# CHAPTER 2  
## JUAN CORREA, A BAROQUE PAINTER OF AFRICAN DESCENT FROM NEW-SPANISH MEXICO  
María Elisa Velázquez  
The first Africans arrived in Mexico City, which was then called Tenochtitlán. By way of example, some of them, possibly Juan Cortés and Juan Garrido ${ }^{1}$ came with Hernán Cortés, according to accounts related in various chronicles and images of the period. Some of the Africans who arrived with the conquistadores received rewards in the form of properties or encomiendas for their participation in the conquest of indigenous towns and cities (Restall, 2005).  
A few years after the conquest, thousands of men, women and children began to arrive in New Spain to meet the needs of colonial businesses such as mining, agricultural estate farming and cattle farms, craft occupations and housework, work in convents, colleges and estates. The demographic catastrophe suffered by the indigenous population, starting from the time of the conquest in terms of outbreaks of epidemics of new illnesses, combined with ill treatment and cultural malaise, as well as the prohibition of enslaving indigenous peoples, were causes that won over and 'justified' the demand for slaves from different parts of Africa to migrate to New Spain. Slavery studies have calculated that around 250,000 enslaved people from Africa arrived in Mexico (Velázquez and Iturralde, 2012).  
Authorized ports for the slave trade were Veracruz and later Campeche, although it is known that slaves arrived in Acapulco with the Nao de China,  
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[^0]:    1 Hernán Cortés was the main Mexican conquistador; he arrived in 1519 and took the city of Tenochtitlán in 1521.