Diego de Montemayor

Diego de Montemayor was a Spanish soldier who explored and ruled the Nuevo Reino de León between the 16th and 17th centuries. Among his positions, the governorship of the New Kingdom of León (1589-1611) and the founding of the city of Monterrey in 1596 stand out.

Biography

No documents have been found that specify the place and date of birth of the conquistador nor his date of arrival in New Spain. Antonio Morales Gómez (1955) and Carlos Pérez Maldonado (1961) suggested that he was born in 1530, but never they cited any source.

In 1580, Diego de Montemayor was appointed mayor of the Villa de Santiago del Saltillo. Starting in 1585, he was also one of the three lieutenants of Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva. In 1588 he was named treasurer of the Royal Treasury and lieutenant of the governor of Nuevo Reino de León. As of the same year he was appointed Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Nuevo León, which at that time spanned from the birth of Pánuco.

In 1591 he was appointed Ordinary Mayor of the City of Saltillo and in 1593 he was given the position of Royal Notary of that same city. In 1596 he received authorization to found a & # 34;Villa de Españoles & # 34; on the banks of the Santa Lucia River. This authorization included the task of pacifying the Indians and evangelizing the area. If successful, this would be the third attempt to found a town of these characteristics in that land that until then continued to be hostile to the Spanish. The two previous attempts were made by the Portuguese captains Alberto del Canto and Gaspar Castaño de Sosa.

Originally, twelve Spanish families accompanied Montemayor from Saltillo to the Santa Lucía River. Of these, there were nine married couples, three men without any family, fourteen young men, four young women, and an Indian named Domingo Manuel. On September 20, 1596, Diego de Montemayor founded the City of Monterrey. Through this name, he honored the viceroy of New Spain, Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey.

Married couples and children

The first marriage was with Inés Rodríguez with whom she came to America from the European continent and they had a daughter named Inés Rodríguez de Montemayor who married Captain Baltazar Castaño de Sosa (brother of Captain Gaspar Castaño de Sosa), her second marriage was with María de Esquivel, mother of his only known male child, Diego de Montemayor "El Mozo".

His third marriage was to Juana Porcayo, daughter of a Portuguese immigrant, as stated in the investigation made later by the Holy Inquisition. This Juana Porcayo could be the daughter of the conquistador Vasco Porcayo de la Cerda, conqueror of Cuba, Mexico and Guatemala; whose legitimate children were Lorenzo and María Porcayo who went to Valladolid, although Lorenzo returned to New Spain for a while before finally settling in Spain.^{[citation required]} From this marriage Estevanía de Montemayor y Porcayo was born, who would marry Captain Alberto del Canto, a former lover of her mother.

Estevanía stated "that he saw Captain Alberto del Canto with his mother in bed many times, but out of fear he did not say anything." Del Canto had an adulterous relationship with Juana Porcayo, which would provoke the wrath of Diego Montemayor, who avenged the infidelity affront by killing his wife with her own sword. After the murder of his wife, Diego would flee north and live a wild life.

Eventually, the Viceroy exonerated Diego of all charges, since the law did not punish death for that reason, since the husband had the full right to do so to wash away such an ignominious injury to his honor. The descendants of Alberto del Canto and Estevanía Montemayor Porcayo stopped using the surname del Canto and took the maternal surname Montemayor, relegating the surname of the founder of Saltillo to oblivion. Later, Diego and Estevanía would return to the city of Monterrey, where they lived until the death of the former in 1611.

Diego de Montemayor was buried in the first chapel of the city of Monterrey and his body was later transferred to the Convent of San Francisco in the city of Monterrey.