Francisco Pizarro - Early Life

Early Life

Pizarro was born in Trujillo, in modern day Extremadura, Spain. His birth year is uncertain, but is placed sometime in the 1470s, possibly 1471. He was the illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro Rodríguez de Aguilar (1446–1522) and Francisca González Mateos, a poor woman of Trujillo. His father was a colonel of infantry who served in Navarre and in the Italian campaigns under Cordoba. His mother married late in life and had a son Francisco Martín de Alcántara, who was at the conquest of Peru with his half-brother from its inception. Through his father, Francisco was a second cousin once removed to Hernán Cortés. Little attention was paid to Francisco's education and he grew up illiterate. On 10 November 1509, Pizarro sailed from Spain to the New World with Alonzo de Ojeda on an expedition to Urabí. He sailed to Cartagena and joined the fleet of Martin Fernández de Enciso in 1513.