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Gonzalo Méndez de Canço (or "de Cancio") y Donlebún (c. 1554 - March 31, 1622) was a Spanish admiral who served as the seventh governor of the Spanish province of La Florida (1596-1603). He fought in the Battle of San Juan (1595) against the English admiral Francis Drake. During his tenure as governor of Florida, he dealt severely with a rebellion known as Juanillo´s revolt among the Native Americans in Guale, forcing them, as well as other tribes in Florida, to submit to Spanish domination. De Canço was best known, however, for promoting the cultivation of maize in the province, and for introducing its cultivation to Asturias, Spain, where it eventually became an important crop. ==Early life== Gonzalo Méndez de Canço was born in 1554 at Tapia de Casariego, in the parish of San Esteban de Tapia, Asturias, Spain. He was the son of Diego de Canço (or "de Cancio") Donlebún and Maria Mendez de San Julián y Villaamil, descendants of a family of hidalgos. Nothing of his childhood is known, but he joined the ''Armada de la Carrera de las Indias'' (Fleet of the West Indies Run) at age 14. In 1571, at the age of 17, he traveled to America in the company of Sancho Pardo Osorio. In the course of his service to the Spanish Crown, de Canço provided three ships at his own expense for use by the royal navy. The first was called ''El Apóstol Santiago'' (The Apostle Santiago), an escort ship for Spanish merchants going to or coming from the Americas. During a return voyage from Mexico to Europe the ship was lost in the Atlantic at the latitude of Madeira. Not daunted by this setback, he ordered the construction of a ship similar to the first, called ''Nuestra Señora de Escontrela'' ("Our Lady of Escontrela"), of which he became captain. In 1584 de Canço sailed to the coast of the Panama isthmus with this ship, but ran aground at the entrance to the port of Nombre de Dios and lost the ship.〔 The third ship, called ''Virgen de la Concepción'' ("Virgin of the Conception"), was equipped with thirteen pieces of artillery and other munitions. Francisco de Novoa Feijóo, Capitán General of the ''Tierra Firme'' (Mainland) fleet, appointed de Canço captain of infantry of the fleet's flagship. De Canço proved his worth as a sailor and a soldier on the passage. On August 22 of that year, he spied a French vessel and captured it. The next day, at least according to his own writings, he saved the gold, silver, and pearls from a ship of the fleet sinking in a storm.〔 Francisco de Noboa subsequently appointed him an admiral of the fleet on its passage from ''Isla Terceras'' in the Azores to Spain. In the following years de Canço worked as captain of his own ships under orders of Alonso de Bazán, Francisco Osorio and Pardo Coloma, on assignments in Spain and America. He served under the command of Alonso de Bazán, being commissioned three times to make levies for seamen to man the ships of the Spanish Royal Navy in Galicia and Asturias. In 1592, for his accomplishments as a mariner and his services to the Crown, King Charles I made him a ''capitán de mar y guerra'' with an annual salary of thirty thousand maravedís. On August 19, 1595, Philip II dispatched him as an admiral of the fleet commanded by Pedro Tello.〔Martínez Rivas, José Ramón; García Carbajos, Rogelio; and Estrada Luis, Secundino (1992). ''Historia de una emigración: asturianos a América, 1492-1599'' (in Spanish: History of an Emigration: Asturians in the Americas). Oviedo.1996〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gonzalo Méndez de Canço」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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