#the reward was the later 19th and 20th Century Mexican state erasing them from existence until very recently by bureaucracy

[lightdancer1]

Juan Garrido is of note as being one of the survivors of Hernan Cortez's Conquest of Mexico:

Juan Garrido is one of the very literal cases of 'history was never as white as it's portrayed in European sources.' He was part of the Spanish conquest of Cuba and Puerto Rico. He was also one of those who was a part of the Hernan Cortez expedition from the newly established city of Vera Cruz marching to the Halls of Montezuma, who survived La Noche Triste, and was one of the victors in the Siege of Tenochtitlan.

Equally of note given the nature of everything that led to Las Casas' role in the establishment of the slave trade, like the other conquerors of Tenochtitlan he set up an Encomienda, and has the record of being the first farmer in mainland North America to grow wheat. By all accounts Garrido was one of the more successful Conquistadors, moreso than either Cortez himself or Pizarro would prove to be.

One must also note that in the context of the 1500s neither Juan Garrido nor Hernan Cortez themselves could have expected that the march on the Aztec capital would provide the basis for as much as it did, while both viewed the horrors of the conquest as deserving a reward while being no more sympathetic than any other conquerors to the conquered.