Sebastián de Aparicio y del Pardo (20 January 1502 – 25 February 1600) was a Spanish colonist in Mexico shortly after its conquest by Spain, who after a lifetime as a rancher and road builder entered the Order of Friars Minor as a lay brother.

He was the third child and only son of Juan de Aparicio and Teresa del Prado, who were poor, but pious peasants, and spent his childhood tending sheep and cattle and in service to those of means.

[1] Despite his illiteracy, he had absorbed how to lead a pious and holy life so that he could emulate models in hagiographic texts.

[3] When Aparicio was older, he determined to seek work outside his region in order to help support his family and to provide dowries for his sisters.

With the growth of the cattle trade introduced to the Americas by the Spanish and the landgrants offered to colonists by the Spanish government, he decided to move farther inland to Puebla de los Ángeles,[2] recently founded by the Franciscan friar, Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, one of the Twelve Apostles of Mexico who came to New Spain in 1524 to evangelize the Indians.

The burden the lack of decent roads fell on both the native peoples and animals forced to bear the loads on poor and uneven surfaces through the mountains cutting the countryside.

He then conceived the idea of building roads from Puebla to the port of Veracruz, Mexico's main link to Spain.

He recruited a fellow Spaniard as a partner in the enterprise, and they approached the colonial authorities for a grant to undertake this construction.

He then bought an expanse of land (hacienda de labor) near Zacatecas, where he farmed and ranched cattle.

He showed them how to domesticate horses and oxen, introduced by the Spanish and unfamiliar to the indigenous population, and how to build wagons for transporting their goods, as wheels had also previously been unknown.

[3] Eventually feeling pressured to marry, at the age of 60 he became engaged to a young woman who had no hopes of finding a husband, due to her lack of a dowry.

Finally his confessor made a suggestion: Aparicio would donate his fortune to the first Monastery of Poor Clares in Mexico, founded a few years earlier, and would live as a volunteer on the grounds, serving the external needs of the nuns.

[5] The following year, despite considerable advice against this from his friends, given his advanced age, Aparicio finally decided to apply to the friars to be admitted as a lay brother.

He felt a blessing in this location, dedicated as it is to St. James the Great, the patron saint of his native Galicia, to whom he prayed constantly throughout his life.

[5] On the evening of 25 February, Aparicio asked to be laid on the ground to meet his death, in imitation of St. Francis.

He soon died in the arms of a fellow Galician, Friar Juan de San Buenaventura, with his last word being "Jesus".

[5] When his body lay in state, the crowds that gathered were large, and the miracles wrought were so numerous, that he could not be buried for several days.

After an investigation by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico City, in which nearly 1,000 miracles at his intercession were reported, Pope Pius VI beatified him in 1789 and today his incorrupt body can be seen at the Church of San Francisco in Puebla.