Gasca, Pedro De La

Related Category: Peru History: Biographies

(pā´thrō thā lä gäs´kä), c.1485–1567?, Spanish colonial administrator. A priest as well as a lawyer, he was selected by Charles V to end the anarchy prevailing in Peru. He arrived in 1547 after the death of the viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela. Tactful, judicious, but unyielding, he wisely offered pardon to all and repealed the New Laws of Bartolomé de Las Casas before mustering his forces and entering the field against Gonzalo Pizarro, whom he defeated in 1548 and ordered executed. He restored some semblance of order to Peru, but his methods were always strictly expedient. After his return to Spain in 1550 he was made bishop of Siguenza and Palencia.