The Conquest of Mexico - Genealogy

In an earlier post, I mentioned that there were "many" Spaniards with Hernan Cortes during the conquest of Mexico. Some additional research has shown me that historians consider the actual number to have been about 2,000 soldiers. Of those, roughly one-fourth to one-third died in battle.

Of those who survived, almost all remained in Mexico, and are the progenitors of nearly the entire population living there now. Here's how it breaks down:

The population at the start of the conquest is estimated to have been about 20 million Indians. Some eighty years later, by the year 1600 that population had dwindled to about one million due to war, disease, starvation, and forced labor.

Today there are 125 million Mexican citizens but during the three centuries between 1600 and 1900, very few people emigrated to Mexico and the country's population grew to only about 15 million.

This means that the roughly 1,500 Spaniards who survived the initial conquest of Mexico were the ancestors of those 15 million and they, in turn, formed the basis for today's 125 million Mexicans. --Not to mention those who migrated north to America or in the opposite direction to Central and South America.

So if you are of Spanish/Mexican descent, and if you have a fairly common Hispanic last name such as Avila, Gonzalez, Vasquez, Moreno, Rodriquez, Garcia, Alvarado, Lopez, or Villalobos (plus 2,000 others), you might want to take a look at the web pages located at  The Conquistadores of Mexico.

You may be surprised to find that someone with your surname fought alongside Cortes. It's worth a visit.

Ruy Lopez de Villalobos

What this site is all about.

I was born on October 25, 1942.

Four hundred years earlier, almost to the day (on November 1, 1542), another Villalobos, a Spanish explorer and navigator named Ruy Lopez de Villalobos (b. 1500? - d. 1544) led a fleet of six galleons with about 400 men from Jalisco, Mexico across the Pacific to a group of islands in the Far East.

Arriving there on December 25, 1542, he named them the Philippine Islands in honor of Prince Philip II of Spain.

If you are not aware of him, Ruy Villalobos is one of the earliest known members of the Villalobos "family," and you can learn more about him on Wikipedia.

Much more well known is the Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, who was born in 1887 and died in 1959.

I myself find his music difficult to enjoy because none of it that I have heard ever quite manages to find a melody. Pretty notes strung together for an entire orchestra (or perhaps for guitar alone, or piano, etc.), but I feel that if you hear one composition by Villa-Lobos, you've pretty much heard them all.

His compositions do, however, make for a pleasant background as you are doing something that does not require strict attention to the music itself.

...That, at least, is my considered reaction after having listened to several recordings of his music.  Feel free to disagree.