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Concept
Antonio de Mendoza
Summary
Antonio de Mendoza (1495 – 21 July 1552) was a Spanish colonial administrator who was the first viceroy of New Spain, serving from 14 November 1535 to 25 November 1550, and the third viceroy of Peru, from 23 September 1551, until his death on 21 July 1552.
Mendoza was born at Alcalá la Real (Jaén, Spain), the son of the 2nd Count of Tendilla, Íñigo López de Mendoza y Quiñones, and Francisca Pacheco. He was married to María Ana de Trujillo de Mendoza.
Mendoza became Viceroy of New Spain in 1535 and governed for 15 years, longer than any subsequent viceroy. On his arrival in New Spain, he found a recently conquered territory beset with Indigenous unrest and rivalry among the Spanish conquerors and Spanish settlers. His difficult assignment was to govern in the king's name without making an enemy of Hernán Cortés. Cortés himself had expected to be made the permanent ruling crown official of New Spain, since he had led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The Emperor Charles V (King Charles I of Spain) and the Council of the Indies judged Cortés too independent of crown authority to be made viceroy and had created a high court (audiencia) in New Spain in 1528, appointing Nuño de Guzmán, a rival of Cortés as its president to counter Cortés's power. In 1530 the crown granted Cortés the title of the Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca with multiple encomiendas. With the arrival of Viceroy Mendoza in 1535, Cortés pursued his own economic interests from his palace in Cuernavaca.
Although the Spanish had occupied and expanded explorations, conquest, and settlement in the Caribbean, it was not until the conquest of central Mexico that the crown appointed a viceroy (vice king), who would be the king's living image in Mexico and envisioned to effectively assert royal authority in the Kingdom of New Spain. To further cement his authority and establish a solid society he established marital alliances with powerful settlers committed to the development of New Spain, such as Marina de la Caballería.
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