The 500 -year -old document signed by Hernán Cortés that the FBI returned to Mexico

Fragment of a Hernán Cortés manuscript — Photo foot, The manuscript signed by Cortés was stolen in the 80s or early 90s.

- Author, Darío Brooks
- Author's title, BBC News World
August 14, 2025

Updated 8 hours

A 500 -year -old document, “incalculable value” and signed by Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés, was recovered in the United States and returned to Mexico after more than three decades since its robbery.

The Federal Bureau of US Research (FBI) reported that Wednesday gave the Mexican authorities “an original manuscript page” that was signed by Cortés on February 20, 1527.

According to the special agent Jessica Dittmer, who led the search and recovery with the New York Police Department, the document is a gold payment order that made Cortés in preparation for an expedition.

“It really gives an idea of planning and preparation for the unexplored territory of that time,” said Dittmer.

The manuscript was stolen at the end of the 1980s or the beginning of the 90s in Mexico City, where it was part of a collection of Cortés documents protected by the General Archive of the Nation (AGN).

“The document is extremely important and interesting. It is part of the Hospital de Jesús, which is how a whole series of manuscripts of the Hospital's founder, Hernán Cortés,” said Thursday Cultural Advisor of the Presidency of Mexico, José Alfonso Suárez del Real.

Hernán Cortés black and white illustration. — Photo foot, Hernán Cortés led the expedition that overthrew the Mexican Empire.

What does the document say?

In the Spanish manuscript of the 16th century, Cortés asks one of its administrators, Nicolás de Palacios Rubios, to carry out a diligence.

“Of the gold weights that are in your position, give Melchor López and Alonso Boedo 60 pesos of common gold, which are given for their help to help their army expenses that I make to the discovery of the speciery. And take the payment letter, with which and with this, you will be taken into account,” says the document, according to Suárez del Real.

Cortés was organizing the trip to the Molucas Islands (current Indonesia), according to the official, who were known as “the islands of the spices” or “speciería”

The manuscript was in a compendium of Cortés autograph documents that in the 1980s was microfilmed under the shelter of the General Archive of the Nation. The experts at that time realized that some pages had been stolen.

Suárez del Real says that the manuscript delivered on Wednesday to the Mexico Embassy in Washington DC is one of 14 that were stolen.

A manuscript signed by Hernán Cortés — Photo foot, In 2023 the FBI gave Mexico another manuscript signed by Cortés and recovered in the US.

After disappeared years, the Mexican authorities identified him in an auction that was held in 2015 in the United States.

With a meticulous description of the origin and characteristics, they accredited that it was the same manuscript, according to the official.

The FBI said that the recovery operation involved the follow -up of the document at various times in the US, where “from hand in hand” over the years.

Although there were no details of where or how it recovered, only that agencies from New York and Atlanta participated, Dittmer informed in a statement that no one will be prosecuted in relation to the theft of this document.

Some “interested parties” resigned in writing to the rights of possession of the document and the FBI took it.

“Pieces such as this are considered protected cultural goods and represent valuable moments in the history of Mexico, so it is something that Mexicans have in their archives in order to better understand history,” said the special agent.

Before Wednesday, the FBI already provided in July 2023 another payment order signed by Cortés for the purchase of “pink sugar” that was returned to the historical collection of Mexico.