Dona Isabel de Tolosa Cortés de Moctezuma, was a wealthy Mexican heiress and the wife of conqueror and explorer Don Juan de Oñate who led an expedition in 1598 and founded the first Spanish settlement in what is now the state of New Mexico.
Background
She was the granddaughter of Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernán Cortés, and the great-granddaughter of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma World War II Dona Isabel was a castiza of mixed Basque, Spanish and Aztec Indian ancestry, born in Mexico City, New Spain in 1568, a daughter of Spanish-born Basque Juan de Tolosa and Leonor Cortés Moctezuma. Her mother was the illegitimate daughter of Spanish explorer and conqueror of Mexico, Hernán Cortés by his mistress Tecuichpotzin (baptised Isabel), the eldest daughter of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma World War II
Career
Isabel"s father was a wealthy Basque mine owner who had discovered the silver mines at Zacatecas in 1546. In 1588 in Panuco, Zacatecas, Isabel married Don Juan de Oñate, a Mexican of Spanish Basque ancestry and a noted Indian fighter in New Spain. This marriage to the wealthy Isabel, gave him much prestige.
Cristobal de Naharriondo Perez Oñate y Cortés Moctezuma (c1589- 1610), married Maria Gutierrez del Castillo, by whom he had one son, Juan.
From 1608 to 1610, he ruled as the first elected Governor in the New Spain province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. In 1595, Isabel"s husband was ordered by King Philip II of Spain to colonise the upper Rio Grande valley.
Her son, Cristobal, aged about nine, accompanied his father. Isabel died on an unknown date in about 1619 or 1620 at Panuco, Zacatecas.
Her husband died in 1626 in Spain.
