Gerónimo de Aguilar
Jerónimo de Aguilar
Life and career
Aguilar wound up at the colony of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, founded in Panama in 1510. Because of ongoing disputes and divisions among the leaders of the colony, in 1511 Aguilar left Panama on a caravel sailing to Santo Domingo. He took with him legal documents for a case against the other faction of the colony, as well as a large sum of gold for the proceedings. The ship sailed with a complement of sixteen men and two women. They were shipwrecked near the Yucatán Peninsula after hitting a sand bar. The crew and passengers got into a small boat, hoping to reach Cuba or Jamaica, but strong currents brought them in their ship's boat to the coast of the modern-day Mexican state of Quintana Roo.[1]: 64–65
Aguilar and 11-12 other survivors
After the conquest, Aguilar became a vecino (resident) of Mexico City. For his contributions, he was awarded two encomiendas by Alonso de Estrada in 1526. He died in 1531 without heirs and his encomiendas reverted to the Crown.[4] His house in Mexico City later became the site of the first printing press to operate in the New World.[5]
See also
- Hernán Cortés
- Franciscans
- Gonzalo Guerrero
- La Malinche
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
- Spanish conquest of Yucatán#First encounters: 1502 and 1511
References
- ^ ISBN 0140441239
- ISBN 978-0-486-23622-3.
- Hugh Thomas(1993). Conquest. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
- OCLC 22239892.
- ^ "Casa de a la Primera Imprenta de America" (in Spanish). May 2002. Archived from the original on 2009-11-25. Retrieved 2009-03-25.