Overshadowed by Cortés in pop culture, Alvarado is nonetheless considered a complex, even shady character in historiography. According to chronicles, he was considered sort of The Paragon of the conquistadores, being an stellar soldier, an impeccable dandy and an extraordinarily charming leader, possibly even moreso than Cortés himself, who similarly cultivated strong relationships with Spain's native allies and was highly popular among them. On the other hand, it also went into history that Alvarado owed much of his own success to having Cortés giving the orders and holding the leash, as every time he was left to his own devices, Alvarado proved to be an incredibly volatile, cruel and impulsive character with seriously inconsistent strategic skills — essentially, the embodiment of The Peter Principle, which not even conquistadors were safe from.
Alvarado and his long list of siblings were part of an Impoverished Patrician family, reason by which six of them followed their conquistador uncle into the New World in the hope of gaining fortune (it has been proposed they went as part of the entourage of Christopher Columbus' younger brother Diego). They participated in the conquest of Cuba under governor Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, and also participated in the second expedition to Mexican mainland under Juan de Grijalva. Naturally, when they heard Hernán Cortés was going in a new expedition to try to seize Aztec Empire, they joined him as well, with Pedro soon rising to the role of lieutenant thanks to his previous battle feats and impeccable performance on the road. Cortés and company eventually sealed an alliance Republic of Tlaxcala, ancestral enemies to the Aztecs, upon which Alvarado became one of the first to participate in the subsequent Altar Diplomacy, marrying the Tlaxcaltec princess Tecuelhuetzin, baptized María Luisa, daughter of the head chieftain Xicohtencatl the Elder. His brother Jorge followed on with a sister of hers.
Alvarado on the crest of the wave by this point. His poise, extroverted charisma and rare reddish-blonde hair made him a favorite of the Tlaxcaltecs, who nicknamed him Tonatiuh, the sun god, on account of Alvarado being both literally and figuratively radiant. It was this way he and Cortés led their expedition to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital lake-city. However, governor Velázquez sent a rival conquistador force to arrest Cortés, forcing the latter to detach a part of his army to dispose of him, during which Alvarado was left in charge of their affairs in Tenochtitlan. While Cortés was away, Alvarado's Tlaxcaltec spies warned him the Aztecs were concocting a plan to kill them all during the next festivity. It's unknown what truth and agenda lied behind this warning,note but Alvarado believed them and was not willing to take any risks, so in a decision that went into history as A Tragedy of Impulsiveness, he somehow decided his best option was to attack the festival and butcher everybody.
As the reader could imagine, when Cortés returned and found Tenochtitlan in arms against them, he tore Alvarado a new one for his lack of strategy. After checking up they could never retake the city from the inside, Cortés ordered the expedition to exit quietly by night through, but their column was spotted through the city's bridges and attacked while they were vulnerable. Folklore has that Alvarado, always the superb athlete, supposedly did a dangerous stunt by using his lance as a pole vault to jump over a broken bridge section in a way resembling the Cantabrian sport of salto pasiego, which witnesses called Salto de Alvarado ("Alvarado's Jump"), although this was actually a fantastic embellishment come much later.note Alvarado made up for it when they returned to Tenochtitlan at the head of an army of native allies and conquered the city, finishing for good the conquest of the Aztecs.
After the conquest, Cortés commissioned him and two of his brothers to deploy in the jungles of the Mayans and curb local disturbances against enemy and allied tribes. The tenure was marred by Alvarado failing at some intelligence tasks, at one point being duped by his Mayan auxiliars into attacking their rivals under the claim they were enemies, but he generally proved up to the mission, countering their opponent's traps and guerrilla tactics with equally ruthless moves, and conquered the area now known as Guatemala (a name not Mayan, but Nahua, given by Alvarado's Tlaxcaltec aides). The mix of this and his previous accomplishments allowed Alvarado to travel to Spain, meet King Charles V and being appointed governor despite some accusations of taking too much gold for himself, and around this time, Luisa gave birth to their first daughter, Leonor. Alvarado then married a Spanish lady, effectively becoming a bigamist due to a Loophole Abuse,note although his choice of woman soured his friendship with Cortés, who had expected him to marry his cousin. They didn't quite become enemies, loosely remaining at the same side of the politicking, but nothing would be the same anymore.note
The last part of his life was a succession of failed projects. Hearing about Francisco Pizarro and the mountains of gold of the Conquest of the Inca, Alvarado gathered an army of Spaniards, Tlaxcaltecs and Mayans and went south, planning to make some noise, but the travel was so tough and strenous that he lost his will and most of his forces. When he arrived to the Inca Empire, Pizarro's brother Gonzalo offered him to handsomely buy the remnants of his expedition, and the disgruntled Alvarado accepted the easy gains and made due. There he found out that another conquistador, Francisco de Montejo, had got permission to operate in his lands, and the resultant conciliation left Pedro depressed and without nothing to do. He suddenly had another idea and assembled a fleet in the Pacific coast to go to the conquest of the spice islands, but a rebellion of Mixtec natives called for his presence in Mexico. Alvarado arrived hoping to solve the problem quickly and return to his preparations, but during a battle in a ravine a horseman fell on him, horse included, and crushed him to death. This was the unceremonious end of the man known as Tonatiuh: who lives by the sword dies by the sword, they say.
His mestiza daughter Leonor was his main successor, marrying consecutively two other conquistadors and passing the family's fortune and ties to her children. In the 20th century, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, twice President of the Republic of Chile (1927-1931, 1952-1958), descended from Alvarado's younger brother García.
In fiction
Live-Action TV- Appears in Hernán, played by Michel Brown. Very unlike his historical self, he is portrayed as a shaggy, barbarian-like drunkard.
