Pedro Fernández de Lugo (1475

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

–1536 Santa Marta) was the second

adelantado ''Adelantado'' (, , ; meaning "advanced") was a title held by Spanish nobles in service of their respective kings during the Middle Ages. It was later used as a military title held by some Spanish ''conquistadores'' of the 15th, 16th and 17th cen ...

of the Canary Islands and governor of

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

and

La Palma La Palma (, ), also known as ''La isla bonita'' () and officially San Miguel de La Palma, is the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, Spain. La Palma has an area of making it the fifth largest of the eight main Canary Islands. The ...

, a title confirmed again by Charles I of Spain, in Barcelona, on August 17, 1519. Pedro Fernández de Lugo was the son of

Alonso Fernández de Lugo Alonso Fernández de Lugo (; died 1525) was a Spanish military man, conquistador, city founder, and administrator. He conquered the islands of La Palma (1492–1493) and Tenerife (1494–1496) for the Castilian Crown; they were the last of the C ...

.Lugo Family
/ref> Born in

, Pedro arrived at

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that ...

as a young child and later accompanied his father to expeditions to Barbary. In 1509, his father gave him some of the rights and powers over the coast of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

that he had acquired in 1499. Pedro commanded the tower of Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña and participated in expeditions against the Berbers alongside the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

. At the age of sixty, he organized an expedition to present-day Colombia in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

. Backed financially by Cristóbal Francesquini and Juan Alberto Gerardini, a Florentine residing in Tenerife from 1510, Pedro Fernández de Lugo departed in 1535 appointed as Governor of Santa Marta. Fernández de Lugo appointed Licentiate Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada as General Lieutenant of the expedition whose purpose was to find the source of the Magdalena River and a land path to Peru. The expedition ended up discovering and conquering the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

. Fernández de Lugo died in 1536, before receiving news of the newly discovered Muisca.

References

External links

La expedición a Santa Marta de don Pedro Fernández de Lugo (1535)
Spanish explorers History of Colombia 1475 births 1536 deaths Politicians from the Canary Islands 16th-century Spanish people {{CanaryIslands-stub