Pedro de la Gasca (June 1485 – 13 November 1567) was a Spanish bishop, diplomat and the second (acting) viceroy of Peru, from 10 April 1547 to 27 January 1550.

In 1542 he was negotiator for Emperor Charles V in discussions with the pope and King Henry VIII, a position requiring great diplomatic skill.

Instead, he commissioned La Gasca to restore the peace, naming him president of the Audiencia and providing him with unlimited authority to punish and pardon the rebels.

La Gasca suggested that if he were unable to fulfill his offices, a royal fleet of 40 ships and 15,000 men was preparing to sail from Seville in June to restore the peace in Peru by more forceful methods.

Most of Pizarro's officers and men went over to La Gasca, with the exception of Francisco de Carvajal, dubbed the Demon of the Andes.

American historian William H. Prescott wrote that the secret of Gasca's effectiveness was his unquestioned honesty:In accomplishing his objects, he disclaimed force equally with fraud.

[3] (According to Prescott, Gasca's "countenance was far from comely" and he "was awkward and ill proportioned; for his limbs were too long for his body, — so that when he rode he appeared to be much shorter than he really was.