Juan de Garay

Juan de Garay

Juan de Garay (* 1528 in Orduña , † 1583 in Argentina) was a conquistador of Basque descent. He worked and fought for the colonial aspirations of the Spanish royal family in South America, first for the viceroyalty of Peru , then for the governorate of Río de la Plata . He was governor of Asunción , in what is now Paraguay , and founded a number of cities in Argentina , including the second founding of Buenos Aires in 1580.

Life

Juan de Garay was born in Orduña in the Basque Country in 1528 . In 1543 he sailed with his uncle Pedro de Zárate on the first expedition of the viceroy Blasco Núñez de Vela to Peru . In 1561 he took part in the founding of Santa Cruz de la Sierra . In 1568 Garay moved to Asunción, where he took over a political office. The governor of Asunción sent him in April 1573 with a company of 80 men on an expedition of the Rio Paraná, on which Garay founded the city of Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz, today's Santa Fe . In 1576 Garay was promoted to governor of Asunción. He founded villages, established local administrations and passed laws on the local population.

On July 11, 1580, Garay re-founded the city of Buenos Aires, which was founded in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza on the banks of the Río de la Plata , but was later destroyed by locals. He landed where the Plaza de Mayo is today, and initially named the city after the Most Holy Trinity Santísima Trinidad and its port Santa María de los Buenos Ayres . A memorial across from Casa Rosada reminds us of this today .

Garay died on March 20, 1583 near the Río de la Plata while traveling from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe. With his company, which consisted of a Franciscan , 40 soldiers and a few women, he spent the night on the banks of the Río Carcarañá , near the Fort Sancti Spíritus, when the group of indigenous people from the Querandí tribe, the Garay, the Franciscans, 12 soldiers were attacked and killed a woman. Garay was survived by his daughter Jerónima de Contreras, who later married Hernando Arias de Saavedra .

The name Juan de Garay was named after a destroyer of the Argentine Navy from 1927 .

Web links

• On the question of the place of birth of Garay (span.)
• Biography (span.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aquellos, Los que se quedaron  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (pdf .; 1.04 MB)