Diego de Almagro , was born in the La Mancha town of Almagro, Ciudad Real, Spain (1508). He was the illegitimate son of Juan de Montenegro and Elvira Gutiérrez. He did not have a happy childhood:abandoned by his mother, he was raised by Sancha López del Peral. His father would pick him up when he was four years old, taking him with him to the town of Almagro. Shortly after, Juan de Montenegro died and little Diego was left under the power of his maternal uncle Hernán Gutiérrez. Due to the mistreatment he received, he ran away from his uncle's house to Ciudad Real in search of his mother, but he was also rejected there.
He then traveled to Toledo where he was raised by Luis de Polanco, one of the four mayors of the Catholic Monarchs.
In 1514 he embarked fleeing from justice in the squadron of Pedrarias Dávila. He participated in the Darién and Tierra Firme campaigns in Panama, where he met Francisco Pizarro. Excited by the news of a rich country in the Levant, he signed in 1524 with Francisco Pizarro and the clergyman Hernando de Luque a company contract in order to carry out discovery expeditions . At the end of that same year they started the company; Pizarro sailed from Panama aboard the "Santiago" and Almagro did so later on the "San Cristóbal".
Diego de Almagro expeditions
On that first trip he lost an eye, when confronting the Indians he was about to be captured if it were not for a black man who saved him . The expedition continued to the mouth of the San Juan River and, returning to Chochama beach, he found his partner, deciding then to continue the company. By order of Pizarro he returned to Panama to recruit men and bring supplies to the host . He met with the governor who, dissatisfied with the failure, thought it appropriate to attach a captain to Pizarro. It was the opportunity that Almagro was waiting for to be promoted and he requested the position for himself. When months later Pizarro reproached him for his attitude, he argued that he had done it to prevent the entry of an upstart to the conquering company.
On the second trip he continued with his work as supplier of the host, while Pizarro reached the coast of Peru . Faced with the refusal of part of the new governor Pedro de los Ríos to authorize a new expedition, Pizarro then decided to travel to Spain to negotiate directly with Emperor Carlos V. From then on, the contradictions between Almagro and his partner worsened. On June 26, 1529, Pizarro signed the Capitulations of Toledo in Spain, by which he was appointed head of the expedition and governor of Peru. Almagro, on the other hand, was only granted possession of the fortress that was going to be built in Tumbes, and was assigned, as warden of it, a minimum salary compared to the profits that he himself had obtained in military campaigns. In 1531, while Pizarro left for Peru again, Almagro stayed in Panama with the task of looking for supplies and men. He then requested a Capitulation from the crown to separate from his partner, but it was denied. With 153 men he left for Peru and on April 12, 1533 he entered Cajamarca. With pain he saw the distribution of the treasures that the prisoner Atahualpa offered to collect, since it was not enough for him and his men.
Road to Cuzco, Empire of the Incas
He continued his trip to Cuzco with Francisco Pizarro and had an outstanding action by saving Hernando Pizarro who was surrounded in Vilcaconga . Once the treasure of Cuzco had been distributed, he had to take up arms again to go to the north coast to contain Alonso de Alvarado. who with an army from Guatemala intended to enter the conquest of Peru. He joined Sebastián Benalcázar and together they marched to confront him, but the blood did not reach the river and they both conferred. Alvarado pointed out that the city of Cuzco escaped the government of Pizarro . Almagro knew this was a mistake but later he used this same argument when going to war against the Pizarros. Alvarado sold his squad to Diego de Almagro and they marched together to Pachacamac where Francisco Pizarro was waiting for them, founding the city of Trujillo on the way by order of Pizarro himself. In Pachacamac the Marquis canceled what was owed to Alvarado for the expedition, obtaining his retirement. On May 21, 1534, Almagro received a certificate making him governor of Nueva Toledo . Here the contradictions with the Pizarros began to sharpen, since Almagro claimed Cuzco for himself, but Juan, Gonzalo and Hernando refused to recognize him as governor. Things calmed down with the arrival of Francisco, who persuaded him to start the conquest of Chile and even helped finance it. he left Cuzco in the winter of 1535, the trip through the Andes was hard due to the climatic conditions and the orography of the area, losing part of his men. In the middle of 1536 he arrived at the Aconcagua valley but the poverty of the land and the fear of losing his government made him return, although he no longer returned by way of the sierra but instead followed the coastal road through the Atacama desert. He arrived when the indigenous troops harassed the city of Cuzco almost daily and he hatched the idea of associating with Manco Inca in order to expel the Pizarros from Cuzco, but his negotiations failed. However, on April 8, 1537 he took Cuzco by force, capturing the Pizarro brothers (Gonzalo and Hernando) . He asked the council to appoint him governor, but very cunningly that corporation delegated such determination to the bishop of Tierra Firme, who in turn elevated it to the king. Alonso de Alvarado was sent to arrest him but was thwarted and taken prisoner on the Abancay bridge on July 12, 1537. Eager to reach an agreement, Francisco Pizarro invited Almagro to conference in Mala on November 13, 1537, but the meeting failed since Almagro believed that it was a trap. Pizarro then used the mediation of the Mercedarian provincial Fray Francisco de Bobadilla, who convinced Almagro to remain in Cuzco pending the king's sentence, but to hand over Hernando Pizarro, who promised to return to Spain. Almagro accepted and released Hernándo but the war continued. As soon as Hernando arrived at his brother's camp, he took a halberd and said that he wanted to go after Almagro at that very moment. On April 8, 1538, the battle of Las Salinas was fought with disastrous results for Almagro, who was about to be executed by Hernando Pizarro on the same battlefield, saving himself by the energetic intervention of Alonso de Alvarado . He was taken prisoner to Cuzco where a process was opened against him, charging him with the following charges:taking Cuzco by arms, arresting Hernando Pizarro (then lieutenant governor), going against Alonso de Alvarado and wanting to agree with Manco Inca. he was sentenced to death and it was executed on July 8, 1538 , being garroted in his cell. He left two mestizo children:Diego and Isabel.