Ortiz de Zárate, Juan and Juana (1521–1576)

Juan Ortiz de Zárate (b. 1521; d. 26 January 1576) and Juana (d. 1584), Adelantado of Río de la Plata and heir thereof. Ortiz de Zárate was born in Vizcaya, Spain, to a prominent family. He went to America with the first viceroy of Perú, Blasco Núñez De Vela, and became a wealthy man in Chuquisaca.

In 1567, Diego López de Zúñiga y Velasco, count of Nieva, viceroy of Peru, gave Ortiz de Zárate a temporary adelantazgo (governorship) of the Río de la Plata. He returned to Spain to be confirmed by the crown, and disembarked again on 17 October 1572, arriving in the Río de la Plata in November of the following year. After suffering many hardships, he finally reached Asunción in February 1575 to take charge of the government. He died the following year.

Ortiz de Zárate named Juana, his daughter with the Inca Princess Leonor Yupanqui, his universal heir. The government of the adelantazgo would be in the hands of the person whom his daughter married, granted he follow all the capitulations made between Ortiz de Zárate and Philip II.

Juana had many suitors, and finally married licenciado Juan de Torres de Vera y Aragón in December 1577. She died seven years later.

See alsoPeru: From the Conquest Through Indepnendence .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pedro Tadeo Acevedo and Ernesto J. Colombres, Los amores de la princesa Ynca Leonor Yupanqui y el romance de la indohispana Juana Ortiz de Zárate (1935), and Los adelantados del Río de la Plata (1936).

                                     Juan Manuel PÉrez