Diego de losada
Diego de Losada y Cabeza de Vaca (Rionegro del Puente, Zamora, 1511 – Borburata, Carabobo, 1569) was a Spanish conquistador, born in Rionegro del Puente (Zamora) on an uncertain date, although some authors indicate the year 1511. He is known for being the founder of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, after the failed attempts of Francisco Fajardo.
He was the son of Catalina de Osorio and Álvaro Pérez de Losada (lord of Rionegro). From 1526 he went on to serve in the palace of Alonso de Pimentel, Count of Benavente. Like most of his contemporaries, his interest in discovering the New World after its discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought him to these lands as a means of conquest and colonization.
In 1533, he was in Puerto Rico with his travel companion Pedro Reinoso, with whom he joined the hosts of Antonio Sedeño who was preparing to venture up the Meta River in search of the riches of "Dorado&# 3. 4;. Until 1536 Losada and Reinoso were in Maracapana and surrounding areas, when Sedeño arrived with his hosts with the aim of leaving inland. Because Sedeño, who was a cruel and arbitrary person, rebelled against the authority of the Royal Audience of Santo Domingo, it sent Lieutenant General Juan de Frías with the aim of taking him prisoner, but it was Losada who finally took Frías prisoner..
Then an unexpected event happened, such as the poisoning of Sedeño on the way to Meta, dividing his forces into 2 contingents, one under the command of Reinoso and the other under the leadership of Losada.
Both chiefs failed to unite their efforts, returning to Maracapana to later continue to Santa Ana de Coro, where they parted ways. Reinoso headed towards the territory of the Jirahara (present-day Barquisimeto), where he was captured by Captain Lope Montalvo de Lugo, while Losada went to Coro where he gained the confidence of the captain general of the province of Venezuela, Heirinch Remboldt (1542 -1544), who united him with Juan de Villegas for the performance of an important mission.
Losada left Coro on March 10, 1543 together with Villegas heading for Cubagua and Cumaná, with the purpose of getting replacement for his troops, since his men had been taken by the expeditionaries Felipe von Hutten and Montalvo de Lugo, who were in search of El Dorado.
When, in September 1544, they returned to Coro provided with men and food, they found that Remboldt had died, taking his place, first the ordinary mayors of the city Bernardino Manso and Juan de Bonilla and later, Juan de Carvajal, rapporteur of the Royal Court of Santo Domingo and by Lieutenant General Juan de Frías. Parallel to these events, a strong rivalry began to emerge between Villegas and Losada that ended up making them enemies. In this sense, Villegas was ahead of Losada and went to receive Carvajal in Paraguaná, entering Coro with the new president on January 1, 1545; taking advantage of the occasion to upset Carvajal against Losada, who, given the circumstances, decided to return to Santo Domingo.
He returned to Venezuela with Juan Pérez de Tolosa, the new governor and captain general of the province (1546-1549), who immediately ordered the capture of Carvajal, who had ignored the authority of Frías and assassinated von Hutten. Finally, Carvajal was hanged on September 16, 1546, in the presence of his soldiers and all the inhabitants of the city of El Tocuyo that he had founded.
After this fact, Governor Tolosa ordered his lieutenant general Juan de Villegas and the officer Bartolomé García, to return to Coro with 30 men, while he gave other commissions to his brother and Losada, so that they could reconnoiter the lands south of El Tocuyo; after which they returned to this population in February 1549.
In September 1549, Governor Pérez de Tolosa died and was succeeded by Juan de Villegas (1549-1553), who after smoothing things over with Losada gave him the opportunity to hold high positions.
One of the first large companies in which Losada participated in this period was the founding of Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto in 1552 together with Villegas. Likewise, he was ordinary mayor of this city, and is favored there with 9 Indian encomiendas. In El Tocuyo he was alderman and also mayor, having to face during this time the rebellion led in 1553 by Negro Miguel in Buría.
