Francisco de Garay

Francisco de Garay (Sopuerta, Vizcaya, Castilian Crown, 1475 - Havana, Cuba, Spanish Empire, December 27, 1523) was a soldier who sailed to Hispaniola as a colonist with Christopher Columbus on his second trip in 1493 and who was appointed lieutenant governor of Jamaica from 1513 and advance of Pánuco from 1521, retaining both positions until his death.

He directed the exploration of the northern Gulf of Mexico, verifying that Florida was not an island but was connected to the continent discovered until then by the Spanish. He obtained permission from the Crown to colonize the surroundings of the Pánuco River, but his expeditions failed. He was related to the wife of Diego Columbus, called María de Toledo, who in turn was related to King Ferdinand the Catholic.

Biography until his transfer from Hispaniola

Family origin and early years

According to Goio Bañales, who found the will of Garay's son, the place of his birth, unknown with certainty until then, could be determined: Francisco de Garay was born in the Garay de Sopuerta tower, in the Las Encartaciones region located in the historical territory of Vizcaya.

Stay in Santo Domingo

It is said that in 1502 a phenomenal discovery of gold near Santo Domingo launched Garay on the path to wealth and power. During his stay he resided in the Cordón house, however, within a few years he was heavily in debt to Genoese bankers. This was perhaps the motivation behind his attempts to discover new lands.

In 1511, Garay sought to conquer the island of Guadalupe and failed. He subsequently served as sheriff of Hispaniola and mayor of Fort Yáquimo.

Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica

In 1513, he traveled to Spain in search of a royal grant and was chosen by King Ferdinand as lieutenant governor of Jamaica and administrator of the royal estates there. While his appointment was pending, he purchased two caravels for the Jamaican service. and he prepared them in a way that suggested he was attempting a voyage of discovery.

If such was their plan, it was kept on hold while Francisco Hernández de Córdoba and Juan de Grijalva explored the southern Gulf of Mexico having left Cuba in 1517 and 1518.

Expeditions to the continent

In 1519, while Hernán Cortés sailed towards Mexico, Francisco de Garay prepared four ships with 270 men to explore the northern coasts of the gulf and placed them under the command of his naval deputy Alonso Álvarez de Pineda.

Pineda was commissioned, not only to explore and map the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, but also to try to find the northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean. Garay also instructed Pineda to intercept Hernando Cortés's expedition in Veracruz. The plan was for Pineda to take from Cortés that portion of the conquest in Mexico for Garay.

Álvarez de Pineda explored the Florida peninsula to Cortés' settlement of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. He was the first European to draw the Florida coast to Veracruz. He called this area, Amichel.

In Veracruz, the expedition encountered men under the command of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, who was preparing the assault on the Aztec empire of Moctezuma II. Cortés captured Pineda's men as soon as they disembarked and attempted to capture him as well, but the determined explorer escaped.

Pineda had no choice but to sail back north, repeating his route along the Gulf of Mexico for a period of forty days, and then sailing back to Jamaica. After informing Garay, he immediately returned to the Pánuco River to establish a colony. He there he died in 1520 in a Huasteca uprising.

Advance of Pánuco

In 1520 Francisco Garay sent another expedition under the command of Diego de Camargo to establish colonies at the mouth of the Las Palmas River. This expedition consisted of three ships, 150 foot soldiers, seven horsemen, brass cannon, construction materials, and several masons.

The expedition had to build a fort at the mouth of the Las Palmas River. From this fort, missionaries would go out to convert the native tribes, an honor that Garay felt the Indians desired and that should not be denied. Additionally, another reason for the colony was to counteract the growing influence of Cortés in Mexico. But the Indians resisted and expelled the Spanish from the region.

After enduring great suffering and losing two ships, Camargo's men finally reached Veracruz. The last of his ships sank while he was anchored in port, and the men joined Cortés's. Camargo, disillusioned with his lack of success, soon died of cold and the sickening effects of the expedition.

Garay, based on the recognition made by Álvarez de Pineda, sought royal approval to colonize Amichel. In the year 1521 he received the title of advance of Pánuco and finally, on June 14, 1523, armed with a patent from the Spanish Crown, eleven ships and 750 men, he sailed from Jamaica to renew the failed colony in the territory.

Personal expedition to the Pánuco River

In the summer of 1523, three years after Camargo was expelled, Francisco Garay himself arrived at the mouth of the river. Garay, who believed that previous expeditions sent to the area were intact and prospering, hoped to expand the Camargo fort into a colony. From this settlement on the Pánuco River, which he planned to name in his honor, Garay would claim a large area to the south.

Although Francisco de Garay never set foot in Texas, his name has often been mistakenly linked to the state's history. Deeply rooted in the historiography of the state is the misconception that he landed at the mouth of the Rio Grande (called the Rio de las Palmas) in 1523 and that he explored the river briefly before proceeding toward the Pánuco River.

In reality, after contrary winds pushed his boats more than 160 kilometers north of their original objective, Garay landed at the mouth of the Soto la Marina River, about 240 kilometers south of the Rio Grande. It was to this river that Garay gave the name by which it would be known in colonial times, Río de las Palmas.

Anchoring outside present-day Boca Chica, Garay sent a small expedition upriver to select a suitable location for his new capital and to make contact with Camargo. However, when they arrived they discovered that his predecessors were gone. Returning after four days, the exploring party had the saddest report of the suitability of the area for locating a new city, and all plans for a colony on the River of Palms were abandoned.

Interview with Hernán Cortés and death

Rejecting the advice of his officers to settle there, like Camargo before him, Garay decided to head south in order to reach Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, but he would do so by land, managing to locate himself on the shores of the Pánuco River, only to find that Hernán Cortés's men had already established control and founded a city called Santiesteban del Puerto (currently Pánuco), there the latter would share information about what was happening and assert to the people of Garay that there were great riches in a great kingdom located many leagues inland, this convinced the newcomers to join them.

Garay, faced with the desertion of his men and unable to counteract the influence of Hernán Cortés's faction, then traveled to Mexico City to have a meeting with the conquistador. Garay would be treated with hospitality, which would encourage him to try to negotiate colonization rights in the Río de las Palmas with Cortés. An agreement was reached and the two "main" They attended Christmas mass together. Shortly afterward, Garay fell ill with pneumonia and died on December 27, 1523.

Marriage and offspring

Around 1510 in Santo Domingo he married the first cousin of Governor Diego Colón, Ana Moniz de Perestrello, daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrello, 2nd Capitão Donatário of Porto Santo and Guiomar Teixeira.

After settling in Peru, Francisco and Ana had 4 children:

1. Antonio de Garay, conqueror of Peru and encomendero in Huánuco, married to Aldonza de Salcedo. With succession.
2. Bartolome de Garay, died young.
3. Garay Amador, resident in Lima.
4. Luisa de Garay and Moniz de Perestrello, married to conqueror Diego de Agüero. With succession.