Death in the Snow: Pedro de Alvarado and the Conquest of Peru, 1530-1535

• In Event: Nuevas exploraciones y lecturas del corpus y el archivo coloniales

Abstract

Pedro de Alvarado is best known as the right-hand man of Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico and, in his own guise, the ruthless conqueror of Guatemala. Far less known is Alvarado’s ambition to intervene in the conquest of Peru and stake out a share of the spoils by wresting control from rivals Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. To this end he built a massive fleet, sailed south from Central America to what is now Ecuador, made landfall, and marched from the Pacific coast up through the sierra with Quito, the fabled northern stronghold of the Inca Empire, his intended destination. Passage across the Andes, where Alvarado’s party was engulfed by blinding blizzards and freezing cold, proved the incursion’s undoing. The debacle that ensued, which resulted in the demise of hundreds of coerced indigenous accompaniers and the defection of scores of disaffected Spaniards from Alvarado’s ranks to those of Pizarro and Almagro, warrants more scrutiny than afforded hitherto.

Author

• William George Lovell, Queen's University