Pedro de Cieza de León

Pedro Cieza de León (Llerena, Spain c. 1520 – Seville, Spain 1554) was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru. He is known primarily for his history and description of Peru, Crónicas del Perú. He wrote this book in four parts, but only the first was published during his lifetime; the remaining sections were not published until the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cieza de León was born to a family of Jewish conversos[1] around 1520 in Llerena, a town in southeastern Extremadura, less than 100 km (60 mi) from Portugal. Although recently converted from Judaism to Catholicism, the family enjoyed good social standing in the region because of their networks and business dealings.[2]

His father, Lope de León, was a shopkeeper in the town, and his mother, Leonor de Cazalla, was a native of Llerena. There is scant documentary evidence of the young Cieza de León’s childhood, and little is known of his early life before his voyage to the Americas. Given the fact that he left home at 13, it is unlikely that Cieza de León received more than a rudimentary education.

In 1536, in Córdoba, at 16, Cieza de León was greatly surprised to learn of the discovery of the land of the Incas and so decided to go to Seville to embarque on his journey to South America, to see for himself the artificts of precious metals which had been brought to Spain from Cajamarca.[3]

In light of the prohibition of entry into the Spanish colonies for Jews and Jewish converts to Catholicism, Alonso López and Luis de Torres attested for Cieza de León that he was not prohibited.[4] Jewish converso Pedro López de Cazalla, secretary of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of the Incan Empire, was also his first cousin.[5].

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