Ernesto Pastor Lavergne was the first, and so far only, Puerto Rican

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

-born bullfighter (torero) to gain international fame. Toreadora Conchita Cintron

Conchita Cintrón

Concepción Cintrón Verrill, also known as Conchita Cintrón or La Diosa de Oro , was a Chilean torera , perhaps the most famous in the history of bullfighting...

 was half Puerto Rican.

Biography

Some date Pastor's birth year as 1900, but it is generally accepted that he was born in 1892. He was born to a Mexican

Mexican people

Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

 father and French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 mother.

Pastor was considered by his contemporary colleagues to be talented both with the sword and the cape. On January 16, 1911, he made his public debut, at a plaza in Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Jalisco

Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. There, he would be revered as one of the best of his era.

Pastor moved on to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 in 1916, fighting for the first time there on May 16, in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

. In Spain, he was mentored by José Gómez Ortega

José Gómez Ortega

José Gómez Ortega , commonly known as Joselito , was a Spanish matador in the early twentieth century.Joselito was considered a child prodigy and was the youngest bullfighter to receive the title of matador de toros, at the age of 17. Joselito followed in arch-rival Juan Belmonte's footsteps and...

. In 1918, Pastor engaged in 38 bullfighting spectacles, and in 1919, he debuted in Madrid.

It was in Madrid in 1921 that Pastor met with death. During one of his spectacles, he was hit on the leg by one of the bulls. Bleeding profusely, he managed to ask who turned off the lights? before passing away. The hemorrage in his leg had caused him to go blind before dying.