Cortés Didn’t Burn His Ships

There is an old legend that Hernán Cortés, the infamous Spanish conquistador, burned his fleet of ships to prevent his men from retreating. That isn’t quite what happened.

The True History of Cortés

Cortés arrived with 500 men on the shores of the land now known as Mexico. He was to lead these men on a scouting expedition and then return home to Cuba. The governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, would then assume command and conquer Mexico.

This is where the legend begins. Cortés betrayed Velázquez, deciding to keep all the glory (and the gold) for himself. When he landed on the shores of Mexico, he founded the city of Veracruz and declared himself the leader, giving himself equal authority to Velázquez, now beholden only to the King of Spain. With this new authority, Cortés was free to conquer Mexico.

However, there was a problem. Some men remained loyal to Velázquez. Cortés needed a way to force them to his side. To do this, he sabotaged his ships to prevent them from sailing back to Cuba. In 1520, Cortés wrote to the King of Spain: “I found a way to run the ships ashore under the pretext that they were no longer fit to sail.” (“Tuve manera como, so color que los dichos navios no estaban para navegar, los eché a la costa.”)

As summarized by the historian Winston A. Reynolds in 1959 (reference), most historians agree that Cortés made his ships unfit to sail by having his most loyal men bore holes in them in the blackness of night. When the sun rose on sinking ships, Cortés blamed the holes on shipworms.

It seems that Cortés left one of the ships unharmed, offering his men one last opportunity to sail home. But it seems this was merely a way of ferreting out anyone still loyal to Velázquez. Instead of letting the dissidents sail away, Cortés hung them.

In the end, his men salvaged what they could from the wreckage, made alliances with the oppressed indigenous groups, and pressed on deeper into Mexico to conquer the Méxica (the Aztecs who ruled Mexico).

The Myth of the Burning Ships

Going back to the research of Winston A. Reynolds, it seems that the myth of the burning ships began in 1558, 39 years after Cortés scuttled his ships. It started as a painting on a pedestal in a tomb in Mexico. Cortés was shown marching inland with his ships burning behind him.

Perhaps the myth stemmed from simple miscommunication. Agathocles of Syracuse had burned his ships some two millennia before Cortés scuttled his. Maybe someone mentioned how Cortés had destroyed his ships just like Agathocles had, and so it was assumed that Cortés had burned them.

However the myth began, the historian Suárez de Peralta, in 1589, claimed that Cortés had two of his most trusted men set the ships on fire. “When the soldiers saw them suddenly ablaze, they anxiously ran to try to save them. However, two circumstances hindered the men: some found that they liked the idea of the ships’ destruction and refused to help, while a breeze contributed by spreading the blaze quickly. With the ships reduced to ashes, the soldiers searched to determine who had committed the cruel deed; Cortés, very solicitously, helped in the investigation. Of course, nothing was discovered, so the Spaniards could only commend themselves to Heaven and face the unknown perils of the long march inland to Tenochtitlán.” The entire version is a curious mixture of the accounts of Gómara and Bernal Díaz, with the burning legend superimposed.”

However, we know that this myth was not widely believed. For example, in Don Quixote (1605), Cervantes mentions how Cortés destroys his ships in Part II, Chapter VIII. Cervantes, like other authors of his time, accurately describes how Cortés scuttled or ran his ships aground. There is no mention of any burning.

For more, here is the true story of Cortés and his ships.

The Burning Ships of Agathocles

Agathocles was a Greek tyrant who ruled Syracuse in the 4th century BC. He’s famous for leading an expedition against Carthage, a powerful city-state in North Africa. The story goes that when he landed on the coast, Agathocles burned his ships, telling his men it was a sacrifice to the gods.

Historians believe Agathocles burned his ships to eliminate the possibility of retreat for his men, leaving them no choice but to win or to die. Additionally, destroying the ships allowed him to recruit the sailors, swelling his army.

The Burning Ships of Miu-Kung

There is a story of a Chinese general named Miu-Kung (or Micius) who supposedly burned his ships during a campaign in 624 BC. However, there’s very little proof to support the story, and historians debate whether it ever even happened at all.

Sun Tzu’s Death Ground

Even if Miu-Kung didn’t really burn his ships, the origin of the strategy may still be Chinese. In the famous military treatise, The Art of War, the legendary strategist Sun Tzu argued that an army will fight harder when the possibility of retreat is stolen from them. He called this idea Death Ground, saying, “Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve.”

The Art of War is generally believed to have been written during the Eastern Zhou Period, specifically during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) or the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). Before it was written down, it was probably passed around orally. It may predate Agothocles and his burning ships by a few centuries.