Pedro de Alvarado

Pedro de Alvarado was a Spanish conquistador who took part in the conquest of Mexico and Central America and became governor of Guatemala.

Tenochtitlan: The Mexica capital, built on an island in Lake Texcoco and conquered by Spanish forces in 1521. Alvarado commanded Spanish forces in the city during Cortés’s absence in 1520.
Indigenous allies in the Spanish conquest: Indigenous peoples and polities that allied with Spanish forces during the conquest of the Americas. Alvarado’s campaigns relied on Indigenous fighters and guides as well as Spanish soldiers.
Hernán Cortés: The Spanish conquistador who led the campaign that toppled the Mexica Empire and established Spanish rule in central Mexico. Alvarado served under Cortés in Mexico and later pursued independent campaigns in Central America.
Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala: The early Spanish colonial capital of Guatemala, founded in the sixteenth century and repeatedly relocated after disasters. Alvarado founded the settlement that became the center of his governorship.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo: A Spanish soldier and chronicler whose account describes the conquest of Mexico from a participant’s perspective. Díaz’s chronicle offers a Spanish eyewitness account of Alvarado’s conduct in Tenochtitlan.
Massacre in the Great Temple: The 1520 killing of Mexica celebrants by Spanish forces during a religious festival in Tenochtitlan. Alvarado’s order to attack celebrants helped trigger the uprising that expelled the Spaniards.
Tlaxcalan alliance: The military and political partnership between the Tlaxcalans and Hernán Cortés’s forces against the Mexica Empire. Tlaxcalan forces accompanied Alvarado during the conquest of Guatemala.
Tecún Umán: A K’iche’ Maya military leader remembered in Guatemalan tradition for resisting the Spanish invasion. Tradition links Tecún Umán’s death to the Spanish campaign led by Alvarado in 1524.
Spanish conquest of Guatemala: The prolonged Spanish campaign to establish colonial rule over the Maya polities of present-day Guatemala. Alvarado’s 1524 invasion began the campaign, which faced continuing Indigenous resistance.
Florentine Codex: A sixteenth-century illustrated encyclopedia of Mexica life and the Spanish conquest, compiled under the direction of Bernardino de Sahagún. Its Nahua testimonies provide perspectives that differ from Spanish conquest chronicles.

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