The Franciscan fray Daniel was born in Italy though the exact year is not known. Fellow expeditionary Pedro de Ledesma reported that fray Daniel was wounded in the fighting at Hawikku Pueblo. The most notable information given about fray Daniel was that he used extreme penitential methods and was a noted embroiderer. He died on February 28, 1567 at the Franciscian convent in Guadalajara, Mexico.
1540-1550:
AGI, Justicia, 267, N.3, “Proceso de Francisco Vázquez” [witness Pedro de Ledesma: fray Daniel was wounded at Cibola]
1560-1570:
?AGI, México, 98, N.33k [letter from Juan Troyano to the king, no date, after 1568] [Troyano accuses fray Daniel Motilon and other Franciscans of lying to the king] [possibly fray Daniel?]
Other Info:
Tello, Libro Segundo [484: Italian, died in the convento of Nuestro Padre San Francisco de Guadalajara, child of the santa provincía de Santiago, returned with the camp; 406: when fray Juan de Padilla went to Cíbola, fray Daniel, Italian from Santiago, stayed in Tuchpan with fray Juan de la Cruz (Daniel went and Juan de la Cruz was mythica)l];
Tello, Cronica miscelanea [30-31: fray Daniel Italiano; was a lego, took his vows in Santiago, Spain; Italian by birth; always wore a coat of mail against his skin; Franciscan; taught the Indians how to embroider; lived in the convent at Tuchpan in Jalisco (25 leagues distant from Guadalajara); received a revelation that fray Francisco Jiménez, one of the 12 original Franciscans, died on the same day that he actually did die; himself died in the convent of San Francisco in Guadalajara (Chávez, Coronado’s Friars, note - died probably on Feb. 28th 1567];
Muñoz Camargo, Descripción de la provincía de San Pedro y San Pablo [p.60-63: nearly same story as Tello, Cronica miscelanea; llega a la rodilla de un hombre de buena estatura; used a cadenilla de hierro to whip himself];
Calvo, Xalisco, la voz [p.21: went about carrying a large, heavy cross];
Chávez, Oroz Codez [fn156 p.102:says that fray Diego Muñoz actually knew fray Daniel];
Hillerkuss, Diccionario Biográfico, vol.2 [1537 assigned to the convent of Tuspa with fray Juan de la Cruz; in Jalisco; 1568 in the convent in Atoyac, Provincia de Ávalos; died in the Franciscan convent in Guadalajara; spoke the native language; an embroiderer, v.2:17]