Laurens Cornelis Boudewijn de Graaf was a Dutch pirate, mercenary, and naval officer in the service of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the late 17th and early 18th century.
There is universal agreement that some Mesoamericans practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent.
Juan Díaz (1480–1549), born in Seville, Spain, was a 16th-century conquistador and the chaplain of the 1518 Grijalva expedition, the Itinerario of which he wrote.
Jan Willems, also known as Janke or Yankey Willems, was a 17th-century Dutch buccaneer. Based out of Petit-Goâve, Willems participated in a number of expeditions against the Spanish during the early to mid-1680s with other well-known privateers including Michiel Andrieszoon, Thomas Paine, Laurens de Graaf, Nicholas van Hoorn and Michel de Grammont.
Michiel Andrieszoon was a Dutch buccaneer who served as lieutenant to Captain Laurens de Graaf. He commanded the le Tigre, with a 300-man crew and between 30 and 36 guns. He is occasionally referred to in English as Michel or Mitchell, and is often erroneously given the nickname "Bréha Michiel".
Nojpetén was the capital city of the Itza Maya kingdom of Petén Itzá. It is located on an island in Lake Petén Itzá in the modern department of Petén in northern Guatemala. The island is now occupied by the modern town of Flores, the capital of the Petén department, and has had uninterrupted occupation since pre-Columbian times. Nojpetén had defensive walls built upon the low ground of the island, which may have been hastily constructed by the Itza at a time when they felt threatened either by the encroaching Spanish or by other Maya groups.
The attack on Veracruz was a 1683 raid against the port of Veracruz, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It was led by the Dutch pirates Laurens de Graaf, Nicholas van Hoorn, and Michel de Grammont.
The Raid on Cartagena was the successful counter-attack against vessels sent to defend the city of Cartagena de Indias and the subsequent blockade of the city by Laurens de Graaf and his pirate compatriots.
Francisco de Lugo was a Spanish conquistador. Described by Bernal Díaz del Castillo as "a man of uncommon bravery", he served with Hernán Cortés in the conquest of the Aztec Empire as one of his officers.
Luis Marin was a spanish conquistador who served first under Captain Francisco de Saucedo then later directly under Captain General Hernán Cortés himself during several military campaigns in New Spain including the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Hibueras campaign and many other deployments along southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. He is known as the captain who lead many Conquistadors including famous Conquistador and memoir-writer Bernal Díaz del Castillo into several military campaigns to conquer or reconquer sections in southeastern Mexico. Marin would become a close friend and confidant of Cortés serving him from 1519 until 1531, the year after Cortes returned from Spain.
Juan de Escalante was a Spanish military man. He joined as a captain on Hernán Cortés' expedition and in 1519 he was commander of the garrison of Veracruz.
