Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar
Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIE : Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar
- For the Spanish painter, see Diego Velázquez.
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (
1465,
Cuéllar,
Spain – ca.
June 12,
1524,
Santiago de Cuba) was a Spanish
conquistador. He conquered and governed
Cuba for Spain.
Diego Velázquez's house in Santiago de Cuba
Diego Velázquez was born in Cuéllar, in the
Segovia region of Spain. He first visited the
New World with the crew of
Christopher Columbus in
1493. He settled in
Hispaniola, then was active in leading the conquest of
Cuba in
1511. He founded a number of new Spanish settlements and cities on the island, most notably
Santiago de Cuba in
1514 and
Havana in
1515. Velázquez was appointed governor of Cuba. He authorized various expeditions to explore lands further west, including the
1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba expedition to
Yucatán (
see: Spanish Conquest of Yucatán). He initially backed
Hernán Cortés's famous expedition to
Mexico, but when Cortés tried to seize and claim Mexico for himself, Velázquez charged Cortés with exceeding his authority and ordered
Pánfilo de Narváez to arrest him. Narvaez's troops were defeated by Cortés in a surprise attack and the survivors were persuaded to join Cortés. Thus, Velázquez saw none of the riches which came from Mexico. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar died in
Santiago de Cuba in 1524.
See also
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
