It is thought he arrived in Chile with the forces returning in 1549, from Peru with Francisco de Villagra overland.
This gave him an opportunity to make detailed observation on the places and people in northern Chile that appear in the Crónica.
Because of similarities to these documents some historians believed he was actually Valdivia's secretary, Juan de Cárdenas writing under a pseudonym.
It was known to the Chilean historian Diego de Rosales writing in the following century and listed by a few other compilers of historical documents at that time.
It then disappeared and was only found in the middle of the Twentieth century, being first published by the Fondo Histórico y Bibliográfico José Toribio Medina in 1966.