Luis de Moscoso Alvarado (1505–1551) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. Luis de Moscoso Alvarado assumed command of Hernando De Soto's expedition upon the latter's death.
Early life
Luis de Moscoso Alvarado was born in
Badajoz
Badajoz (; formerly written ''Badajos'' in English) is the capital of the Province of Badajoz in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. It is situated close to the Portuguese border, on the left bank of the river Guadiana. The populati ...
, Spain, to Alonso Hernández Diosdado Mosquera de Moscoso and Isabel de Alvarado. De Moscoso had two brothers, Juan de Alvarado and Cristóbal de Mosquera. His uncle was the Spanish conquistador
Pedro de Alvarado
Pedro de Alvarado (; c. 1485 – 4 July 1541) was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala.Lovell, Lutz and Swezey 1984, p. 461. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of the Yucat ...
, who had excelled in the conquests of Mexico and Central America.
[Robert S. Weddle]
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," Luis de Moscoso Alvarado
Posted on Handbook of Texas Online. Accessdate on May 8, 2010.
Career
Expeditions with Pedro de Alvarado
Alvarado accompanied his uncle on expeditions to the Americas, where he participated in the conquest of present-day Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.
In 1530 Pedro sent Luis to El Salvador to set up a colony in the East of the region. On May 8, 1530 Alvarado founded the town of San Miguel de la Frontera in modern
San Miguel Department. In addition, Alvarado founded San Miguel with about 120 Spanish cavalry, as well as with infantry and
Indian auxiliaries, crossed the Lempa River and founded San Miguel on 21 November 1530.
In 1534, he traveled to Peru with his uncle on an expedition through what is now Ecuador. As Alvarado explored the area, he and Pedro discovered several tribes in the
Manabí Province
Manabí () is a province in Ecuador. Its capital is Portoviejo. The province is named after the Manabí people.
Demographics
Ethnic groups as of the Ecuadorian census of 2010:
*Mestizo 66.7%
* Montubio 19.2%
*Afro-Ecuadorian 6.0%
*White 7 ...
.
Expeditions with Hernando de Soto
After returning to Peru,
Alvarado and his two brothers decided to work with Spanish explorer
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (; ; 1500 – 21 May, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and ''conquistador'' who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire ...
.
Soto and Alvarado returned to Spain in 1536 due to a discussion broke out between
Diego de Almagro
Diego de Almagro (; – July 8, 1538), also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo, was a Spanish conquistador known for his exploits in western South America. He participated with Francisco Pizarro in the Spanish conquest of Peru. While subd ...
and
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru.
Born in Trujillo, Spain to a poor family, Pizarro chose ...
. In Spain, apparently, Alvarado made improper use of the wealth he had acquired in Peru, forcing his return to the Americas to recover it. He left the Spanish port of
Sanlucar de Barrameda with de Soto's army, leading one of the expedition's seven ships.
On April 7, 1538 the expedition reached Florida's coast. Alvarado obtained the title of "
maestre de campo
''Maestre de campo'' was a rank created in 1534 by the Emperor Carlos V, inferior in rank only to the ''capitán general'' and acted as a chief of staff. He was chosen by the monarch in the Council of State, and commanded a ''tercio''. Their powe ...
" (field commander) and kept this title until March 1541, when the group was attacked by the
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
Native American tribe, which caused the death of twelve Spaniards and many of the horses that participated in the expedition. The attack was, apparently (and mainly), the result of a misunderstanding between Alvarado and the tribe. De Soto died on May 21, 1542, in what became Arkansas, leaving Moscoso as the leader of the expedition, in the position of commander. After consulting with the other leaders, Moscoso decided to abandon the mission to found a colony and take the expedition to the modern-day Mexico.
