Nicolás de Ovando
Nicolás de Ovando | |
---|---|
3rd Governor of the Indies | |
In office 3 September 1501 – 1509 | |
Appointed by | Isabella I of Castile |
Preceded by | Francisco de Bobadilla |
Succeeded by | Diego Columbus |
Personal details | |
Born | 1460 Brozas, Crown of Castile |
Died | 29 May 1511 (aged 50-51) Seville, Crown of Castile |
Resting place | Church of San Benito de Alcántara |
Frey Nicolás de Ovando (c. 1460 – 29 May 1511
Early life
Nicolás de Ovando was born around 1460 in Extremadura. Some place his birth in Brozas but Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo knew him well and said he was a native of the city of Cáceres. Belonging to a distinguished family, he was the second son of Captain Diego de Cáceres Ovando and his wife Isabel Flores, a native of the town of Brozas.[1]
Ovando entered the military Order of Alcántara, where he became a Master (Mestre or Maitre) or a Commander-Major (Comendador-Mayor). This Spanish military order, founded in 1156, resembled the Order of Templars, with whom it fought the Moors during the Reconquista. His elder brother was Diego de Cáceres y Ovando.
His Selection as Governor
As
His Expedition to the Americas
On 13 February 1502, he sailed from Spain with a fleet of thirty ships.[4] It was the largest fleet that had ever sailed to the New World.
The thirty ships carried around 2 500 colonists.[5] Unlike Columbus's earlier voyages, this group of colonists was deliberately selected to represent an organized cross-section of Spanish society. The Spanish Crown intended to develop the West Indies economically and thereby expand Spanish political, religious, and administrative influence in the region. Along with him also came Francisco Pizarro, who would later explore western South America and conquer the Inca Empire. Another ship carried Bartolomé de las Casas, who became known as the 'Protector of the Indians' for exposing atrocities committed by Ovando and his subordinates. Hernán Cortés, a family acquaintance and distant relative, was supposed to sail to the Americas in this expedition, but was prevented from making the journey by an injury he sustained while hurriedly escaping from the bedroom of a married woman of Medellín.[6]
The expedition reached
His Administration
When Ovando arrived in Hispaniola in 1502, he found the once-peaceful natives in revolt. Ovando and his subordinates ruthlessly suppressed this rebellion through a series of bloody campaigns, including the
After the conquests made by his lieutenants including
Pursuant to a deathbed promise he made to his wife Queen Isabella I, King Ferdinand II of Aragon recalled Ovando to Spain in 1509 to answer for his treatment of the native people. Diego Columbus was appointed his successor as governor, but the Spanish Crown permitted Ovando to retain possession of the property he brought back from the Americas.
Later years
Little is known of Ovando's activities after his return to Spain in 1509. He probably spent much of his time in the town of Brozas, the headquarters of the Order of Alcántara. In February 1511 Ferdinand ordered Ovando to accompany him on a campaign against Oran, in North Africa. The expedition never took place but Ovando was present at a general meeting of his order in Seville at the beginning of May. On 29 May 1511 Ovando died in Seville. His body was transferred to the monastery of San Benito de Alcántara. In his will he founded a chapel and requested the friars to say a Requiem Mass every week.[1]
See also
- Colony of Santo Domingo
- People from the Colony of Santo Domingo
- Spanish Empire
- Spanish West Indies
- Viceroyalty of New Spain
References
- ^ a b c Marquez.
- ^ Some sources place his death in 1518.
- ^ Cook 2008.
- ^ D. H. Figueredo,"Latino Chronology: Chronologies of the American Mosaic", pg 14, 2007
- ^ "Latino Chronology: Chronologies of the American Mosaic"
- ^ Ovando made Hernán Cortés a notary and awarded him a land grant nonetheless. This started Cortés' career as a conquistador.
- ^ Rainsford 2013.
- ^ Karen Anderson Córdova (1990). Hispaniola and Puerto Rico: Indian Acculturation and Heterogeneity, 1492–1550 (PhD dissertation). Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International.
Bibliography
- Altman, Ida (2021). Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean : the Greater Antilles, 1493-1550. Baton Rouge. OCLC 1237649719.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Cook, Noble David (2008). "Ovando, Nicolas de". In Kinsbruner, Jay (ed.). Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-31590-4.
- Floyd, Troy S. (1973). The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. OCLC 790464.
- Lamb, Ursula (1956). Frey Nicolás de Ovando, Governador de Indias, 1501-1509.
- Lamb, Ursula (1992). "Ovando, Nicolás de". The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 527–528.
- Marquez, Luis Arranz. "Nicholas de Ovando". Real Academia de la Historia (in Spanish).
- Sauer, Carl Ortwin (1966). The Early Spanish Main. University of California Press.
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1891). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
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External links
- The Louverture Project: Nicolás de Ovando - Article from Haitian history wiki