Diego Colón

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Diego Colón

Diego Colón Moniz, 1st Duke of Veragua, 1st Marquis of Jamaica and 2nd Admiral of the Indies, also, in Portuguese: Diogo Colombo, (1479/1480, Porto Santo, Portugal – February 23, 1526, Montalbán, Spain) was the firstborn son of Christopher Columbus and his wife Filipa Moniz, and eventually became the 4th Viceroy of the Indies.

Diego was made a page at the Spanish court in 1492, when his father embarked on his first voyage. He spent most of his adult life trying to regain the titles and privileges that his father had been granted for his explorations and then stripped of in 1500. He was greatly aided in this goal by his marriage to Doña María Alvarez de Toledo y Rojas, niece of the 2nd Duke of Alba, who was King Ferdinand's cousin.

In 1509, he was named Governor of the Indies, the post his father had previously held. He established his home, which still stands, in Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican Republic. He continued to fight for the remainder of his father's titles, and was made Viceroy of the Indies in May 1511. He remained in charge until 1518. He continued to resent encroachments on his power and to fight for all of his father's privileges thereafter and made trips to Spain in 1515 and 1523 to plead his case without success. After his death, a compromise was reached in 1536 in which his son Luis Colón de Toledo (1519/1520-1572) was named 3rd Admiral of the Indies and renounced all other rights for a perpetual annuity of 10,000 ducats, the island of Jamaica as a fief, an estate of 25 square leagues on the Isthmus of Panama, then called Veragua, and the titles of 2nd Duke of Veragua and 2nd Marquis of Jamaica and 1st Duke of La Vega.