Juan de Oñate

Juan de Oñate
Oñate Monument Center, Alcalde, NM
1st Spanish Governor of New Mexico
In office November 1598 – 18 April 1608
Succeeded by	Cristóbal de Oñate (son)
Personal details
Born	1550 Zacatecas in modern-day Mexico
Died	"on or about June 3" 1626 (aged 76) Guadalcanal, Seville, Spain
Occupation	explorer and governor of New Mexico
Signature

Juan de Oñate y Salazar (1550–1626) was a conquistador from New Spain, explorer, and colonial governor of the Santa Fe de Nuevo México province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He led early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and Lower Colorado River Valley, encountering numerous indigenous tribes in their homelands there. Oñate founded settlements in the province, now part of the present-day American Southwest.

Oñate was born either in 1550 or 1552, at Zacatecas in New Spain (colonial México) to a family of Spanish-Basque colonists and silver mine owners. His father was the conquistador and silver baron Cristóbal de Oñate, a descendant of the noble house of Haro. His mother was Doña Catalina Salazar y de la Cadena who was a descendant by her maternal line of a famous Jewish converso family, the Ha-Levi's. His ancestor Cadena fought in the 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in Al-Andalus, and was the first to break through the line of defense protecting Mohammad Ben Yacub. The family was granted a coat of arms, and thereafter were known as "Cadenas".

Juan de Oñate married Isabel de Tolosa Cortés de Moctezuma, granddaughter of Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of the Triple Alliance, and the great-granddaughter of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma Xocoyotzin.