Pedro de Alvarado

In “L’il Abner”, there was a long-running gag about Joe Btfsplk, the very embodiment of bad luck.  Joe, who was always pictured with a small dark rain cloud over his head, brought disaster and calamity to any one around him.  Always well-meaning, Joe was a perfect jinx.

While Joe was Al Capp’s invention, there is a larger than life historical figure who brought disaster and ruin wherever he went.

Pedro de Alvarado was a Spanish conquistador in the early days of the Central American conquest.  Immigrating to Cuba in 1511, Alvarado quickly rose to prominence among the Spanish officials who carved out estates on the island.  Alvarado was tall and handsome, and with red hair and beard, he made a striking impression on those he met.  He was capable both of being affable to his friends but also of being cruelly violent to his enemies—the perfect combination of traits to be a successful conquistador.

Alvarado was on the little remembered first expedition to Mexico that was led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, a year before the infamous Cortés expedition.  Grijalva, who brought Alvarado with him as his lieutenant, sailed along the coast of Mexico wary of the large war party of natives that generally opposed his landing on the coast.  Trading glass trinkets and metal knives, Grijalva and Alvarado were able to gather a considerable quantity of gold, most of which was in the form of 600 golden axes.  Perhaps most important, they learned of a richer settlement to the west, the Aztec Empire.

Upon returning to Cuba, the axes turned out to be made of copper, not gold, a failure that Alvarado successfully convinced the governor was not his fault, but that of Grijalva.  When the Cortés expedition left, Pedro was the second in command, a move that proved tragic.

Cortés eventually made his way to Tenochtitlan, where he was the guest of Montezuma.  Through the Aztec chief, Cortés learned that a new group of Spaniards had arrived on the coast, whom Cortés knew had come to arrest him.  (The governor had reason to believe Cortés was a little too independent and wouldn’t share the plunder.)  Cortés left Pedro in command and hurried back to the coast.  Leaving Pedro in command of a delicate diplomatic mission was sort of like letting the Taliban run Vassar.

During an Aztec religious festival—which Pedro interpreted as satanic rites—‘he massacred the priests and nobles.  By the time that Cortés returned to the city, the Spanish forces were under siege.  As you can imagine, Cortés was a little peeved at Pedro, and ordered him to guard the rear of the Spanish forces as they evacuated Tenochtitlan.

Tenochtitlan was built on an island that was connected to the shore of the lake by long causeways.  For defensive purposes, the Aztecs had constructed the causeways with removable sections, which Cortés soon discovered could also be removed to keep the Spaniards from escaping.  Using a makeshift wooden bridge, the Spaniards fled for their lives while the Aztecs surrounded the causeway with canoes filled with warriors who attacked the fleeing men with arrows.

The makeshift bridge became stuck in the first gap and the terrified men were forced to leave it behind.  The next gap was crossed by the surviving men climbing over the bodies of the men who had preceded them.  According to an account by Gonzalo Ocampo, Pedro de Alvarado, already wounded, crossed the gap by using a lance as pole vault.  

While Cortés and Alvarado, eventually returned and defeated the Aztecs, the night of their bloody and violent escape, July 10, 1520, is known as La Noche Triste, the Sad Night.  Pedro went on to conquer most of Guatemala and part of Honduras—partly by enticing native leaders to negotiate (occasionally by burning them.  Native tribes deprived of leadership were much easier to conquer. 

Eventually, Pedro got bored and hearing of the great wealth being discovered in Peru by Pizarro, decided to try his luck further south.  You can imagine just how excited Pizarro was to have the personification of bad luck suddenly show up on his doorstep.  Knowing that all Pedro really wanted was gold, Pizzaro gave him a fortune in gold bars simply to leave.

Pedro was halfway back to Spain before he realized that he had been paid in gold painted lead bars.  At least they weren’t copper axes.

Pedro went back to Guatemala where he had been appointed governor, but the conquistador didn’t exactly have the temperament for government, so be began planning an expedition to China and the Spice Islands.  The mischief Pedro could have gotten into in China would be enough material to fill a book, but unfortunately (Or, perhaps, fortunately!), Pedro never made it there.

There was a small uprising among the local natives, and Pedro was responding with a band of soldiers when his horse stumbled and fell on him, killing him.  His death left a political vacancy, so his wife, Beatriz de la Cueva was appointed to be his replacement. The bad luck continued! — a wall of the crater lake above the capital collapsed.  The water rushing down the side of the volcano carried off most of the inhabitants, but the new governor may still have been alive when an aftershock collapsed what was left of the chapel in which she and the remaining townspeople had taken refuge!