Juan Garrido

Juan Garrido (c. 1480 – c. 1550 ) was an Afro-Spaniard conquistador known as the first documented black person in what would become the United States. Born in West Africa, he went to Portugal as a young man. In converting to Catholicism, he chose the Spanish name Juan Garrido.

Juan Garrido joined a Spanish expedition and arrived in Santo Domingo (Hispaniola) about 1502. He participated in the conquest of present-day Puerto Rico and Cuba in 1508. In 1513, as part of Juan Ponce de León's entourage in search of gold, the expedition landed in Florida. He is the first known African to arrive in North America. By 1519, he had joined Cortes's forces and invaded present-day Mexico, participating in the siege of Tenochtitlan. He married and settled in Mexico City, where he was the first known farmer to have sowed wheat in America. He continued to serve with Spanish forces for more than 30 years, including expeditions to western Mexico and to the Pacific.

Other black conquistadors included Estevanico, Juan de Villanueva, Beatriz de Palacios, Juan Valiente, Juan Beltrán, Pedro Fulupo, Juan Bardales and Antonio Pérez.

Biography
Garrido was born in West Africa in about 1480, and came to Portugal as a youth. When baptized, he took the name Juan Garrido. He went to Seville, where he joined an expedition to the New World, possibly traveling in assistance to Pedro Garrido's.

Arriving in Santo Domingo in 1502 or 1503, Garrido was among the earliest Africans to reach the Americas. He was one of numerous Africans or possibly a "freedman" who had joined expeditions from Seville to the Americas. From the beginning of Spanish presence in the Americas, Africans participated as voluntary expeditionaries, conquistadors, and auxiliaries.

By 1519, Garrido participated in the expedition led by Hernán Cortés to Mexico, where they lay siege to Tenochtitlan. In 1520, he built a chapel to commemorate the many Spanish killed in battle that year by the Aztecs. It now stands as the Church of San Hipólito. Garrido married and settled in Mexico City, where he and his wife had three children. Restall (2000) credits him with the first harvesting of wheat planted in New Spain.

Garrido and other blacks were also part of expeditions to Michoacán in the 1520s. Nuño de Guzmán swept through that region in 1529–30 with the aid of black auxiliaries.

In 1538, hoping for some rewards or benefits for his 30 years of service as a conquistador, Garrido provided following testimony to the King of Spain, requesting a royal pension: "'I, Juan Garrido, black in color, resident of this city [Mexico], appear before Your Mercy and state that I am in need of providing evidence to the perpetuity of the king [a perpetuidad rey], a report on how I served Your Majesty in the conquest and pacification of this New Spain, from the time when the Marqués del Valle [Cortés] entered it; and in his company I was present at all the invasions and conquests and pacifications which were carried out, always with the said Marqués, all of which I did at my own expense without being given either salary or allotment of natives [repartimiento de indios] or anything else. As I am married and a resident of this city, where I have always lived; and also as I went with the Marqués del Valle to discover the islands which are in that part of the southern sea [the Pacific] where there was much hunger and privation; and also as I went to discover and pacify the islands of San Juan de Buriquén de Puerto Rico; and also as I went on the pacification and conquest of the island of Cuba with the adelantado Diego Velázquez; in all these ways for thirty years have I served and continue to serve Your Majesty—for these reasons stated above do I petition Your Mercy. And also because I was the first to have the inspiration to sow wheat here in New Spain and to see if it took; I did this and experimented at my own expense. '"

Garrido's letter had the desired effect as he was compensated for his services with land and money.