Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa Briceño y Berdugo (1621–1687) was a Spanish colonial soldier and sometime governor of Spanish New Mexico. He was born in Lima, Perú; his early career saw him working within the Spanish Imperial bureaucracy. He rose to the position of Alcalde in the Viceroyalty of Peru, but accusations of misconduct forced him to flee the jurisdiction to evade arrest. He joined the army in New Spain, rising again through the ranks until the Viceroy of New Spain appointed him Governor of New Mexico, a position he would hold from 1661 to 1664. Peñalosa would earn the enmity of Spanish Catholic friars by permitting his domain's Pueblos to retain their cultures and religious practices. This ultimately would see him declared a blasphemer and heretic by Catholic tribunal, and exiled from New Spain in 1665. He then offered his services to James II of England (refused) and then in 1678 to the King of France, Louis XIV (also rejected.) As part of his effort to woo Louis, he provided the French with a manuscript map of New Mexico and the neighboring provinces, notably revealing Spain's silver mines and actively encouraging the French to send him to take the province. He would die in 1687 before any of these plans bore fruit.



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