1494-1519

Spanish Navigator

According to meager historical references, Captain Alonso Alvarez de Piñeda's life was short but exceedingly eventful and productive. The only actual mention of his date of birth appears in a biography of his immediate superior, Francisco de Garay. It states that Piñeda was born in Spain in 1494 in the village of Centernera.

His adventures began when Garay (who was then governor of Jamaica in the Caribbean) commissioned Alvarez de Piñeda to command a flotilla of four vessels with the express purpose of finding the imagined Southwest Passage water route to the Orient and the subsequent treasures of China and other Asian civilizations. It was a huge responsibility for a captain who was only 25 years of age.

Alvarez de Piñeda took his assignment seriously. He spent the next nine months sailing along...