Diego Gutiérrez y Toledo (c. 1510 – December 1544) was the first governor of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica Province, established by the

Crown of Castile The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accessi ...

within the Captaincy General of Guatemala in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Named governor on 29 November 1540, he did not begin acting as such until late 1543 due to a series of difficulties. On 22 November 1543 he founded the village of Santiago in

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

and on 4 October 1544 he founded the village of San Francisco, abandoning Santiago. In San Francisco he hosted several local chiefs, who he later held for ransom. One of the chiefs escaped and another one admitted not having valuables to offer. Consequently, Gutiérrez y Toledo subjected him to servitude, which prompted other indigenous groups to destroy the Spanish colony in retaliation. Gutiérrez y Toledo and the rest of the colonists then marched into the jungle, where they were killed by the natives. Gutiérrez y Toledo was born in the village of Madrid,

, in 1510, to Alonso Gutiérrez de Madrid, royal treasurer, and María Rodríguez de Pisa, both '' judeoconversos''. His brother Felipe Gutiérrez y Toledo (1500 – 1544) became the governor of Veragua.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gutiérrez y Toledo, Diego 1510 births 1544 deaths Colonial Central America Politicians from Madrid