Alonso de Mercado y Villacorta, Marquis of Villacorta was a Spanish civil servant, acting in the Río de la Plata area of the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed fro ...

. Born in

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, he was Governor of Tucumán from 1655 to 1660. He was conned by

Pedro Bohórquez Pedro Chamijo (1602 in Granada, Spain – January 3, 1667 in Lima, Peru), more commonly known as Pedro Bohórquez (or Bohorques) or Inca Hualpa, was a Spanish adventurer in the Viceroyalty of Peru. He was probably born in Spain, but some sources s ...

, a Spanish adventurer who promised Mercado access to the hidden location of Inca treasures and afterwards had to suppress a revolt of Indians led by Bohórquez. Afterwards, he was nominated as Governor of the Río de la Plata, a position that he held between 1660 and 1663. He ordered the transfer of the city of Santa Fe to its present location. In 1662 he expelled the

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from its initial location on nowadays

Plaza de Mayo The Plaza de Mayo (; en, May Square) is a city square and main foundational site of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city's Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time kn ...

, as its buildings interfered with shooting practices of nearby

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

' "fortress" (the current

Casa Rosada The ''Casa Rosada'' (, eng, Pink House) is the office of the president of Argentina. The palatial mansion is known officially as ''Casa de Gobierno'' ("House of Government" or "Government House"). Normally, the president lives at the Quinta de ...

). His request for royal authorization to commerce with two foreign ships a year was denied. Nonetheless, he allowed

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

ships to dock in the Buenos Aires port. Because of his tolerance with the contraband of goods and slaves, he was subjected to a tribunal of grievances, but the case was dismissed. He was demoted and became again Governor of Tucumán (1664–1670). He founded San José de Metán (1665) and fortified the city of Talavera de Esteco to prevent further attacks from the Indians. He conducted a final campaign against

Calchaquí The Calchaquí or Kalchakí were a tribe of South American Indians of the Diaguita group, now extinct, who formerly occupied northern Argentina. Stone and other remains prove them to have reached a high degree of civilization. Under the leadership ...

Indians, and ordered the exile of 200 families of

Quilmes Quilmes () is a city on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, in the , on the south east of the Greater Buenos Aires. The city was founded in 1666 and it is the seat of the eponymous county. With a population of 230,810, it is located south of the ...

Indians to Buenos Aires.

References

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español - Alonso Mercado y Villacorta. Original version in Spanish, released under GNU FDL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercado y Villacorta, Alonso Spanish untitled nobility People from Tucumán Province Spanish colonial governors and administrators 17th-century Spanish people Governors of the Río de la Plata

See also

References