Calle de Alonso de Heredia
The street presumably bears the name of Alonso de Heredia, a 16th-century conqueror from Madrid, brother of Pedro de Heredia and his lieutenant general in Cartagena de Indias, founder of Tolú and co-founder of Mompox. No consulted source establishes that identification explicitly.
La Guindalera, pedestrian today, keeps under its asphalt a secret that the 2009 works brought into view: the old tram tracks and the original cobblestones. That tram, inaugurated in 1893, joined the Salamanca district with the outskirts of Guindalera and Prosperidad, neighbourhoods that began to fill in the mid-19th century as the fringe of the Eastern Ensanche. Calle de Alonso de Heredia, documented from at least 1923, became its commercial spine.
The man who gives the street its name was born in Madrid on a date no one recorded and died probably in Cartagena de Indias around 1540. Around 1520 he crossed the Atlantic with his brother Pedro, and in Cartagena de Indias, where Pedro governed, he rose to lieutenant general.
In late 1535 he founded the town of Santiago de Tolú. He is also credited with founding Mompox, today a World Heritage Site, though the date is disputed. His last venture ended badly: in 1539 he led an expedition that collapsed in a mutiny; he was arrested, returned to Cartagena and died there soon after.
Sources (7)
- Alonso de Heredia — Enciclonet
- Alonso de Heredia — MCN Biografías
- Alonso de Heredia — EcuRed
- Pedro de Heredia — Wikipedia (en inglés)
- Santa Cruz de Mompox — Wikipedia (en inglés)
- El tranvía de La Guindalera — Rebeldes en la Estrella de la Muerte
- Historias de La Guindalera — Rebeldes en la Estrella de la Muerte