Diego De Almagro: Conquistadors In The Incas

Diego de Almagro

Diego de Almagro was born in Almagro, Spain in the year 1475. He was the son of Juan de Montenegro, but was considered an illegitimate child. As a result, he most likely spent his childhood with other relatives. He was put to work in the fields until about age fifteen; this meant that he received no schooling whatsoever. At a fairly young age he set off to seek his fortune, but instead he became a wanderer and ended up killing a man in a brawl. Afterwards, he made the decision to enter the Spanish Navy. Though the years in which he served in the navy are unrecorded, it is probable that he stayed in service for a considerable amount of time before he left the country to join an expedition to Central America.
In the year 1514,

Upon arrival, Almagro and Pizarro found that modern day Peru was ruled by the mighty Inca Empire. The native Incas were a very wealthy people and possessed a lot of gold, something that the Spaniards desperately wanted. The civilization was quite large with a population of roughly ten million people. However, despite their large numbers, the Incas fell at the hands of the conquistadors over the course of three years. There were an extremely small number of natives left after Spain took over the empire. Soon after the land had been won, Diego de Almagro established Cuzco as the first capital of Peru. However, Pizarro desired to create a different capital, in a city known as Lima, which is the modern day capital of Peru. This created a spark of enmity between the two explorers and Pizarro’s two brothers who assisted in the exploration. The Pizarros and Almagro went their separate ways for a time, each working on building up their cities with citizens and government systems. Soon enough, Almagro was declared the governor of Cuzco, but not before King Charles I of Spain asked him to lead an expedition down to Chile in search of