Monday, April 23, 2012 FRAY JUAN DE PADILLA IS RECOGNIZED AS THE
FIRST CATHOLIC MARTYR IN UNITED STATES' HISTORY PADILLA, JUAN DE
(?–1544). Fray Juan de Padilla came to the New World from his
native Andalucia in Spain, where he had been a soldier before
joining the Franciscan order. The exact date of his arrival is
not known, but his signature did appear on a letter from the New
World dated October 19, 1529. He was among the friars selected
to sail from Tehuantepec to the Orient as part of an expedition
organized by Hernando Cortés, but the ships proved unseaworthy.
Subsequently, Padilla labored among the Indians at Ponzitlán and
Tuchpán. Some sources record him as being at Matatlan and
Hueytlapa missions at Tulancingo and at Zapotlán in Jalisco in
1531–32. Padilla was one of the two ordained priests chosen to
accompany Fray Marcos de Niza on the Coronado expedition in
1540. After Coronado's capture of Cíbola (or Háwikuh), the
westernmost Zuñi pueblo, in July, Padilla, in the company of
Pedro de Tovar, visite