Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán was born around 1485 in Guadalajara, Spain, to an old noble family.

His father was Hernán Beltrán de Guzmán, a wealthy merchant and a High Constable in the Spanish Inquisition; his mother was Doña Magdalena de Guzmán.

The Guzmán family had supported Prince Charles in the Revolt of the Comuneros and achieved gratitude of the later Emperor.

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán had received some education in law, but had never completed a degree.

For a period he and his younger brother served as one of one hundred royal bodyguards of Carlos V: he had accompanied the Emperor on a trip to Flanders in 1522 and had undertaken sensitive diplomatic missions, including one dealing with the Bishop of Cuenca (Spain).

In 1525 the Spanish crown had appointed him governor of the autonomous territory of Pánuco on the Gulf Coast in what is now northeast Mexico.

He had traveled with Luís Ponce de Leon and arrived in Hispaniola in 1526, but here he fell sick and had not not arrived in Mexico until May 1527, immediately assuming his post.

Cortés had already extended his reach into Pánuco, so that Guzmán's appointment was a direct challenge.

His appointment had been opposed by the pro-Cortés faction of the struggle for power in early colonial Mexico, who view him as an outsider with no military experience, but he has the support of the Council of Indies and the Spanish Crown, who see in him a counterbalance to the figure of Cortés, whose aspirations to power worry the King of Spain.

Guzmán's appointment has given heart to Spanish conquerors who have not received what they consider sufficient rewards from Cortés's distribution of encomiendas and to Spanish settlers who had not participated in the conquest but see their paths to position and wealth blocked by the Cortés faction.

Guzmán's rule as a governor of Pánuco is stern against Spanish rivals and brutal against the Indians.

He strikes down harshly against Cortés's supporters in Pánuco, accusing some of them of disloyalty to the Crown by backing Cortés's claim to the title of viceroy, some are stripped of their property, others are tried and executed.

He also incorporates territory from adjacent provinces into the province of Pánuco.

These actions bring New Spain to the brink of civil war between Guzmán and supporters of Cortés, led by Governor of New Spain Alonso Estrada, when Estrada sent an expedition to reclaim the lands expropriated by Guzmán.

As governor, Guzmán has instituted a system of Indian slave trade in Pánuco.

During a raid along Río de Las Palmas in 1528 he allows every horseman to enslave twenty Indian slaves and each footman fifteen.

Enslaved Indians are branded on the face.

Enslaving Indians had not been explicitly outlawed in the period before 1528.

Beginning in 1528, Indian slaving operations come under increased royal control but are not prohibited.

The regulations of September 19, 1528, require slave owners to present proof of the legality of the taking of any slaves before branding.

New Spain in the years following the conquest of Central Mexico by Hernán Cortés had been governed by a military government, generally with the objectives of maximizing personal economic gains by the Spanish conquistadors.

The metropolitan government of Charles V in Burgos, hoping to establish a more orderly government, to reduce the authority of Cortés, and to secure the authority of the Spanish crown in the New World, had on December 13, 1527 named the Real Audiencia de México to take over the government of the colony.

This Audiencia consists of a president and four oidores (judges).

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán had been named president.

His oidores were Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, Diego Delgadillo, Diego Maldonado and Alonso de Parada; these two last had fallen sick during the voyage to New Spain and died shortly after arrival.

At the time Guzmán was serving as governor of Pánuco, so Charles had ordered the judges to assemble in Veracruz and from there make a joint entrance into the capital.

The four from Spain, however, had not waited for the arrival of Guzmán, and proceeded directly to the capital.

They arrived on December 8, 1528, taking over the government on the following day.

They had been given a splendid reception by the city government.

Guzmán had arrived a few days after the others; the Franciscan cleric Juan de Zumárraga had arrived in the capital only a few days before the oidores, with the title of bishop-elect and protector and defender of the Indians.

The instructions given to the Audiencia included a recommendation for good treatment of the indigenous people and a directive that the investigation into the conduct of Cortés and his associates Pedro de Alvarado, Alonso de Estrada, Rodrigo de Albornoz, Gonzalo de Salazar and Pedro Almíndez Chirino be concluded within ninety days.

Most of these associates had participated in the government in the preceding few years while Cortés was in Honduras, with a lot of infighting among themselves and injustices to the population, both Spanish and indigenous.

Cortés himself is currently in Spain, where he is defending his conduct and appealing his loss of authority to Charles.

Cortés has had some success with his appeal, being named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca and receiving some other honors.

Nevertheless, Guzmán is now in charge in New Spain.

Among his official acts is the placement of plaques bearing the royal coat of arms on the principal buildings of the capital, to stress that sovereignty resides in the king, not in Cortés.

