- Born 22 June 1511. Juana de Castilla, known as Juana Eroa, gave the city the gift of launching the Consulate. Until then, the Consulate of Burgos, which controlled the wool trade, promoted close competition between the ports of the Gulf of Bizkaia. But from there, in the Bilbao estuary, the locals would make the decisions. The new consulate would deal with issues related to the estuary, platforms, dredging... Traders, shipowners or ferrons in the area would monitor, renew and improve the estuary, thus promoting the commercial activity of the natural port.
In the mid-sixteenth century, the work of channeling the Bilbao estuary began. And in that first orientation, Gonzalo Sáez de Mahamud stood out. On the one hand, by the financial contribution to the works. And on the other hand, because of the Muslim origin of the name. It should be remembered that, according to the foral rules of the time, the Moorish, the Jews and those converted to Christianity were prohibited from residing in the Lordship of Bizkaia. Even more so, access to public office.
But Gonzalo Sáez de Mahamud held public office. Councillor of Bilbao from 1543 to 1551, was appointed, among others, Fidel de Mercaderes. The documents show that it also had economic power, and in many of the services and donations its name appears next to the highest amounts. We know that it was related to the main families of Bizkaia, through marriages, such as Zurbaran or Markina.
In 1881, Camilo Villabaso Echevarría, a fuerist and deputy, received the signature of Mahamud in the journal Euskal-Erria, along with that of other prestigious Biscayan women. And below, after a brief explanation of the character, he wrote: “What origin did this family come from? As his last name indicates, being his Moorish lineage, how did he come to live with the newly converted to the country where extreme hostility prevailed?”
To date, these questions have not yet been answered.