GARRIDO, JUAN (aka “Handsome John,” c. 1480 – c. 1550), African conquistador who took part in the expeditions and campaigns of Hernán Cortés and Juan Ponce de León and is the first known Black person to ever set foot in North America.
Born in West Africa, he migrated to Portugal in his youth, embracing Christianity and assuming the name Juan Garrido, meaning “Handsome John.” Around 1502 he set sail for the New World, landing in Hispaniola (the island that today comprises the Dominican Republic and Haiti).
In 1519 Garrido joined up with Cortés during his invasion of Mexico and the siege of Tenochtitlán, the seat of the Aztec Empire. The presence of a free African amongst the Spanish conquistadors would have been highly unusual; though a contemporary witness reports that three hundred Africans accompanied Cortés on the expedition, most if not all would surely have been slaves. Garrido distinguished himself during the battle by returning to the fray to recover the fallen bodies of his comrades, and afterward he erected the Church of San Hipólito to commemorate their sacrifice.
In recognition of his service Garrido was granted property on a dried-out lake bed in the vicinity of Tenochtitlán (renamed Mexico City by the Spanish) and transitioned to agriculture, becoming one of the first wheat cultivators in the Americas. A few years later he was assigned a house within the city limits, where he settled with his wife and children and fulfilled various roles in the city, including doorkeeper of the city council and caretaker of the Chapultepec aqueduct.
In 1521 Garrido accompanied Ponce de León on his expedition to Florida to subdue the Indigenous population and establish settlements, making him almost surely the first African to set foot in North America. However, their efforts were thwarted by Native American resistance and they were forced to retreat. Garrido returned to Mexico City, only to strike out on his own again after becoming embroiled in the factional strife roiling the capital. By spring 1528 he had acquired a group of slaves and mining equipment on credit and was reportedly in the province of Zacatula hunting for gold, though without much success: soon he was back in Mexico City and in debt.
Garrido participated in Cortés’ final major venture, the disastrous attempt to conquer the “island” of Lower California (actually the southern tip of Baja California) in 1535. The expedition encountered logistical difficulties at every turn, and within a year Garrido had to return once again to Mexico City.
Little is known about the final decade of Garrido’s life after his career as an adventurer; in official documents dating between 1647 and 1650 he is mentioned as having already died.