Diego colon

Diego Colón y Perestrelo (Porto Santo or Lisbon, 1479 or 1480-La Puebla de Montalbán, 1526) was the II admiral of the Ocean Sea, II viceroy of the Indies and II governor of the Indies. He was the son and successor of Christopher Columbus in the admiralty, viceroyalty and government of the Indies, based in Santo Domingo, capital of the current Dominican Republic.

Youth

Diego Columbus was the first-born son of Christopher Columbus, sailor and later discoverer of the New World, and his wife Felipa Moniz Perestrelo, the Portuguese daughter of the grantee captain of the island of Porto Santo.

When Columbus left for Castile, he left his son Diego in Portugal with his mother, Felipa; which, contrary to what some historians have claimed, was still alive. Some time later, with Felipa dead, Diego did travel to Castilla with his father, specifically to the Andalusian town of San Juan del Puerto, where the child was welcomed at the home of his aunt Briolanja Moniz and her husband, Miguel Muliart.

The future admiral dedicated himself to seeking patronage for his project and established a relationship with Beatriz Enríquez de Arana from Córdoba, from whom Diego's half-brother, Hernando Colón, was born in 1488.

For a few years, Diego Colón served as a page to the Catholic Monarchs.

In 1504 or 1505 his father, who was already an admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy of the Indies, tried to marry him to one of the daughters of Juan de Guzmán, III Duke of Medina Sidonia, but the wedding probably did not take place. because of the opposition of King Ferdinand the Catholic, who was suspicious of the power accumulated by the duke, and the danger of marrying his daughter to the son of the viceroy of the Indies.

Governor of Hispaniola

The death of his father Cristóbal in May 1506 made Diego Columbus the heir to his privileges in America. However, King Ferdinand the Catholic initially refused to transfer all the rights of the admiral, although he appointed him governor of the island of Hispaniola in 1508. Around this time, Columbus impregnated a Biscayan lady, Isabel de Gamboa, she gave birth to a male child in October 1508.

In that same year Diego Colón married María Álvarez de Toledo, who was the daughter of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Enríquez —lord of Villorias— and niece of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Enríquez, II Duke of Alba de Tormes. Both his father and his uncle were cousins of King Ferdinand on his mother's side. In this way, the House of Columbus was linked —through one of the most powerful houses in the kingdom: that of the Álvarez de Toledo family— with the Spanish Monarchy. Isabel de Gamboa sued for a long time against this marriage, asking for its annulment.

Diego Columbus left Cádiz for the island of Hispaniola, where he arrived in July 1509, replacing Nicolás de Ovando in office.

He quickly moved to Ovando's administrative and military leadership and filed a lengthy lawsuit —known as the "Pleitos Colombinos"— against the crown, which was resolved by a ruling recognizing his rights as viceroy, but with limited jurisdiction for those territories that had been officially discovered by his father.

Diego Columbus dreamed of creating an estate society, made up of closed groups (nobility, clergy and "third estate" or "common"), based on the circumstances of birth (the family and even primogeniture —determined by sex and birth order—), and a Republic of Indians under the control of their allies, the hidalgos (without the term "república" implying any condition " republican", but alluding to the Latin expression res publicas, understandable as "public thing", "common good", society or State), to which would use the distributions of Indians, apparently the only tangible wealth of the island, distributing them at will, in order to reward their friends, thus creating social differences.

He made the second distribution of Indians (since many of those who had been distributed in the first general distribution of 1505 had died). He favored his relatives and paniaguados, although it did not last long, since in 1514 a third division was made, that of Rodrigo de Alburquerque. Another policy that he followed, to expand his power, was to force the emigration of Spaniards to other islands, in order to to alleviate the demographic pressure suffered by Hispaniola, and to try to expand his dominions in other islands, such as Cuba, to which he sent his lieutenant Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Jamaica or Puerto Rico, which were definitively conquered.

As a consequence of Diego Columbus' attitude, two parties were created among the Spanish colonizers in America: on the one hand, the hidalgos, Spanish veterans of the discovery and their main allies, and on the other, the so-called royalists, made up of officials Spanish royals and defenders of an egalitarian society, even if indigenous people were discriminated against, only equal for all colonizers (whether hidalgos or not), granting certain rights to the indigenous people, whom both sides considered inferior. Columbus's attitude caused serious confrontations between Spaniards, on the discovered islands, and contributed very little to the exploration of Tierra Firme, although he did succeed in having the South Sea or Pacific Ocean discovered by Núñez de Balboa, and thus opened the possibility of of expansion towards the enormous south. Given the existing tension, King Ferdinand called him to Spain at the end of 1514 and replaced him.

To cut the authority of Diego Columbus, in 1511 a Royal Audience was created in Hispaniola, at the request of the residents, made up of three appellate judges and presided over by Diego, who was in constant conflicts between the members of the same. The mainland territories were also eliminated from his jurisdiction and, in case something was missing, the monarch sent Ibáñez de Ibarra and Rodrigo de Albuquerque (1514) as Indian distributors, who obviously tried to harm Diego Colón and the friends of he.

