Sowing Wheat and Other Merits: The First 'Black Conquistador' of the Mexican Field

Through a close reading of the rhetoric, structure, and context of the Probanza de méritos of Juan Garrido (1538), this article repositions an African-born servant who made himself indispensable to the Mexican Conquest(s). I argue that Garrido developed a hybrid identity that allowed him to live not...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hispanic review 2023-03, Vol.91 (2), p.197-219
Main Author: Velazquez, Juan Manuel Ramirez
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cities
Garrido, Juan (1480?-1550?)
Latin American history
Legal documents
Race
Rhetoric
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Through a close reading of the rhetoric, structure, and context of the Probanza de méritos of Juan Garrido (1538), this article repositions an African-born servant who made himself indispensable to the Mexican Conquest(s). I argue that Garrido developed a hybrid identity that allowed him to live not on the fringe of the Ibero-Atlantic world, but rather as an imperial agent operating at the heart of the expanding empire. Tracing how probanzas deploy rhetoric to engage in individual and collective negotiations with the Crown, demonstrating the bridge from a feudal society to an early modern state, I explore how Garrido may have understood the impact of "race" in his petition and thus reconsider blackness itself in the context of sixteenth-century colonial Mexico. Ultimately, I recast how we understand experiences of Afro-descendants in the conquest of the Americas, and how their own relationship with royal authorities reveals their agency.
ISSN:0018-2176
1553-0639
1553-0639
DOI:10.1353/hir.2023.0015