He has Pedro de Alvarado arrested for questioning the loyalty of Gonzalo de Salazar.

There is already some animosity between Cortés and Guzmán, because the former had been reluctant to recognize the latter as governor of Pánuco.

Subsequent events make the two enemies.

The Audiencia has also banned direct communication with the court in Spain.

This is so effective that Bishop Zumárraga feels the necessity of hiding a letter sealed in wax in a cask, to be smuggled to the Spanish authorities by a confederate sailor.

Guzman gives out individual slaving permissions in 1529 amounting to more than a thousand slaves.

Initially Guzmán does not allow Spaniards to sell slaves for export except in exchange for livestock, but later he gives more than fifteen hundred slave licenses (each permitting the capture and enslavement of between fifteen and fifty Indians) in an eight-month period.

In spite of his lack of success as governor, he is appointed President of the First Audiencia, which the Council of the Indies and the Crown has instated to check the ventures of Cortés and other industrious private individuals in New Spain.

Guzmán now expands his slaving operation in Pánuco, arranging to have Indian slaves smuggled into Pánuco and shipped on to the Caribbean.

Juan de Zumárraga, born in 1468 of a noble family, in Durango in the Biscay province in Spain, had entered the Franciscan Order, and in 1527 was custodian of the convent of Abrojo.

Shortly afterwards he was appointed one of the judges of the court for the examination of witches in the Basque province.

From his writings it would appear that he looked upon witches merely as women possessed of hallucinations.

By this time more detailed accounts of the importance of the conquest of Hernán Cortés had begun to be received, and on December 20, 1527, Zumárraga was recommended by Charles V for the post of first bishop of Mexico.

Without having been consecrated and with only the title of bishop-elect and Protector of the Indians, he, accompanied by Andrés de Olmos, had left Spain with the first civil officials, auditors (oidores), towards the end of August 1528, and reached Mexico on December 6.

Thirteen days after, two auditors, Alonso de Parada and Diego Maldonado, persons of years and experience, died.

Their companions, Juan Ortiz de Matienzo and Diego Delgadillo, have assumed their authority, which is also shared by Nuño de Guzmán, who had come from his territories in the Pánuco Valley.

Their administration is one of the most disastrous epochs in New Spain and one of great difficulty for Zumárraga.

During the court case against Cortés in 1529, Guzmán accuses Cortés himself of being a traitor and a rebel.

Zumárraga, who had traveled with Guzmán to Hispaniola, in turn accuses Guzmán of having been a sworn enemy of Cortés even before setting foot in New Spain.

Meanwhile, news reaches Mexico that Cortés has been well received at the Spanish court and is about to return to New Spain.

Fearful of the consequences, Guzmán puts Ortiz de Matienzo in charge of the Audiencia.

Then, gathering a military force of three hundred to four hundred discontented conquistadors and between five thousand and eight thousand indigenous Nahua allies, Guzmán sets out on December 21, 1529, to the west of Mexico City to conquer lands and peoples who have so far resisted the conquest.

Among the officers on this expedition is Pedro Almíndez Chirino.

Guzmán has heard from a native source that wealthy tribes to the north, or maybe the northeast, live in seven cities, each as big as Tenochtitlán.

There, supposedly, even the common people cook their food in silver pots.

He proceeds in 1530 to launch a fierce campaign into the Chichimec lands in the province that is to become known as Nueva Galicia.

He names the main city founded in the area Villa de Guadalajara after his birthplace and calls the area he conquers the sonorous "la Conquista del Espíritu Santo de la Mayor España" ("The Conquest of the Holy Spirit of Greater Spain").

The name is not approved.

Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, born in Cuenca, to a family of the hidalgo class, had entered the University of Valladolid at the age of sixteen, where he received a degree in canon law.

In 1520 he became inquisitor of Seville, and was later a member of the Royal Chancery of Granada.

He had been named bishop of Santo Domingo and president of its Audiencia, occupying this position from 1528.

In Hispaniola, he punishes mistreatment of the Indians, reorganizes the treasury, and faces the rebellion of Enriquillo in Bahoruco.

He has built schools, established villages and constructed public works.

He pays particular attention to mining, and to the rights of the Indians.

At this time the African slave trade to Hispaniola and Cuba is just beginning, in order to supply labor for the mines and for sugar production.

Bishop Ramírez does not oppose this slave trade, which is considered necessary at the time.

He does oppose monopolies in the slave trade that lead to inflated prices.

The Second Audiencia (high court) of New Spain is named in a royal decree dated January 12, 1530, following the disastrous First Audiencia of Nuño de Guzmán.

