Ñuflo de Chaves

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Ñuflo de Chaves, also: "Ñuflo de Chávez", (1518–1568) was a Spanish conquistador. He is best known for founding the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in (what is today) Bolivia.

Ñuflo de Chaves was born and grew up in the small Spanish village of Santa Cruz de la Sierra ("Holy Cross of the Mountains"), some 12 km south of Trujillo in the Extremadura region in Spain.

Later he joined the military and went to South America as a conquistador.

In 1544 in Asunción (in today's Paraguay) he participated in the revolution against the Spanish governor Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. He helped Domingo Martínez de Irala be named governor and prepare an expedition to Charcas (currently Sucre). In 1557 he wanted to conquest jarayes land. He arrived in today's brazilian federal state of Mato Grosso, where he thought that he would find gold mines.

In 1561 he moved to the southern Amazon Basin with a group of settlers, where he founded the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, giving it the name of his hometown in Spain. Ñuflo de Chaves settled in his new town with his family, being the first European who introduced goats and sheeps in the region. He was slain there in a conflict with the Itatines natives in 1568 (a few years later the settlement was moved to a new position 220 km further to the west for the continuing conflicts with the natives).

Today the Province of Ñuflo de Chávez in the Bolivian Department of Santa Cruz is named in his honor.