Beltrán de Cetina
Beltrán de Cetina (or Zetina) (Alcalá de Henares 1521 - Mérida de Yucatán 1600?) was one of the original conquistador-founders of Mérida in what is now the Mexican state of Yucatán. His many siblings included the famed Sevillian poet Gutierre de Cetina, María Andrea del Castillo (wife of conquistador and encomendador Francisco de Montejo y León "the younger", and Gregorio de Cetina, also a soldier-participant in the conquest of Southern Mexico.
Andalusian Origins
His father, Beltrán de Cetina y Hernández, originally from Alcalá de Henares, moved as a youth to Seville, there he met and married Francisca del Castillo y Zanabria, a local (and judging by her surname) of Morisco origin. The nuptials were celebrated in 1518 in Seville. In 1520 was born Gutierre, in 1525 Ana Andrea del Castillo, and in 1527 Gregorio.
The family lived for many years in the collación or parish-community of Santa María la Blanca, within the old aljama of Seville. The father, thanks to family connections, obtained in 1536 the job of collecting the almojarifazgo mayor (a kind of customs tax) in the city. The family's comfortable position permits them to own African slaves and to realize the construction of a family tomb in the Madre de Dios de la Piedad Convent, in which would also be laid the remains of doña Juana de Zúñiga and doña Catalina Cortés, wife and daughter of Hernán Cortés, respectively; as well as the great-granddaughters of Christopher Colombus. In 1535 occurs the immigration to New Spain of the siblings: Andrea Cetina, Beltrán Cetina, and García del Castillo, accompanied by her aunt, Antonia del Castillo. In January of 1542 the city of Mérida is founded, one of its founders and inhabitants is Beltrán de Zetina.
In 1547 Beltrán was made a regidor or city councilman by the adelantado, Francisco de Montejo y Álvarez de Tejeda. While in Spain, his father (his mother already having died) names in his will as his principal heirs his eight children: Gutierre de Cetina, García del Castillo, Beltrán de Cetina, Gregorio de Cetina, Mencía de Santo Domingo Alcocer, Leonor de Cetina, María del Castillo, y Ana Andrea del Castillo. In 1550 Gregorio de Cetina obtains permission to travel to New Spain, along with his cousins Pedro and Diego López, in order to help in the administration of the properties of his uncle, Gonzalo López. The latter, a former maestro de Campo of Cortés's in Mexico, had previously been accompanied by the oldest of the brothers, Gutierre, during an earlier trip to New Spain in 1546, in order to serve as attorney-general of the colony.
In 1556, Gutierre returned to Mexico only to die a year later in Puebla de los Ángeles as a result of facial injury caused by a skirmish with a certain Hernando de Nava. Gregorio, having settled in Mérida, married Mariana de Quijada y Contreras, niece of Diego de Quijada, who was alcalde mayor of Yucatán from 1561-1565, and daughter of Cristóbal Gutiérrez, a conquistador and settler of Chiapas. The Cetina brothers were related by blood or marriage to the Montejos, the Pachecos, and the Ortiz de San Pedro, among others, all of whom were among the first colonizers of Mexico and other lands.
See Also
Notes
- Rubio Mañé, D. J. Ignacio, "Los Primeros Vecinos de la Ciudad de Mérida de Yucatán", Academia Mexicana de la Historia Correspondiente de la Real de Madrid (November 1943).