<P> As a reward for his service, Díaz was awarded an encomienda by Cortés in 1522 . That was confirmed and supplemented by similar awards in 1527 and 1528 . In 1541, he settled in Guatemala and, during the course of a trip to Spain, was appointed regidor (governor) of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, present - day Antigua Guatemala, in 1551 . </P> <P> His Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, finished in 1568, almost fifty years after the events it described, was begun around the same time as his appointment as regidor and was well in progress by the mid-1550s when he wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor (and king of Spain), Charles V, describing his services and seeking benefits . That was a standard action of conquerors to document their services to the crown and requests for rewards . Some version of his account circulated in central Mexico in the 1560s and 1570s, prior to its seventeenth - century publication . Bernal Díaz's account is mentioned by Alonso de Zorita, a royal official who wrote an account of indigenous society, and mestizo Diego Muñoz Camargo, who wrote a full - length account of the Tlaxcalans' participation in the conquest of the Mexica . Bernal Díaz's manuscript was expanded in response to what he later found in the official biography of Hernán Cortés commissioned by Cortés's heir, Don Martín Cortés, published in 1552 by Francisco López de Gómara . The title Historia verdadera (True History) is in part a response to the claims made by Hernán Cortés in his published letters to the king, López de Gómara, Bartolomé de las Casas, Gonzalo de Illescas and others who had not participated in the campaign . Bernal Díaz also used the publication of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on just war, which allowed Bernal Díaz to cast the conquest of Mexico as a just conquest . Despite Bernal Díaz's lack of formal education and the self - interest that gave birth to his volume, the Historia verdadera evokes, like no other source, the often tragic and painful yet fascinating process through which one empire ended and another began to take shape . </P> <P> Bernal Díaz died in January 1584 . He was alive on 1 January, but on 3 January, his son, Francisco, appeared before the Cabildo of Guatemala and informed them that his father had died . Miguel León - Portilla accepts this date in his Introduction (dated July 1984 "a cuatro siglos de la muerte de Bernal") to the anthology of extended excerpts from the Historia verdadera . Alicia Mayer (2005) praised that edition, its selection, and León - Portilla's introduction, saying they remained, down to the date of her review, "fuente imprescindible de consulta" (an indispensable source to consult) without seeing his manuscript published . An expanded and corrected copy of the manuscript kept in Guatemala was sent to Spain and published, with revisions, in 1632 . The manuscript was edited by Fray Alonso de Remón and Fray Gabriel Adarzo y Santander prior to publication . In this first published edition of Bernal Díaz's work, there is a chapter (212), which some consider apocryphal with signs and portents of the conquest and omitted for later editions . </P>

Bernal diaz history of the conquest of new spain