Since the Dominicans were increasingly opposed to the encomienda system, Diego Columbus hardened his positions and, little by little, his conduct became less and less discreet in terms of rigidity and independence of criteria that it showed with respect to the Spanish crown, coming to form a royal party, led by the treasurer Miguel de Pasamonte, and another of the Admiral, and petitions were raised to the Court so that Diego was relieved of his post. Meanwhile, Diego was setting up an increasingly sumptuous court, which he tried to rival that of Spain, and which was not very suitable, moreover, for the early days of the colony. Pasamonte, in turn, wrested authority from Diego in economic matters, and the king and the secretary Conchillos overwhelmed him with their continuous censures.

Finally, the monarch Fernando subjected his officials to residence trial and made Diego Columbus return to Spain in 1515, while Cardinal Cisneros appointed three Hieronymite religious to rule the Indies.

After the sentence of La Coruña, in 1520, Diego Columbus rejoined his viceroyalty, previously protesting against it. Its second stage was distinguished by the occurrence of the first insurrection of black slaves (December 26, 1522), and by the continuous conflicts with the audience and royal officials, culminating the entire process in the year 1523, when King Carlos I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire suspended him from his functions and forced him to return to Spain, where he continued the lawsuits and continued to accompany the court on his continuous trips.

While on his way to Seville to attend the wedding of King Carlos I to Isabel of Portugal, death surprised him. Diego Columbus died in 1526 in La Puebla de Montalbán (Toledo). His tomb was for many years in the monastery of La Cartuja, in Seville, but since 2011 their whereabouts are unknown. Who is buried in the Cathedral of Seville is his brother, Don Hernando Colón.

Diego Colón's title of viceroy was merely honorary, since the Crown only made him effective as governor. His widow, the energetic and tenacious viceroy María de Toledo (died 1549), advised by her brother-in-law Fernando Colón, continued the lawsuits until the arbitration of 1536. His son and heir Luis Colón y Álvarez de Toledo was the first duke of Veragua, a title that he obtained at the cost of giving up part of the rights that his father had claimed from the crown.

Portrait

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, who knew him very well, left this portrait of him in the second volume of his history:

He was a person of great stature, like his father, gentle man and well-provided members, the light face and the steep head, and who represented having a person of lord and authority. It was very well conditioned and of good bowels, simpler than relapsed or malicious; mediumly well spoken, devout and fearful of God and friend of religious, of those of San Francisco in particular, as was his father, although none of another order could be given to complain and much less those of Santo Domingo. He feared much of erring in the governorate he had in his charge; he entrusted much to God, begging him to light him to do what he was bound.

Ancestors

Offspring

Don Diego Colón had 6 children with Doña María Álvarez de Toledo:

• María Colón de Toledo: Casó con Sancho Folch de Cardona y Ruiz de Lihori, I marquis de Guadalest, and begat Cristóbal de Cardona and Colón de Toledo (II marquis de Guadalest), Luis de Cardona and Colón de Toledo (Lord of the Alcudia) and María de Cardona and Colón de Toledo (III Marquesa de Guadalest).
• Luis Colón de Toledo: II Duke of Veragua, II Marquis of Jamaica, III Great Admiral and Advanced Major of the Indies and I Duque de la Vega de Santo Domingo. Casó con María de Mosquera y Pasamonte, hija de Juan de Mosquera (regidor del Ayuntamiento de Santo Domingo), y engenderó a Felipa (duquesa de Veragua y de la Vega de Santo Domingo y marquesa de la Jamaica; casó con su Cousin Diego Colón de Toledo, fallecido sin descendencia en 1577) y a María Colón de Mosquera (monja). He had Christopher Columbus of Carvajal (1565-1601) in a second marriage, with Luisa de Carvajal, who died without children.
• Juana Colón de Toledo: Casó with his cousin Luis de la Cueva and Toledo.
• Isabel Colón de Toledo: Casó con Jorge Alberto de Portugal y Melo, I conde de Gelves, son of Alvaro de Braganza.
• Christopher Columbus of Toledo: He fell with Maria Leonor Lerma of Zuazo; he had no seed. He then fell with Ana de Pravia and La Rocha, with whom he begat Diego Colón de Pravia (with his cousin Felipa Colón de Mosquera) and Francisca Colón de Pravia (with Diego de Ortegón). He fell for the third time with Mary Magdalene of Guzman and Anaya, and begat Mary Columbus of Guzmán (went with Luis de Ávila and Benavides, the lord of the chief of Davila).
• Diego Colón de Toledo: Born in Santo Domingo in 1524 and married Isabel Justiniani or Justiniano and Sánchez in 1544, daughter of Battista Justiniani and Justiniani, a native of the Republic of Genoa, and Brígida Sánchez and Mendoza, a native of Seville. He had two legitimate children: Cristóbal and Luis Colón and Justiniano. Isabel was a carnal niece of the chamber assistant of the Virreina, Isabel Núñez de Andrada and Agüero. Diego Colón de Toledo died in 1546, at 22, in the name of God, Panama, killed by the natural.