Alonso de Contreras

Alonso de Contreras (Madrid, Spain, 6 January 1582 - 1641) was a Spanish sailor (captain of frigate), soldier (captain of infantry and then of cavalry), privateer, adventurer and writer, best known as the author of his autobiography; one of the very few autobiographies of Spanish soldiers under the Spanish Habsburgs and possibly one of the finest, together with the True History of the Conquest of New Spain (Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España) by Bernal Diaz del Castillo.

Born to a very poor family he enrolled in the army at the young age of 15 (in his autobiography he says 14 but the date he gives, September 1597, corresponds with 15) using his mother's name, Contreras.

There is an obscure incident where, in the small Morisco town of Hornachos, he found a cache of arms in a house where one of his soldiers was quartered.

A prostitute falls in love with him after she sees him involved in a fight and joins him and follows him with his army but his captain tries to rape her and Contreras takes revenge by almost killing him.

After some time of soldiering he becomes a hermit on the slopes of the Moncayo in Aragon and lives that life until he is arrested and tried for the incident of the arms at Hornachos.

In Italy he married a Castilian lady but, having become suspicious of her faithfulness he spies on her and laconically says "their fate was that I found them in bed together and they died".