Until the establishment of the viceroyalty of New Spain, the high court will be the highest authority in New Spain.

It includes Bishop Ramírez de Fuenleal as president and Juan de Salmerón, Alonso de Maldonado, Francisco Ceinos and Vasco de Quiroga as oidores (judges).

These individuals had been nominated by the bishop of Badajoz, who is also president of the Chancery of Valladolid.

In contrast to the members of the first Audiencia, all of these men are honest, honorable and capable.

All hold the academic degree of licentiate (licenciado).

The nominated oidores are located in various parts of Spain at the time; Ramírez de Fuenleal is in Santo Domingo.

The king has directed that whoever among them arrives first in New Spain should begin immediately to govern.

Guzmán and his force of several thousand men, in search for new populations to subdue, arrives in the Tarascan state, which largely coincides with the modern state of Michoacán, and finds that the de facto ruler of is still Tangáxuan II.

Tangáxuan II, after hearing about the fall of the Aztec Empire, had sent emissaries to the Spanish victors.

A few Spaniards had gone with them to Tzintzuntzan, where they were presented to the ruler and gifts were exchanged.

The samples of gold they carried back had awakened Cortés' interest in the Tarascan state.

A Spanish force under the leadership of Cristobal de Olid had been sent into Tarascan territory in 1522 and arrived at Tzintzuntzan within days.

The Tarascan army numbered many thousands, perhaps as many as one hundred thousand, but at the crucial moment they chose not to fight.

Tangáxuan had submitted to the Spanish administration, but for his cooperation is allowed a large degree of autonomy.

This has resulted in a strange arrangement for the past several years in which both Cortés and Tangáxuan consider themselves rulers of Michoacán: the population of the area pays tribute to them both.

Tangáxuan gives Guzmán presents of gold and silver and supplies him with soldiers and provisions.

Nevertheless, Guzmán allies himself with a Tarascan noble, Don Pedro Panza Cuinierángari, against the Cazonci.

Guzmán has him arrested on charges of plotting a rebellion, withholding tribute, sodomy and heresy.

He is tortured in order that he reveal the location of hidden stores of gold.

Presumably there is no more gold, as Tangáxuan does not reveal its whereabouts under torture.

Guzmán has him dragged by a horse, then burned alive.

His ashes are thrown into the Lerma river, and a period of violence and turbulence begins.

Tarascan puppet rulers will be installed by the Spanish government in the ensuing decades.

The remaining auditors retain power and continue their outrages.

In the early part of 1530, they drag from a church a priest and a former servant of Cortés, accused of grave crimes, quarter the priest and torture his servant.

The actions of the Audiencia attract the attention of Juan de Zumárraga, bishop-elect of Mexico, who puts it under an ecclesiastical interdiction for violation of sanctuary on March 7, 1530, and the Franciscans retires to Texcoco.

At Easter the interdict was lifted, but the auditors are excommunicated for a year.

Cortés, now titled Captain General of New Spain, reaches Vera Cruz on July 15, 1530, having failed to regain his governorship but having been confirmed in his vast estates and his military command.

The Crown has appointed new auditors, among them Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, Bishop of Santo Domingo, and the lawyer Vasco de Quiroga, who will later become the first Bishop of Michoacán.

Although Zumárraga is appointed bishop on August 20, 1530.

As Protector of the Indians, Zumárraga endeavors to defend them.

His position is a critical one; the Spanish monarchy has defined neither the extent of his jurisdiction nor his duties as Protector of the Indians.

Moreover, he has not received official consecration as bishop, and was thus at a disadvantage when he attempted to exercise his authority.

The Indians appeal to him as protector with all manner of complaints.

His own Franciscans, who have so long labored for the welfare of the Indians, press him to put an end to the excesses of the auditors.

It is clear that he must have had an open conflict with the civil officials of the colony, relying only on his spiritual prerogatives, which command no respect from these immoral and unprincipled men.

Some members of other religious orders, perhaps envious of the influence of the Franciscans, uphold the persecution of the Indians.

Bishop Zumárraga attempts to notify the Spanish court of the course of events, but the auditors have established a successful censorship of all letters and communications from New Spain.

Finally, a Biscayne sailor conceals a letter in a cake of wax that he immerses in a barrel of oil.

In December of the same year, the new Audiencia, the ensemble of auditors, reaches Mexico, and with them, an era of peace for both Zumárraga and the Indians.

Matienzo and Delgadillo are sent to Spain as prisoners, but Nuño de Guzmán escapes, being absent in Sinaloa.

Guzmán returns to Tepic, where he sets up his headquarters, sending out new expeditions from there.

One of these founds the cities of …

…Santiago de Galicia de Compostela and …