Own expeditions
Moscoso and his army marched west, reaching northwest Louisiana and Texas. They encountered with
Caddoan Mississippian peoples along the way, but lacked interpreters to communicate with them and eventually ran into territory too dry for
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
farming and too thinly populated to sustain themselves by stealing food from the local populations. The expedition promptly backtracked to
Guachoya on the Mississippi River.
[
Over the winter of 1542-1543 they built "seven bergantines, or ]pinnaces
Pinnace may refer to:
* Pinnace (ship's boat), a small vessel used as a tender to larger vessels among other things
* Full-rigged pinnace
The full-rigged pinnace was the larger of two types of vessel called a pinnace in use from the sixteenth ...
, with which to seek a water route to Mexico". On July 2, 1543, Just over half of the members of the expedition (322 people) had survived and they traveled to the Mississippi River. Along the way they had a running three day battle with the chiefdom
A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...
of ''" Quigualtam"'', in which more men were lost. Alvarado's expeditionary group eventually made it to the Gulf Coast
The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coast, coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The list of U.S. states and territories by coastline, coastal states that have a shor ...
on July 16th, 1543, and began sailing westward along the Louisiana and Texas shores. The group probably also found some of Texas' bays (possibly Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay () is a large Gulf of Mexico bay on the Texas coast, lying in Calhoun and Matagorda counties and located approximately northeast of Corpus Christi, east-southeast of San Antonio, south-southwest of Houston, and south-southeas ...
, Corpus Christi Bay or Aransas Bay
Aransas Bay is a bay on the Texas Gulf Coast, approximately northeast of Corpus Christi, and south of San Antonio. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by San José Island (also referred to as St. Joseph Island). Aransas Pass is the m ...
) before finally arriving the Pánuco River
The Pánuco River ( es, Río Pánuco, ), also known as the ''Río de Canoas'', is a river in Mexico fed by several tributaries including the Moctezuma River and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The river is approximately long and passes throu ...
, and then traveling on to Mexico City.
There Moscoso wrote two letters to Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infa ...
, the king of Castile at the time, although these letters explained little about the expedition. Later, Moscoso began to work for the viceroy of New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...
Antonio de Mendoza, whom he accompanied in his traveled to Peru in 1550. It was there where Moscoso died in 1551.
Personal life
After sending the letters to the King of Spain, Moscoso Alvarado married Leonor in Mexico City. Leonor was daughter of the Alvarado's uncle Juan de Alvarado (the brother of Pedro de Alvarado).
Legacy
Mosca Pass
Mosca Pass, elevation , is a mountain pass in Alamosa and Huerfano counties in the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado. The pass lies on the eastern border of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve about 40 miles west of Walsenbu ...
, in the Alamosa County
Alamosa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,376. The county seat is Alamosa. The county name is the Spanish language word for a " grove of cottonwood trees."
History
Alamos ...
´s Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, is named after Luis de Moscoso de Alvarado, who may have arrived in the area in an exploration team in 1542.
References
Bibliography
# S. Weddle, Robert
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," Luis de Moscoso Alvarado
Posted on Handbook of Texas Online. Accessdate on May 8, 2010.
# Vallejo García-Hevia (2008).
Juicio a un conquistador: Pedro de Alvarado: su proceso de residencia en Guatemala (1536–1538)
' (in Spanish). Volume 1. Madrid, Spain: Marcial Pons, Ediciones de Historia. . .
# Hudson, Charles M. (1997). Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. University of Georgia Press
The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in Georgia and a ...
.
# Ferril, William (1911)
Sketches of Colorado: being an analytical summary and biographical history of the State of Colorado as portrayed in the lives of the pioneers, the founders, the builders, the statesmen, and the prominent and progressive citizens who helped in the development and history making of Colorado, Volume 1
Publisher in Western Press Bureau Co. Page 10. Accessdate on 2014-08-21.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarado, Luis de Moscoso
1505 births
1551 deaths
Spanish explorers of North America
Explorers of Spanish Florida
Explorers of Texas
Mayors of San Salvador