US returns 500-year-old Hernán Cortés manuscript stolen from Mexico

(DDM) – The United States has returned a 500-year-old manuscript page signed by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés to Mexico, decades after it was stolen from the country’s national archives.

The priceless document, dated February 20, 1527, was signed six years after Cortés led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521. By then, he had established himself as a central figure in colonial Mexico’s early governance.

DDM gathered that the FBI’s Art Crime Team confirmed the page was part of a missing collection belonging to Mexico’s General Archive of the Nation. Archivists first discovered the theft in 1993, while microfilming documents signed by Cortés, and realised that 15 pages had disappeared sometime between 1985 and 1993.

Special Agent Jessica Dittmer of the FBI’s Art Crime Team described the returned item as “an original manuscript page actually signed by Hernán Cortés,” underscoring its historical and cultural value.

The Mexican government requested FBI assistance last year to locate the missing page. Investigators eventually tracked it to the United States, though officials have not disclosed who possessed it before recovery.

The FBI said the document had changed hands multiple times over the years, making it impossible to charge anyone with a crime. Nevertheless, the agency worked alongside the New York City Police Department, the U.S. Department of Justice, and Mexico’s cultural authorities to secure its return.

The recovered page is one of several that vanished in the late 20th century, and Mexican officials have vowed to continue searching for the remaining missing manuscripts.

Historians note that such documents are not only rare but also offer critical insights into the governance, military campaigns, and colonial policies of the early Spanish occupation. Cortés’ correspondence is considered an invaluable link to the political and social transformations that reshaped the Americas in the 16th century.

For Mexico, the return is a symbolic victory in its wider campaign to reclaim cultural and historical artifacts taken illegally or removed under dubious circumstances.

The restored page will be placed back into the national archives, where officials say it will be preserved under stricter security measures.

This case is one of several recent examples of international cooperation to recover stolen heritage, as governments increasingly press for the return of historically significant objects to their countries of origin.

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