Jerónimo de Alderete

Jerónimo de Alderete y Mercado (; – April 7, 1556) was a Spanish conquistador who was later named governor of Chile, but died before he could assume his post.

Early life Alderete was born in Olmedo, Castille in 1518, the son of Francisco de Mercado and of Isabel de Alderete. He came to Peru in 1535, under the orders of Diego de Rojas who intended to undertake the conquest of the Gran Chaco region.

In Chile Jerónimo de Alderete was part of Pedro de Valdivia's expedition to settle in the Mapocho valley of Chile in 1540. He was a regidor of the first city government of Santiago, Chile in 1541. In 1544, he joined the expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene that was explore the lands to the south to the Straits of Magellan in the bark San Pedro. Alderete then travelled to London, where he met the King and obtained from him the governorship-for-life for Valdivia. As he was on the road to Spain to start the journey back to Chile, he received the news of the death of Valdivia, so he returned to England once more, where the King appointed him to succeed Valdivia on October 17, 1554, and named him Adelantado and a Knight of Santiago.

In the meantime, back in Chile the will of Valdivia had also appointed him as his successor as governor of Chile, but that was disallowed by the Viceroy of Peru Melchor Bravo de Saravia, who appointed an interim governor. As Alderete was returning to America to assume his post he was taken ill with yellow fever in Panama and died there on April 7, 1556.