Juan Manso de Contreras

In 1662 on orders from the Inquisition, he arrested his successor as governor, Bernardo López de Mendizabal, and escorted him to Mexico City for trial.

Historian France V. Scholes summed up his administration: "Manso's term as governor was characterized by the usual routine of provincial business and occasional campaigns against the Apaches.

Like his predecessors he engaged in trading operations and other business deals for the purpose of deriving profit from his term in office.

His relations with the clergy were apparently friendly, and he gave active assistance in the preliminary attempts to found a mission in the El Paso area", perhaps his most important accomplishment.

[6] Since its creation as a Spanish colony in 1598, New Mexico had been characterized by strife and competition between the Fransciscan missionaries (of whom there were 46 in 1656) and the encomenderos (large land owners with rights to exploit the indigenous population of the Pueblo people).

[8] The governor's military force was "fifty men [comprised] of the dregs of the earth, mestizos, mulattoes, and foreigners".

In that year, he traveled to New Mexico to arrest Governor López de Mendizabal in accordance with an order from the Inquisition.

[4][14][15] On 25 September 1663 Manso married his second wife, Francisca Esquerra de Rosas y Romo in Parral where he had taken up residence.