Conquistador Antonio de Carvajal was a native of the city of Zamora, Spain (see my four-part blog series  on his life). In 1616, his grandson Juan de Cervantes Casaus, the son of Gonzalo Gómez de Cervantes and Catalina de Tapia Carvajal, applied to become a Knight of the Order of Santiago, a prestigious military order. As part of the application process, officials investigated his limpieza de sangre  (“cleanliness” of his lineage) to ensure neither he nor his ancestors were M

After Antonio de Carvajal's return to Mexico City, he continued serving as a procurador  and was elected to one of the two alcalde ordinario positions on 1 January 1533. The second audiencia of New Spain began governing on 12 January 1531, introducing a number of reforms that the conquistadors resented and opposed. The city council wrote a letter to the king on 6 May 1534 with a long list of complaints, denouncing the “bad governance” of the second audiencia . The document wa

I have translated the full royal decree granting Antonio de Carvajal, conquistador of Mexico City, a coat of arms on 22 September 1530....

Apprised of the death of Ponce de León, the king appointed Nuño de Guzmán as the president of the first real audiencia  of New Spain,...

After completing his visit of Michoacán, Antonio de Carvajal resided in Mexico City during the turbulent government of the four royal...

Antonio de Carvajal, a native of Zamora in Castilla-León, arrived in Hispaniola in July 1509 at the age of sixteen.

Fernando Cortés returned to Mexico City from Honduras in 1526 and the political tides turned in his favor. The officials who were...

While researching the legacy and lineage of Conquistador Alonso de Benavides , I unearthed information about the family of his son-in-law, Antonio Ruiz de Castañeda. Antonio’s father Juan Ruiz, my 14x-great-grandfather, was also a conquistador. At the age of sixteen, [i] he departed Spain for the “New World” of the Caribbean Indies on 26 August 1513, just two years after the conquest of Cuba. The record of passage indicates he was from Alanís (a town about 60 miles NNE of Se

After Fernando Cortés and his army fled from Tenochtitlan during the Noche Triste , they encamped at Tepeaca, where Cortés drafted...

Antonia de Benavides represented the branch of the Benavides family that remained in Mexico. She and her husband Antonio Ruiz de...

A contemporary historian of the era, Peter Martyr d'Anghiera , foreshadowed the capture of the valuable shipment by the French. He...

Alonso de Benavides was a Spanish nobleman, soldier and smelter (fundidor) who departed Spain for the “New World” of the Caribbean Indies on 17 February 1517.