Gonzalo de Mendoza

Gonzalo de Mendoza (* around 1512 in Baeza , Spain ; † 1558 in Asunción , Paraguay ) was - after Pedro de Mendoza , Juan de Ayolas , Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Domingo Martínez de Irala - the fifth in the years 1556 to 1558 Governor of the Spanish Río de la Plata colony established in the 1530s , the Emperor Charles V formally in 1539 as Gobernación del Río de la Plata del Paraguay in the eastern area of ​​the part of the New World previously known as New Andalusia had erected.

Life

Gonzalo de Mendoza was a cousin of Pedro de Mendoza, under whose direction he took part in an expedition to the estuary of the Río de la Plata in 1535 , with which the territories assigned to the Spanish crown in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) against the advance of the Portuguese should be covered. In addition, they wanted to explore a connection between New Andalusia and the northern Spanish province of New Toledo ( Peru and Bolivia ).

On August 15, 1537 Gonzalo de Mendoza was present at the founding of Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción , later the capital of Paraguay, under Juan de Salazar y Espinosa and took over leading offices in the Cabildo . He served various governors as a deputy ( teniente ) and took part in 1547 in the expedition led by Domingo de Irala, on which a land connection to Peru could be opened up. After the death of Irala, with whom he had worked closely during his reign for over 12 years, he was appointed governor himself in 1556. He died just two years later. Francisco Ortiz de Vergara was his successor .

literature

• Roberto Quevedo, Enrique Toral Peñaranda: El Baezano Gonzalo de Mendoza, fundador y gobernador de Asunción del Paraguay. Ascendencia y descendencia. In: Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Giennenses, No. 192 (2005), pp. 85–137, ISSN  0561-3590 ( PDF ; 142 kB)