Sent out by Hernán Cortés with 120 horsemen, 300 foot soldiers and several hundred Cholula and Tlascala auxiliaries, Pedro de Alvarado was engaged in the conquest of the highlands of Guatemala from 1523 to 1527. He left Tenochtitlán, with 120 Cavalry units, 160 crossbowers and riflemen, 4 heavy artillery pieces, 300 infantry men, and 20,000 tlaxcaltec, cholulas, and mexicas. He entered Guatemala from Soconusco on the Pacific lowlands and then headed for Xetulul Humbatz, Zapotitlan.

Alvarado at first allied himself with the Cakchiquel nation to fight against their traditional rivals the Quiché nation. He began his conquest in Xepau Olintepeque, defeating the K'iché's  72,000 men, led by Tecún Umán (now Guatemala's national hero). Alvarado then went to Gumarcaj, (Utatlan), the K'iché capital, and burned it on March 7, 1524

He proceeded to Iximche, and established near there in Tecpan on July 25, 1524, to launch several campaigns to other cities, as Chuitinamit, the capital of the Tzutuhils,(1524), Mixco Viejo, capital of the Poqomams, and Zaculeu, capital of the Mam, (1525). He was named Captain General in 1527. Feeling his position secure, Alvarado turned against his allies Cakchiquels, meeting them in several battles until they were subdued in 1530.

It was neither superior tactical ability nor weaponry that decided that battle and led to the eventual conquest of Guatemala's native population, but European diseases that traversed  the Atlantic with the Spaniards and decimated Guatemala's native population four years before conquistadors arrived.

The terrible story of the plagues was recorded by Guatemala's Maya-Cakchiquel people. "After our fathers and grandfathers succumbed, half of the people ran away from the towns.  Dogs and vultures devoured the bodies.  The mortality was terrible...That is how we became orphans, oh, my children!"

The Spaniards almost certainly encountered an army of young, inexperienced fighters, fielded from a population that had not begun to recover from the devastating effects of the plagues. This native army was led by a gallant Maya-Quiché captain, Tecun Uman, attired in quetzal feathers and wearing crowns of precious metals and jewels.

A Quiché chronicle, written in the 1550s, tells how Captain Tecun "became an eagle covered with real feathers that  sprouted from his body.  He had wings that also sprouted from his body and three crowns--one of gold, another of diamonds, and a third of emeralds."

Since women of the time were relatively important by virtue of the families they were born into or were married into, much of Doña Leonor's history has to be interpreted through others, however, one should never underestimate the vital role that they played during a time of perpetual turmoil and conquest - not only keeping the families "together," but often-times helping make key decisions of state or in business.

Doña Leonor de Alvarado was born on March 22, 1524 at the newly founded city of Santiago de los Caballeros - Utatlan before the Spanish invasion (from Quiche "place of old reeds"). The site was originally founded around 1400 for its defensive position, as it was a time of warfare in the Guatemala highlands. She was baptized there by the priest Juan Godines.

Doña Leonor was the daughter of Don Pedro de Alvarado and the Tlaxcalan Indian princess “Tecuilhuatzin” (“Doña Luisa”) and was the first woman mestizo born in Guatemala . In 1519, her mother along with three other Tlaxcalan Princesses had been presented as gifts to Alvarado and Cortez and other lieutenants to seal the union of the Tlaxcalans as allies to the Spanish in the fight against their old enemy, the Aztec Empire and its ruler, the powerful Montezuma II

In 1523, Captain General Don Pedro de Alvarado began the conquest of the highlands of Guatemala and eventually captured territory all the way to Peru.

In 1524, Alvarado established the first capital in Iximche, and named it “Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Goathemala” (City of the Knights of Saint James of Guatemala).

On November 22, 1527, after several Cakchiquel indian uprisings, the capital was moved to a more suitable site in the Valley of Almolonga – to the present-day city of Ciudad Vieja.

When this city was destroyed on September 11, 1541 by a devastating mudflow emanating from the Volcán de Agua, the colonial authorities decided to move once more, this time to the Valley of Panchoy.

On March 10, 1543 the Spanish conquistadors founded present-day Antigua, and again, it was named Santiago de los Caballeros. For more than 200 years it served as the seat of the military governor of the Spanish colony of Guatemala, a large region that included almost all of present-day Central America and the southernmost State of Mexico: Chiapas.