From 1514 to 1523, Garay served as Royal Governor of Santiago, now Jamaica (Governor of Jamaica). As a Governor of Santiago, he was accused of enslaving the island's indigenous population to work in the gold mines of Cuba. Writing in 1516, Bartolomé de Las Casas accused him of being responsible for the great decline of the indigenous population.[5] By 1519, the original population of Jamaica was almost eradicated.[6] He also raised pigs during his governorship, at one point employing five thousand indigenous to herd his swine.[3]
Garay sent several expeditions to explore, map and claim lands along the shores of what is now the Gulf of Mexico from present day FloridatoMexico. In 1519 Garay sent an expedition under Alonso Álvarez de Pineda to map the coast between Florida and the northern limit of the lands visited by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar.[7]: 132–133 The Mississippi River was shown on the maps as Rio del Espiritu Santo (River of the Holy Spirit). Garay later sent Díez de Aux and Diego Camargo to try to find Pineda, but he had been killed by hostile natives.[8]
In 1523, Garay led a 600-man expedition to found a colony on the Panuco River near present-day Tampico. However, he landed by mistake 100 miles north at the mouth of the Soto La Marina River which he called the River of Palms (Rio de las Palmas). He reconnoitered by sending a small boat upriver about 25 miles, probably reaching the site of the present day city of Soto la Marina. The explorers found 40 Indian encampments along the river, indicating a large population, although the Indians apparently did not practice agriculture. The Indians plied the river in canoes and, although initially friendly, became hostile. Realizing that the river was not the Pánuco, Garay ordered an overland march southward to the Panuco.[9]
Garay's efforts to found a colony led him into legal conflict with Hernán Cortés.
While in Mexico City negotiating with Cortés, he became ill and died on December 27, 1523.[10]
^In his "Memorial de Remedios para las Indias", Las casas accused de Garay, writing:"En Jamaica es asimismo necesario que vuestra reverendísima señoria mande deshacer una compañia que tiene hecha S. A. con uno que allí fue que se llama Francisco de Garay la cual es en gran diminución de los indios: porque no podrá ser sino que por aprovechar o dejar de aprovechar de S.A. ha de aprovechar asi . y no puede ser sin matar muchos indios especialmente que dicen que lleva licencia para sacallos de la dicha isla y traellos a la de Cuba a coger oro. y luego son muertos desta y de otras maneras que allí sucederán."
^Baptiste, Victor N. 1990 Bartolomé de Las Casas and Thomas More's Utopia. p. 27 note m.
^Diaz, B., 1963, The Conquest of New Spain, London: Penguin Books, ISBN0140441239
Floyd, Troy (1973). The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 4, 32, 73, 109–110, 130–138, 164. ISBN0826302831.
Eugenio Del Hoyo; Historia del El Nuevo Reino De Leon (1577-1723)
Weddle, Robert S. (1985). Spanish Sea : The Gulf of Mexico in North American Discovery : 1500-1685. College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press. ISBN0-89096-211-1.
Weddle, Robert S. (2016) [1952]. "Garay, Francisco de". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association (TSHA).
