Domingo de Salazar (c.1512–1594), the first bishop of the Philippines, was born in the region of La Rioja in Spain. He studied theology at the University of Salamanca at the same time Francisco de Vitoria lectured on the illegality of the Spanish claim to Indian property. He took vows in the Dominican order in 1546 and, about seven years later, was sent as a missionary to New Spain. For the following twenty-three years, Salazar worked as a theologian and jurist in the city of Mexico, with a brief stay in Oaxaca and a failed expedition to Florida. Like many other members of the Dominican order in New Spain, he followed the leadership of Bartolomé de Las Casas and, at some point during his time in Mexico, wrote a treatise rejecting the legitimacy of the Spanish conquest of American territories. He returned to Spain in 1575 in the capacity of official advocate of his order in the courts of the king and the pope. Salazar's vehement attack on abusive Spanish officials in New Spain and his defense of the natives in the colonies made him more than a few enemies in Madrid, but it appears to have impressed Philip II who championed his candidacy to the pope as bishop of Manila.