Aguirre, Lope de (1518–1561)

Lope de Aguirre (b. 1518; d. 27 October 1561), self-proclaimed rebel leader of ill-fated descent of the Amazon River. Few sixteenth-century Spanish explorers have secured the notoriety of Lope de Aguirre. He was a soldier from Oñate, in the province of Guipuzcoa, Spain, who joined the Pedro de Ursúa expedition to the Amazon. Aguirre was one of the instigators of a plot to assassinate Ursúa, and at first supported Fernando de Guzmán to replace the slain Ursúa. As the group traveled against great odds downstream, discipline disintegrated, Indian carriers were abandoned, and an increasing number of men were killed in brawls. Aguirre captained Guzmán's militia, heading fifty Basque harquebusiers. Paranoid and filled with delusions of grandeur, he cowed followers and massacred Guzmán and all others suspected of disloyalty.

Challenging the authority of king and church, Aguirre argued that the land belonged to the conquerors. His unrealistic goal was to descend the Amazon, sail northwestward until he could attack Spanish authorities in Peru frontally, then assume the land's administration. Shortly after he reached the Venezuelan coast, however, royal supporters surrounded his encampment. He killed his own daughter to prevent her capture. His was one of the bloodiest and most controversial expeditions of the Age of Discovery.

See alsoExplorers and Exploration: Brazil; Ursúa, Pedro de.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Antonio Del Busto Duthurburu, Historia general del Perú, vol. 2, Descubrimiento y conquista (1978).

John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilians (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Lacarta, Manuel. Lope de Aguirre: el loco del Amazonas. Madrid: Alderabán Ediciones, 1998.

                                    Noble David Cook