Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán was born ca. 1485 in Guadalajara, Spain, to an old noble family. His father was Hernán Beltrán de Guzmán, a wealthy merchant and a High Constable in the Spanish Inquisition; his mother was Doña

In 1529, Guzmán put Juan Ortiz de Matienzo in charge of the Audiencia. Then, gathering a military force of 300 to 400 discontented conquistadors and between 5,000 and 8,000

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán gave the name "Conquista del Espíritu Santo de la Mayor España" to the territories he explored and conquered. However, the queen of Spain, Joanna of Castile, mother of Charles V, did not approve of the name. By a royal decree dated January 25, 1531,

In 1525 the Spanish crown appointed him governor of the autonomous territory of Pánuco on the Gulf Coast in what is now northeast Mexico, arriving

In the years following the conquest of Central Mexico by Hernán Cortés, New Spain had been governed by a military government,

In 1531 (probably January), one of Guzmán's captains, Cristóbal de Oñate, founded a small town near Nochistlán to which the name "

Reports of Guzmán's treatment of the Indigenous had reached Mexico City and Spain, and, at Bishop Zumárraga's request the Crown sent