In 1565, the governor and captain general of the province of Venezuela, Alonso Bernáldez de Quirós (1561-1562; 1564-1566) appointed him to subdue the Caracas Indians, an undertaking in which Francisco had already failed Fajardo, Luis de Narváez, Juan Rodríguez Suárez, the governor himself Bernáldez de Quirós and Gutierre de la Peña.
In 1567 Losada left El Tocuyo with the purpose of carrying out his enterprise accompanied by 300 Spaniards and nearly 16,000 Jirahara warriors. In Villa Rica (now Nirgua) the expedition was placed under the patronage of San Sebastián, where it was joined, among others, by the governor's sons, Francisco de Infante, Francisco Maldonado de Almendráis, Francisco Madrid, Gabriel de Ávila, Alonso and Tomé Andrea. de Ledesma, Sebastián Díaz de Alfaro, Damián del Barrio, Pedro Alonso Galeas, Diego de Paradas, Juan de Gámez, Julián de Mendoza, Pedro García Camacho and Juan Serrano, all experienced soldiers.
After a while, the expedition led by Losada reached Mariara and from there it passed to the Valley of Fear, domain of the cacique Guaicaipuro. The advance of the Spaniards through this territory was carried out with blood and fire, and Losada's army triumphed due to its military superiority.
The interest in the existence of gold veins in the vicinity of the Caracas Valley, and the possibility of connecting the western colonies with those of eastern Venezuela, moved the Spanish towards this area of the Coastal Range, which was practically the only one that they still did not control.
The Carib Indians who occupied that territory had emerged unsuccessful in almost all the encounters with the Spaniards who had barely managed to found two small towns: the Hato de San Francisco in the Caracas valley and Villa del Collado on the coast. The Caribs, for their part, controlled an approximate area between what is now Maracay and the Barlovento Plain, so the morale of their warriors was very high. The Caribs were a very warlike ethnic group, much of their culture and rituals revolved around war, and they were in permanent conflict with other groups since before the arrival of the Spanish, particularly the Arawaks, which is why they were very skilled at battle. By 1567, the tribal confederation (Caribana) was capable of mobilizing up to 17,000 Carib warriors at one time under the leadership of cacique Guaicaipuro (lancer of the hills) and they had destroyed the two towns.
Upon reaching the valley of the Caracas Losada, following a Royal Decree issued in 1563, he began the repopulation of the place, ordered its rebuilding and formally refounded the city on July 25, 1567 with the name of Santiago de León de Caracas, the current capital of Venezuela. On September 8 of the same year, he founded the port of Nuestra Señora de Carballeda (present-day Caraballeda) in the ruins of the town of Collado, in honor of the patron saint of his native town, the Virgin of Carballeda. Losada, would have refounded and rebuilt the two enclaves that the Indians had destroyed four or five years before, established the main institutions, and built defenses for the new population, due to the permanent harassment of the Caribs who practically kept it entrenched in the place. In 1568 the hosts of Losada made up of 300 Spaniards and 18,000 auxiliary Indians defeated the Caribbean Confederation with more than 13,000 warriors led by the Tiuna cacique in the battle of Maracapana marking the beginning of the breakdown of indigenous resistance and the end of the Confederation Caribbean. The Caribs lost their strength and range of action, unable to rise once more under a unified command, they dispersed in their territories, some caciques continued their resistance until their death or submission. Even so, Losada was concerned about the close presence of Guaicaipuro and his men and, given the fame of his attacks on the conquistadors, he decided not to expect an attack from him, thus, as a preventive move, he entrusted the mayor of Caracas, Francisco de Infante undertakes the mission to capture Guaicaipuro and 'pacify' the other Caciques. Guaicaipuro would die shortly after near present-day Paracotos, in a surprise combat with the Spanish led by Infante, who found his whereabouts by being led by native guides who had been blackmailed. This allowed the Spanish to populate the center of Venezuela without difficulties. After the conquest of the valley of Caracas, practically only one Caribbean group remained offering resistance to the Spanish, the Cumanagotos, between the Tuy Valleys and the Neverí River, with Caracas and Margarita being the centers of Spanish operations.
Losada died at the end of 1569 in the vicinity of Borburata. His remains are buried in Cubiro (Lara State).