BLACK CONQUISTADORS: ARMED AFRICANS IN EARLY SPANISH AMERICA* “I, Juan Garrido, black resident [de color negro vecino] of this city [Mexico], appear before Your Mercy and state that I am in need of making a probanza to the perpetuity of the king [a perpetuad 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 [repar- timiento 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 adelan- tado Diego Velázquez; in all these ways for thirty years have I served and con- tinue 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 maize here in New Spain and to see if it took; I did this and experimented at my own expense.” 1 W hile the role of people of African descent in Latin America’s col- onization “is relatively well-known,” Peter Gerhard once noted, “it is for the most part an impersonal history.” Gerhard’s brief biographical essay on Juan Garrido, “A Black Conquistador in Mexico,” was his contribution to the personalization of black history in Spanish Amer- The Americas 57:2 October 2000, 171-205 Copyright by the Academy of American Franciscan History 171 • I am grateful to Patrick Carroll, Jane Landers, and Kris Lane for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this article. 1 The opening of Juan Garrido’s probanza (petitionary proof of merit) of September 27, 1538; Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter AGI), México 204, f.1; there is also a facsimile of this first page, and a transcription of the whole document, in Ricardo E. Alegría, Juan Garrido, el Conquistador Negro en las Antillas, Florida, México y California, c.1503-1540 (San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avan- zados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe, 1990), pp. 6, 127-38.