Pedro de Heredia

Pedro de Heredia y Fernández
Born	1505, circa Madrid (Spain)
Died	27 January 1554 Zahara de los Atunes, Cádiz (Spain)
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	Explorer, Conqueror

Pedro de Heredia (Madrid, circa 1505 – Zahara de los Atunes, Cádiz, January 27, 1554) was a Spanish conquistador, founder of the city of Cartagena de Indias and explorer of the northern coast and the interior of present-day Colombia.

Pedro de Heredia was a descendant of a rich family of noble lineage. His parents were Pedro de Heredia and Inés Fernandez. The chronicler Juan de Castellanos tells that even in his early years, he showed an adventurous and quarrelsome character. In his youth, Pedro de Heredia was involved in an altercation with six men who tried to kill him in a dark alley in Madrid. The fight left him with a disfigured nose that required the intervention of a doctor from the Spanish Crown. In retaliation, Heredia hunted down three of his attackers and killed them before fleeing to the New World to evade justice, leaving behind his wife and children.

Heredia traveled to the West Indies with his brother Alonso de Heredia and settled in Santo Domingo, the capital of the island of Hispaniola, where they eventually inherited a sugar mill and an estate in Azua Province. Then came news of the death of the governor of Santa Marta, Rodrigo de Bastidas, and the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo decided to send Pedro de Vadillo as interim governor of the province and Pedro de Heredia as his lieutenant. In 1525, Vadillo and Heredia landed in Santa Marta with 200 men and soon became involved in disputes with Rodrigo Alvarez Palomino, a former lieutenant of Bastidas, which were resolved when the latter was drowned in the river that bears his name.

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