Juan Garrido: Free Black Conquistador Explores Florida and Mexico

Juan Garrido, a free Black man from West Africa, joins Ponce de León's 1513 Florida expedition as one of the first Africans to set foot in North America. He later serves under Hernán Cortés during the conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and is documented as the first person to grow wheat in the Americas in Mexico City.