Nuño de Guzmán
16th-century Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (c. 1490 – 1558) was a Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain. He was the governor of the province of Pánuco from 1525 to 1533 and of Nueva Galicia from 1529 to 1534, and president of the first Royal Audiencia of Mexico – the high court that governed New Spain – from 1528 to 1530. He founded several cities in Northwestern Mexico, including Guadalajara.
Nuño de Guzmán | |
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President of the Real Audiencia of Mexico | |
In office 9 December 1528 – 9 January 1531[chronology citation needed] | |
Preceded by | Alonso de Estrada & Luis de la Torre as Governor of New Spain |
Succeeded by | Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal of the second Audiencia |
Governor of Pánuco | |
In office May 1527 – 1533 | |
Governor of Nueva Galicia | |
In office 1529–1534 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1490 Guadalajara, Castile |
Died | 1558 (aged 67–68) Valladolid[ambiguous] |
Parent(s) | Hernán Beltrán de Guzmán and Doña Magdalena de Guzmán |
Occupation | Conquistador, colonial administrator |
Originally a bodyguard of Charles I of Spain, he was sent to Mexico to counterbalance the influence of the leader of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés, since the King worried he was becoming too powerful. As Governor of Pánuco, Guzmán cracked down hard on the supporters of Cortés, stripping him and his supporters of property and rights. He conducted numerous expeditions of conquest into the northwestern areas of Mexico, enslaving thousands of Indians and shipping them to the Caribbean colonies. In the resulting power struggles where he also made himself an enemy of important churchmen, Guzmán came out the loser.
In 1537, he was arrested for treason, abuse of power and mistreatment of the indigenous inhabitants of his territories, and he was sent to Spain in shackles. He was eventually released, dying in poverty in 1558.
His subsequent reputation, in scholarship and popular discourse, has been that of a cruel, violent and irrational tyrant. His legacy has partly been colored by the fact that history was written largely by his political opponents such as Hernán Cortés, Juan de Zumárraga and Vasco de Quiroga.