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Martín de Argüelles

First white child born in the contiguous U.S.

Summary

First white child born in the contiguous U.S.

Field	Value
name	Martín de Argüelles
image
alt
birth_name
birth_date
birth_place	San Agustín, Viceroyalty of New Spain (now in Florida, United States)
death_date
death_place	St. Augustine, Florida
nationality	Spaniard
occupation	Sailor
parents	Martín de Argüelles Sr., Leonor Morales

Martín de Argüelles Jr. (1566–1630) was the first white child known to have been born in what is now the contiguous United States. His birthplace of St. Augustine, Florida (Spanish: San Agustín, La Florida) is the oldest continuously occupied, European-founded city in the United States.

Birth

Argüelles was born in 1566 in the Spanish settlement of San Agustín, Spanish Florida. Martín's parents were Martín de Argüelles (Sr.) and Leonor Morales. The family of Argüelles was of Greek origin, a fact they themselves consistently asserted, tracing their ancestry to shipbuilders from the Greek city of Argos; some researchers have also suggested that this is the source of their name ("from Argos" = "Argoyos" - Argüelles).

Argüelles' father, Martín Argüelles Sr., an Asturian hidalgo, was one of the expeditioners who came to New Spain in the New World with Captain General Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565. Argüelles Sr. was the first Alcalde (Mayor) of San Agustín, and had been in charge of munitions in the Florida forts of Santa María, San Agustín (now St. Augustine), and Santa Elena.

Lifetime

Martín Argüelles Jr. served the Spanish crown in Portugal and several garrisons and expeditions which embarked in the Spanish Armada which went in search of corsair Francis Drake. He was later transferred in 1594 from Havana, Cuba, to Mérida, Mexico, where he was appointed Executive Officer of the Mérida fortress and coast. Argüelles was married in Mérida.

References

Abbad y Lasierra, Iñigo, Relación del descubrimiento, conquista y población de las provincias y costas de la Florida - ' Relación de La Florida (1785); edición de Juan José Nieto Callén y José María Sánchez Molledo.
Fairbanks, George R. (George Rainsford), History and antiquities of St. Augustine, Florida (1881), Jacksonville, Fla., H. Drew.
Reynolds, Charles B. (Charles Bingham), Old Saint Augustine, a story of three centuries, (1893) St. Augustine, Fla. E. H. Reynolds.
Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro. Cartas sobre la Florida, 1555-1574 / Pedro Menéndez de Avilés" "Letters regarding Florida, 1555-1574 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés; Juan Carlos Mercado, edición, introducción y notas. Library of Congress.
Lyon, Eugene, The enterprise of Florida : Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Spanish conquest of 1565-1568 (1976), Gainesville : University Presses of Florida.

References

Tirso de Avilés (1590). ''[https://books.google.es/books?id=3P-iTzQvHzQC Armas y Linajes de Asturias y Antigüedades del Principado]'', ed. de M. G. Martínez. p. 91-92
"Arguelles Family History Website".
José Manuel Trelles de Villademoros (1739). ''[https://bibliotecavirtual.asturias.es/i18n/consulta/registro.cmd?id=676 Asturias Ilustrada]''. Vol. 1. p. 161.
(1992). "La Voz". La Voz.
"Origen y significado del apellido Argüelles".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1566-births 1630-deaths people-from-spanish-florida 16th-century-spanish-explorers spanish-people-of-greek-descent

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