The Mexican Government recovers two documents signed by the conquistador Hernan Cortesa purchase-sale document from 1527 and a letter from 1539.
The 1539 letter was in the possession of the General Archive of the Nation in Mexico City, but was stolen between 2010 and 2017 and recovered in New Yorkwhere this Monday it was delivered to the Consul General of Mexico, Jorge Islas Lopez in the hands of Jordan Stockdale, chief advisor to the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office, representing prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
“According to the information shared by the Prosecutor’s Office, through the Antiquities Traffic Unit, headed by Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, it is a letter that had been bound together with other colonial records and kept in the General Archive of the Nation”, says an official report.
The document was illegally exported to the United States, where intended to be sold through Bonhams auction house based in London.
The letter was written by Hernan Cortes to Pedro de Castillejaadministrator of the Cortes mines, where instructions are given to prohibit access to facilities “to any slave or miner who worked for Andres de Barrios.”
In another case, reported by the Justice Department on November 22, the Massachusetts District Attorney’s Office filed a civil forfeiture action for a manuscript also signed by Cortes in 1527stolen from the General Archive of the Nation in Mexico in 1993.
“The manuscript is a payment order signed by Cortes on April 27, 1527 authorizing the purchase of pink sugar for the apothecary in exchange for 12 gold pesos,” court documents indicate. “It is believed to be one of several documents illegally removed from a collection of documents relating to a Spanish expedition to Central America in 1527 held in Mexico’s national archives.”
In early 2022, an unidentified person sent the Cortes manuscript to auction, where it was located by Mexican authorities, who alerted the FBI.
The Department of Justice acknowledged that in 2021 several stolen Colony documents were recovered and repatriated to Mexico, there are no reports of people detained at the moment.
Source: La Opinion
