Juan Garrido

Early life

Garrido was born in the Kingdom of Kongo situated in West Central Africa in about 1480, and came to Portugal as a youth. Crossing the Atlantic and arriving in Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, in 1502 or 1503, Garrido was among the earliest Africans to reach the Americas. He was one of numerous Africans who had joined expeditions from Seville to the Americas. From the beginning of Spanish presence in the Americas, Africans participated as voluntary expeditionaries, conquistadors, and auxiliaries. He gained experience in deployments around the Caribbean, among them the conquest of Puerto Rico by Juan Ponce de León, Cuba by Diego Velázquez in 1508, as well as the expeditions of Ponce de León in search of gold in Florida in 1513.

Conquest of the Aztec Empire

Garrido formed part of the expedition of Hernán Cortés in 1519. He might have been associated to conquistador Pedro Garrido, as it was common for Spaniards to give their surnames to their black auxiliars, free or slave. Alternatively, he could have been part of the entourage of conquistador Juan Núñez Sedaño, who according to chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo brought a black man in his entourage due to his wealth. Díaz del Castillo states black slaves or servants were still rare, leading some historians to the belief that Sedaño's retainer could not be other than Garrido, although in reality Diego Durán and Cortés' own writings talk about a plural of blacks in the expedition.

Others authors believe that Garrido actually arrived later with the contingent of Pánfilo de Narváez, only joining Cortés after Narváez's troops abandoned him after the Battle of Cempoala. African presence in this second expedition seems to have been high. At least two additional black conquistadors arrived with Narváez: the Portuguese Sebastián de Évora, who would discover the Évora or Mocorito river in Sinaloa, and the Spanish conquistadora Beatriz de Palacios, wife to the white soldier Pedro de Escobar. The expedition also included an African jester, Guidela, and the slave Francisco de Eguía.

Historian Ricardo Alegría proposed that Garrido might be actually another name for Juan Cortés, a black slave owned by Hernán Cortés himself who gets mentioned in the chronicles of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas and Francisco Cervantes de Salazar. In his relevant instance in the chronicle, after the Spanish and Tlaxcaltecs retreat from the la Noche Triste, a lone Aztec warrior challenged them on the road to a singles combat, leading Juan Cortés and conquistador Alonso de Moguer to come out of the ranks to answer the challenge. The duels never took place, as the Aztec fled, possibly attempting an ambush.

By 1520, the expedition achieved the Fall of Tenochtitlan. In 1520, Garrido built a chapel to commemorate the many Spanish killed in battle that year by the Aztecs. It now stands as the Church of San Hipólito. Garrido married and settled in Mexico City, where he and his wife had three children. Matthew Restall credits him with the first harvesting of wheat planted in New Spain.

After the conquest

Garrido and other blacks were also part of expeditions to Michoacán in the 1520s. Nuño de Guzmán swept through that region in 1529–30 with the aid of black auxiliaries.

In 1538, hoping for some rewards or benefits for his 30 years of service as a conquistador, Garrido provided following testimony to the King of Spain, requesting a royal pension:

Garrido's letter had the desired effect, as he was compensated for his services with land and money.

References

References

1. "Juan Garrido (U.S. National Park Service)".
2. (2004). "Juan Garrido: el conquistador negro en las Antillas, Florida, México y California". Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.
3. (2008). "Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture [2 volumes]". ABC-CLIO.
4. (2021). "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest: Updated Edition". Oxford University Press.
5. Gerhard, Peter, "A Black Conquistador in Mexico", ''The Hispanic American Historical Review'', Vol. 58, No. 3 (August 1978), pp. 451–459.
6. Restall 2004, p. 172
7. "Juan Garrido (U.S. National Park Service)".
8. Cervantes de Salazar, capítulo CXXIX
9. (2000). "Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America". The Americas.
10. Warren, Benedict, [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_conquest_of_Michoac%C3%A1n.html?id=0fdfQgAACAAJ ''The Conquest of Michoacán: The Spanish Domination of the Tarascan Kingdom in Western Mexico, 1521–1530''] (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985).
11. Krippner-Martínez, James, "The Politics of Conquest: An Interpretation of the 'Relación de Michoacán{{'", ''The Americas'' 47:2 (October 1990), pp. 177–98.
12. The opening of Juan Garrido's evidence (petitionary proof of merit) of September 27, 1538; Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter AGI), México 204, f.1; a facsimile of this first page, and a transcription of the whole document, appear in Ricardo E. Alegría, ''Juan Garrido: el conquistador negro en las Antillas, Florida, México y California'' (San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe, 1990).