FBI Returns Long-Lost Manuscript Signed by Hernán Cortés in 1527 to Mexico’s National Archives
The document, which vanished decades ago, includes logistical details linked to the travels of the Spanish conquistador, who had conquered the Aztec Empire several years earlier
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The FBI has returned a 500-year-old manuscript page signed by Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire, to Mexico’s national archives.
The document, which is dated February 20, 1527, details “the payment of pesos of common gold for expenses,” says special agent Jessica Dittmer, a member of the FBI’s art crime team, in a statement. “It really gives a lot of flavor as to the planning and preparation for [uncharted] territory back then.”
The page was once part of a larger collection of documents signed by Cortés that is housed at the Mexican archives, known as El Archivo General de la Nación. In 1993, when specialists were preserving the documents on microfilm, they found that 15 pages had gone missing.
Archivists aren’t sure exactly when the pages vanished, but they suspect that an unknown party stole them sometime between 1985 and October 1993. Before the theft, archivists had marked the pages using a wax numbering system that was only in use for a short period between 1985 and 1986.
Last year, Mexican officials contacted the FBI, hoping the agency’s art crime team could help locate a small piece of the manuscript: page 28.
“With the Mexican national archive’s meticulous notes about the collection—even indicating which numbered pages went missing and the manner in which certain pages had been torn—investigators believed they could track it down through more traditional detective work,” says the FBI’s statement.
Quick fact: How many items has the FBI’s art crime team recovered?
Since 2004, the team has found more than 20,000 missing objects, which are collectively worth more than $1 billion.
Officials didn’t provide many details about the investigative process, but they say they used “open-source research” to narrow down the search to the continental United States. After locating the document, they determined it had “changed hands several times over” since it was first stolen, says Dittmer.
As such, nobody will be prosecuted for the theft. Still, Dittmer hopes the return will send a message to potential criminals: The FBI is committed to recovering missing artworks and artifacts—even if decades have passed since the crime.
“Pieces like this are considered protected cultural property and represent valuable moments in Mexico’s history,” says Dittmer. “This is something that the Mexicans have in their archives for the purpose of understanding history better.”
After arriving in Mexico in 1519, Cortés set out to take Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire. European colonizers also introduced smallpox to the region; the disease killed between five and eight million Indigenous people by the end of the following year. In the summer of 1521, Cortés conquered the city.
The 1527 document includes logistical details connected to Cortés’ travels in what would become New Spain. It’s dated to February 20, “just days before one of Cortés’ top lieutenants was appointed co-governor of the conquered territory,” writes Reuters’ Sarah Morland. “It was a key year for the formation of royal and religious institutions that would rule over the Indigenous peoples of Mexico until its 1810 War of Independence.”
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The newly recovered page is the second document signed by Cortés that’s been returned to Mexico in recent years. In 2023, the FBI repatriated a payment order for 12 gold pesos’ worth of rose sugar that’s dated April 27, 1527.
That letter surfaced in 2022, when it went up for sale at RR Auction in Massachusetts. When Mexican officials noticed it, they called the FBI just ten days before the auction ended. Federal officials notified the auction house, which agreed to pause the sale.
“As soon as we got contacted, we put a stop to the sale, we notified the consignor, and there was no issue from them,” Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer for RR Auction, told the New York Times’ Remy Tumin in 2022.
The following year, federal officials returned the document to Mexico’s archives in a formal repatriation ceremony.
“Usually, people are surprised when they find out that the items they have are stolen,” FBI special agent Kristin Koch told El País’ Elías Camhaji ahead of the ceremony. “Many times, when they realize the cultural value they have for the countries of origin or the original owners, they are willing to part with the object and give up fighting to keep it.”
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