Francisco de Garay

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Francisco de Garay ( Sopuerta , Bizkaia , 1475 ; † 1523 ) was a Spanish conquistador from the Basque Country . He was a companion of Christopher Columbus on the second trip to the New World. In 1514 he became the 2nd governor of Jamaica , succeeding Juan de Esquivel in that office. As governor of the island, he became rich and equipped several expeditions to Florida and New Spain .

Expedition from Pineda

In 1519 Garay sent an expedition with three ships and 270 men under the leadership of Alonso Álvarez de Pineda to explore the coast between Florida and the Río Pánuco . On June 2, 1519, Pineda was the first European to reach the Mississippi . After drawing the mouth of the river on his maps, he named it Espíritu Santo and sailed on to the Río Pánuco. However, Pineda failed there due to the resistance of the Indians, who killed many of the Spanish conquerors and burned the ships. Only the crew of a ship could save themselves. The commander Camargo sailed this ship to Veracruz and joined Hernán Cortés with his men . At that time, Francisco de Garay had no idea that Pineda had failed on the Río Pánuco. He sent several ships to assist him. But after the men couldn't find Pineda, most of them joined Cortés again. For him, the failure of Francisco de Garay's expedition was a stroke of luck.

Cortés suppresses the uprising on the Río Pánuco

In 1522 Garay sent another large expedition to the Río Pánuco. But again the Indians resisted colonization by the Spaniards. The population of the entire province rose up against the invaders, so that they had no choice but to ask Hernán Cortés for help. He reacted immediately and marched into the province with 250 Spaniards and ten thousand allied Indians. After two major battles, Cortés believed that he had pacified the province and incorporated it into his sphere of influence. But there were repeated uprisings that only ended when Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán took over the governorship.

Francisco de Garay's last expedition

When Francisco de Garay found out that Cortés had taken over the province, he took over the leadership of his last expedition himself in 1523 and drove with eleven ships and two brigantines to the Río Pánuco. But bad weather took the ships far north to the Palm River ( Rio Grande ). He wanted to found a city there, but found no one who wanted to settle in this barren area. So he and his men set out on foot south towards the Río Pánuco, while the ships sailed south along the coast. On the way, his men were starving and deserted by the hundreds. They marched southwest on their own and joined Hernán Cortés. On the way they pillaged the Indian villages. When Garay and his last faithful met in Santisteban on Gonzalo de Ocampo , an officer from Cortés, and his men, almost everyone who remained deserted and ran over to Cortés. Even the ships of Francisco de Garay fell into the hands of Cortés. After that defeat, Garay had no choice but to come to terms with Cortés. He wrote to him and was invited to Tenochtitlán . There the conquerors made peace and Garay wanted to retreat to the palm river. But in December 1523 he fell ill and died a few days later.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo : History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1988, p. 147
  2. ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo: History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1988, p. 376
  3. ^ Bernal Díaz del Castillo: History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1988, p. 539
  4. ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo: History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1988, p. 555
  5. ^ Bernal Díaz del Castillo: History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1988, p. 561

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personal data
SURNAME Garay, Francisco de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish conquistador
DATE OF BIRTH before 1490
DATE OF DEATH 1523