Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador born in Medellín, Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain. From August 13, 1521 to December 24, 1521, he served as the first governor of the Virreinato de Nueva España.
From December 30, 1521 to October 12, 1524, Cortes served as the third governor of the Virreinato de Nueva España. On December 2, 1547, he died in Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville, Andalusia, Spain at age 62.
On April 27, 1527, Cortes signed a payment order authorizing the purchase of rose sugar for the pharmacy in exchange for 12 gold pesos. The manuscript is believed to be one of documents unlawfully removed from a collection of documents about a Spanish expedition to Central America in 1527 that is housed in the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, Mexico.
In the early 1990s, the manuscript was sold by an auction house in California, United States. From there, it passed through several hands before being consigned by a person in Florida, USA to an auction house in Massachusetts, USA, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team supervisor Kristin Kock.
In June 2023, an AGN representative alerted the FBI, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., USA, that the manuscript was up for sale online by an auction house based in Massachusetts. The auction house was contacted and served with a seizure warrant.
The auction house removed the manuscript from the upcoming auction and turned it over to the FBI. On July 19, 2023, the FBI and the embassy of the U.S. in Mexico returned the manuscript at a ceremony at the AGN.
CONAN Daily 