Alonso de Alvarado

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Alonso de Alvarado was a conquistador and knight of the Order of Santiago. He fought against the hosts of Quizo Yupanqui that were besieging Lima in 1536, against Diego de Almagro in 1537 and at the Battle of Las Salinas in 1538. He later fought at Chupas and Jaquijahuana.

Alonso de Alvarado was a Spanish conqueror of Extremaduran origin, he was born at the beginning of the XVIth century. After a period in low Mexico to the orders of Hernán Cortés, it joined to the campaign of Francisco Pizarro. In a little time it turned into a man of confidence of this one and they entrusted him diverse campaigns of exploration, conquest and foundation of cities.

Alonso de Alvarado was the precursor of the expeditions that penetrated in the Amazonía: it departed from Trujillo, Peru and, mending the Andes, came in 1535 to the ground of the chachapoyas, where a few years later it founded the city that today is the capital of the department of the Amazon.

There counts the chronicler Pedro Cieza of León on the first foundation of the city of Chachapoyas:

" In five days of September, year of the birth of our thousand five hundred thirty eight-year-old mister Ihsu Christo, next to sixty espamoles under the control of captain Alonso de Alvarado they met in [...] " Xalca " and realizxaron the first funbdación of Chachapoyas ".-Pedro Cieza of León, 1535

In the above mentioned foundation there was present captain Luis Valera, father of the jesuíta chachapoyano Blas Valera, of whose chronicles the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega nourished for the description of the Tawantinsuyo in his " Real Comments of the Incas ".

In Chachapoyas, Alvarado had knowledge of the fabulous treasures that a legendary city was keeping in the thickness of the forest, the mythical one The Gilding and from there he organized new expeditions that mended the High Cashew and that came up to grounds of the lay-brothers, next to Moyobamba.

Alvarado also took part in the civil wars that faced Diego de Almagro and Francisco Pizarro. He was made a prisoner by Almagro in 1537 but it managed huír. Again next to the pizarristas and supporting his allegiance to the king, he conquered the almagristas in the battle of the Salt works in 1538.

For order of Francisco Pizarro, he looked in 1539, the ideal place for the foundation of a situated city on the halfway between Lima and the Cusco. This way, along with Francisco de Cárdenas, it took part in the foundation of Huamanga.

Avenging the death of his father, Diego de Almagro the Young boy gave death to Francisco Pizarro in 1541. On the following year, the governor Cristóbal Vaca of Castro, allied to the needle Alonso de Alvarado, defeated the Young boy in the battle of Chupas. The loyalty and the merits of Alvarado were honored exactly by Carlos I of Spain (known equally as Carlos V of Germany) of the House of Austria (1516-1556) who from Flanders, it was named by gentleman of the Order of Santiago and marshall of Peru.

In April, 1548, Alvarado had to prove again the allegiance to the Crown fighting against elk rebellious minor brother of Pizarro, Gonzalo. Under the control of Pedro de la Gasca, it won in Jaquijaguana, but this victory did not calm down the intentions of many discontented Spanish for the increasing control of the envoys of the metropolis, and this way, unmos some years later, a group of them, led by Francisco Hernández Girón, was infuriated. Sent to fight them, Alvarado was defeated in Chuquinga and he fled to Lima, where he died in 1556.

Chachapoyas was, from his foundation, a city - port of that numerous expeditions divided towards the forest. The legend of The Gilding accompanied for ages the thirst of wealths of the first Spanish explorers. Although the enthusiasm before the tasty reward was commanding his sleep, his companies met frustadas for unsuspected enemies: the famine, the illnesses, the Indians and the forest itself.

The Gilding described from the imaginary one of the conqueror, is a city which streets and temples are covered of gold and he keeps, in his constructions and squares, made pieces of massive gold. Sometimes he was looked to the north, from Chachapoyas; others, from Quillabamba; in other occasions, some more recent explorers located his track (that later they "lost") in the central forest and inclusive in Colombia. Nevertheless, this golden legend opened the doors for the initial colonization and evangelización of some of the most extensive and remote regions of South America.