Juan de Quevedo (Bejori, c. 1450 -
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
, December 24, 1519) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
priest and bishop. His antecedents are unknown.
At the request of
King FerdinandFerdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, de jure uxoris King of Castile and then Regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of his mentally unstable daughter Joanna the...
, husband of Queen Isabella, Pope Leo X, on August 28, 1513, appointed Quevedo bishop of Santa Maria de la Antigua, or
DarienDarién is a province in eastern Panama. It is also the largest province in Panama. It is hot, humid, heavily forested, and sparsely populated....
, on the
IsthmusThe Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It was formed some 3 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch. It contains the country of Panama and...
, and he thus became the first bishop on the mainland of America. Accompanied by several Franciscans, Bishop Quevedo on April 12, 1514, embarked at San Lucar with
Pedrarias DávilaPedrarias Dávila , was a Spanish colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition in the New World....
, who had been named governor of Darien.
Juan de Quevedo (Bejori, c. 1450 -
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
, December 24, 1519) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
priest and bishop. His antecedents are unknown.
At the request of
King FerdinandFerdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, de jure uxoris King of Castile and then Regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of his mentally unstable daughter Joanna the...
, husband of Queen Isabella, Pope Leo X, on August 28, 1513, appointed Quevedo bishop of Santa Maria de la Antigua, or
DarienDarién is a province in eastern Panama. It is also the largest province in Panama. It is hot, humid, heavily forested, and sparsely populated....
, on the
IsthmusThe Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It was formed some 3 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch. It contains the country of Panama and...
, and he thus became the first bishop on the mainland of America. Accompanied by several Franciscans, Bishop Quevedo on April 12, 1514, embarked at San Lucar with
Pedrarias DávilaPedrarias Dávila , was a Spanish colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition in the New World....
, who had been named governor of Darien. The expedition reached its destination June 30. Conflict between Quevedo and Pedrarias soon ensued. The bishop reacted strongly against cruel acts committed by the governor and his officers, not only against the Indians, but also against rivals, such as the beheading of
Vasco Nuñez de BalboaVasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.He traveled to the New World in...
, the discoverer of the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
.
Charges were also brought against Quevedo;
Bartolomé de Las CasasBartolomé de las Casas, O.P. , was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, writer and the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. As a settler in the New World he witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists...
accused him of having violated a trust, accumulated wealth, and neglected the Indians, but the veracity of Las Casas' accusations has not been established. Quevedo returned to Spain in (1518) and presented two memorials to King
CharlesCharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
. One was against Pedrarias, and the other advocated restricting the powers of all governors in the New World for the better protection of the natives. When these documents were shown to Las Casas, in spite of differences between the two, he offered to countersign them. Bishop Quevedo soon fell sick and died at Barcelona.
In spite of Quevedo's record as a champion of the rights of
Native AmericansThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
, his views were still coloured by his time and his missionary fervour. He regarded all the aborigines of America to be a race of men whom it would be impossible to instruct or improve unless they were collected in villages or missions and kept under continual supervision.
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