Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

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Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán on a contemporary depiction of the Aztecs

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (* around 1490 in Guadalajara , † 1544 in Torrejón de Velasco ) was a Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain .

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán came from an old noble family. He was an educated man and studied the law. On May 4, 1526, he landed on the Pánuco River in northwestern New Spain near Tampico .

As head of the Audiencia

Since the conquest by Hernán Cortés in 1521, New Spain has been administered by a military government. There was violence and arbitrariness. The locals were exploited in the worst possible way. Hoping for a better government, Charles V appointed an Audiencia on December 13, 1527 in Burgos to take over the government of the colony . It consisted of a president and four oidores (judges). Its president was Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán. The judges were Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, Diego Delgadillo, Diego Maldonado and Alonso de Parada. At that time Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán served as governor of the province of Pánuco. It is not known whether the Crown was aware of his behavior there. He had so many Indians captured in the area and sold as slaves in the Caribbean that the province was almost depopulated.

Charles V ordered him and the judges to assemble in Veracruz and from there to move together to the capital. However, the four newcomers from Spain did not wait for Guzmán to arrive. They arrived in Tenochtitlan on December 8, 1528 and took over the government the following day. The city gave them a great reception. Guzmán arrived just a few days later. Two of the judges (Maldonado and Parada) fell ill upon their arrival and soon died. They did not participate in the government. The first bishop of New Spain, Juan de Zumárraga , arrived in the capital just a few days before the judges.

The Audiencia gave instructions, made recommendations on how to treat the locals well, and began an investigation against Hernán Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado , Alonso de Estrada , Rodrigo de Albornoz, Gonzalo de Salazar and Pedro Almíndez Chirino. Most had been former members of the government while Cortés was in Honduras . Many injustices had occurred under their rule. Cortés himself was now in Spain defending his conduct before the king. He succeeded so well that Charles V accepted him into the nobility and appointed him Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca . It was the highest honor a conquistador had ever received. Nevertheless, Guzmán now ruled New Spain. There has already been minor hostilities between Cortés and Guzmán because Cortés refused to recognize Guzmán as governor of Pánuco. Later events made the two bitter enemies. The Audiencia even banned direct communication with the courts in Spain. It was so effective that Bishop Zumárraga felt compelled to hide a letter in a bin and smuggle it to the Spanish authorities.

The Conqueror of the West

Spanish conquerors and their Tlaxcalteks allies invade Jalisco.

When Guzmán's opponents in the capital grew in number, he assembled an army of 300 conquistadors and 6,000 Indian allies. On December 21, 1529, he marched west with this force to subdue all the countries and peoples that had so far resisted conquest. Pedro Almíndez Chirino was among his officers on this campaign. His motives for leaving the capital are unclear. It is possible that he was simply looking for riches. Perhaps, however, he was simply afraid of Cortés' return. He had been reappointed captain general by the king and so had considerable power in his hands again.

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán's expedition is described as a Holocaust . The conquistadors of this campaign attacked the Indian villages, stole the corn and all other foodstuffs, tore down the houses, burned the apartments and tortured the leaders of the local people in order to gather information about the riches they could still steal from the population. Since the west of New Spain did not have a high culture like that of the Aztecs , the people had not amassed any wealth. Chief Tangáxuan (Cazoncin) from Michoacán supplied Guzmán with gold, silver and warriors. Nevertheless, Guzmán had him arrested and tortured in order to blackmail him into the location of his hidden treasures. There was probably no more gold at all, because Tangáxuan could not report anything even under torture. Guzmán dragged him across the ground behind a horse and hanged him. Then he continued his violent attack on the peoples of Jalisco , Zacatecas , Nayarit and Sinaloa . On September 29, 1531 he founded the city of San Miguel de Culiacán . In Tepic he set up his headquarters and prepared new voyages of discovery. On one of these trips he founded the cities of Santiago de Galicia de Compostela and Purificación . His violent expeditions were a major cause of the Mixtón uprising . Later even the Spanish colonists complained to Antonio de Mendoza , the new viceroy of New Spain, about the injustices and appalling atrocities of Guzmán.

The new kingdom

By royal decree of January 25, 1531, the area which Guzmán had conquered was given the name Reino de Nueva Galicia (Kingdom of New Galicia). This territory extended with its capital Compostela from the Rio Lerma to Sonora . New Galicia was a separate entity and did not come under the authority of the Audiencia in Tenochtitlán (renamed Mexico City from 1535), but was still part of New Spain. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán continued his bloodbath in western and northern New Spain for another seven years. During this time he explored and subjugated a third of what is now Mexico . Many locals have either been massacred or sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán was nicknamed "Bloody Guzmán" during this period.

Death in prison

Many reports of the treatment of the locals had reached Mexico City and Spain, and at the request of Bishop Zumárraga, the Crown sent Diego Pérez de la Torre to investigate the complaints. Guzmán was arrested in 1536 and remained in captivity for more than a year. He was sent to Spain in shackles, where he was fined, but kept his land in New Spain. The indictments of his numerous enemies held him in court in Spain. He died as a prisoner in the castle of Torrejón de Velasco under ambiguous circumstances in 1544.

A chronicler of the conquest referred to Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán as "the most detestable governor of Pánuco and perhaps the most depraved man who ever set foot in New Spain." Bartolomé de Las Casas also called him a "great tyrant ".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernal Díaz del Castillo The True Story of the Conquest of Mexico p. 539
  2. ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo The True Story of the Conquest of Mexico p. 722
  3. ↑ Bernal Díaz del Castillo The True Story of the Conquest of Mexico , p. 734.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Guzmán, Nuño Beltrán de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain
DATE OF BIRTH around 1490
PLACE OF BIRTH Guadalajara
DATE OF DEATH 1544
Place of death Torrejon de Velasco