The Beginning of the Cervantes Family in North American New World Trade

Abstract

The Beginning of the Cervantes Family in North American New World Trade.

Alfonso Dávila Oliveda

The saga of the Cervantes family’s Trading Company begins with Doña Violante de Cervantes, who, in her third marriage to Sancho de Herrera, ultimately established the commercial branches with the Americas from the ports of the Canary Islands, as well as the settlement of the Sevillian Cervantes in Mexico and Peru from the early stages of the conquest. These ventures were strengthened by commercial ties with her in-laws, the Sotomayor family, who obtained the first license for inland trade between the islands and the mainland of the New World. This facilitated the commercial and financial alliances of the Cervantes family with the Genoese merchants and bankers, the Pinelo and Centurione families, who established the credit that funded the voyages of discovery and the trade of Seville, the Canary Islands, Africa, and the Americas during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Keywords: Cervantes Family; Violante de Cervantes; Sotomayor; Sancho de Herrera; Pinelo; Centurione; Colonial Trade; Canary Islands; Seville; New Spain; Smuggling; Inter-Island Trade.