Juan de Garay

Juan de Garay (* 1528 in Orduna, † 1583 in Argentina ) was a conquistador of Basque descent. He worked and fought for the colonial aspirations of the Spanish royal family in South America, first of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and thereafter for the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. He was governor of Asunción, in what is now Paraguay, and founded a number of cities in Argentina, this includes the second founding of Buenos Aires in 1580.

Life

Juan de Garay was born in 1528 Orduna, in the Basque Country. 1543 he sailed with his uncle Pedro de Zárate on the first expedition of the viceroy Blasco Nunes Vela to Peru. 1561 he participated in the founding of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 1568 moved Garay to Asunción, where he took a political office. The governor of Asunción sent him in April 1573 with a company of 80 men on an expedition of the Paraná River, on the Garay the city of Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz, now known as Santa Fe, founded. 1576 Garay was promoted to governor of Asunción. He founded villages, set up local governments and enacted laws on the local population.

On July 11, 1580 Garay founded again the city of Buenos Aires, which had been founded in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza on the banks of the Río de la Plata, but later destroyed by locals. He landed there, what is now the Plaza de Mayo, calling the city first Santisima Trinidad and its port of Santa María de los Buenos Ayres. This is followed today is a memorial opposite the Casa Rosada.

Garay died on March 20, 1583 near the Río de la Plata, as he was traveling from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe. With his company of 40 men, a Franciscan monk and some women he stayed on the banks of the Río Carcarañá, near the Fort of Sancti Spiritus, as the indigenous group were attacked by the tribe of the Querandí that Garay, the monk, 12 soldiers and a woman killed. Garay was survived by his daughter Jerónima de Contreras, who later Hernando Arias de Saavedra married.

The name Juan de Garay led from 1927 a destroyer of the Argentine Navy.