Don Antonio de Mendoza, conde de Tendilla, was the first Viceroy of New Spain, serving from 1535 - 1550. His difficult assignment was to govern in the king's name without making enemies with Hernán Cortés, whom Charles and the Council of the Indies judged too rough to be made a duke and given a higher post than the Captaincy-General of New Spain, a post for which he was well suited.
After three high-ranking noblemen declined the appointment, it was accepted by don Antonio, who was born in Granada of a high-ranking family, who had served capably as Spanish ambassador to Rome. His commission dated from 1530, but he did not arrive in Mexico until 1535.
Mendoza commissioned the explorations of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to the north in 1540–42 and the coastal exploration of Alta California by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in
1542–43.
Mendoza and Bishop Juan de Zumárraga cooperated to found two great institutions of Mexico: the Colegio de Santa Cruz at Tlatelolco (1536), where the sons of Aztec nobles studied Latin, rhetoric, philosophy and music, and the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (1552), modeled on the University of Salamanca, which trained young men for the Church.
He withdrew the "New Laws" of 1542–43 that were inspired by the great reformer Bartolomé de las Casas, when news reached Mexico of the civil war that broke out in Peru over similar reforms, thought to undermine the rigorous encomienda system. The laws were designed to ease the plight of Indians under the system of forced labor.
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