Hernán Cortés

Hernán Cortés, also known as Hernándo Cortés, Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca (1485&mdash;December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who overthrew the Spanish empire.

Cortés wreaked death and destruction upon the Aztecs during his lifetime, and in an attempt to stem the slaughter, the Aztecs bestowed upon Cortés a stone chest filled with blood money. The chest contained eight hundred and eighty-two identical pieces of Aztec gold, though even this was not enough to sate Cortés' greed. In response to Cortés' bloodthirst, the heathen gods placed upon the coins a terrible curse; one that caused any who so much as took one coin from the chest to become undead, and whose true appearance, revealed only by the light of the moon, was that of a ragged, rotting skeleton.

Cortés himself, presumably cursed, buried the chest on Isla de Muerta, and on it the curse remained. Only by replacing all coins, and repaying the sacrifice in blood, could the curse be lifted. Ultimately, Hector Barbossa's crew fell afoul of the curse after spending all gold coins upon finding the chest at Isla de Muerta. Will Turner freed them of their curse once all the coins had been returned, and soon after, the island and its treasure was claimed by the sea.

Cortés was also believed to have possessed a mystical sword, which became the object of a quest undertaken by Jack Sparrow and his crew during Sparrow's teenage years.