Diego de Montemayor, governor of Nuevo León from 1588, establishes the city of Monterrey as the provincial capital on September 20, 1596.
The establishment is officially called Ciudad Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey ("Metropolitan City of Our Lady of Monterrey," partly to curry favor from the Viceroy, Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey.
Montemayor's founding is the third effort.
The two previous ones had borne the names Santa Lucia and San Luis Rey de Francia and were headed by Alberto del Canto, the future arch-enemy of Montemayor, and the second by Luis de Carabajal y Cueva.
Montemayor brings forty people with him from Saltillo to populate Monterrey, mostly of Jewish descent--nine married couples, three men without families, fourteen boys, four girls, and one Indian named Domingo Manuel.
Montemayor, who is likely of Sephardic Jewish descent, has married three times.
His wives are Inez Rodriguez, who had come with him from Spain to the New World in 1548, Maria de Esquivel, and Juana Porcalla de la Cerda.
Montemayor has three children, one from each of his wives.
His children are Inez, Diego, and Estefania.
During the Chichimeca War in 1550, Montemayor had often been away from his third wife, Juana Porcalla de la Cerda, and her attention had soon focused on Alberto del Canto, only a few years her elder.
When Montemayor later confronted her about the ongoing affair, an argument ensued, he drew his sword and killed her.
Montemayor had fled into the wilderness to the north, but was eventually cleared of all charges (perhaps because a law at this time allows a man to kill his unfaithful wife).
His daughter with Juana Porcalla, Estefania, later married Alberto del Canto and had three children with him, though the two separate in 1596.
Estefania moves back to Monterrey with her father, and her children take the last name of Montemayor.
Montemayor is never to meet his vow to kill Alberto del Canto.
Monterrey today has the second largest metropolitan area in Mexico, after Mexico City, and is the country's third most populous city after Mexico City and Guadalajara.
