Juan Garrido c. 1480 - c. 1550) was an African conquistador, born in the Kingdom of Kongo. Mwisi Kongo or Kongolese by birth, he went to Portugal as a young man. In converting to Catholicism, he chose the Spanish name, Juan Garrido. Juan Garrido joined a Spanish expedition and arrived in Santo Domingo about 1502. He participated in the invasion of present-day Puerto Rico and Cuba in 1508. By 1519, he had joined Cortes' forces and invaded present-day Mexico, participating in the siege ofTenochtitlan. He married and settled in Mexico City, where he was the first known farmer to have sowed wheat in America. He continued to serve with Spanish forces for more than 30 years, including expeditions to western Mexico and to the Pacific.
Born in the Kingdom of Kongo or "Kongo dia Ntotila" in Kikongo language, he went to Portugal as a youth. When baptized, he took the name Juan Garrido. He went to Seville, where he joined an expedition to the New World, possibly traveling in assistance to Pedro Garrido's. Arriving in Santo Domingo in 1502 or 1503, Garrido was among the earliest Africans to reach the Americas. He was one of numerous Africans or possibly a "freedman" who had joined expeditions from Seville to the Americas. From the beginning of Spanish presence in the Americas, Africans participated as voluntary expeditionaries, conquistadors and auxiliaries. By 1519 Garrido participated in the expedition led by Hernán Cortés to Mexico, where they lay siege to Tenochtitlan. In 1520 he built a chapel to commemorate the many Spanish killed in battle that year by the Aztecs. Garrido married and settled in Mexico City, where he and his wife had three children. Restall credits him with the first harvesting of wheat planted in New Spain. Garrido and other blacks were also part of expeditions to Michoacán in the 1520s. Nuño de Guzmán swept through that region in 1529-30 with the aid of black auxiliaries. In 1538, Garrido provided testimony on his 30 years of service as a conquistador
