Note X‑33 — Chapter X · ADMINISTRATION OF AFFAIRS IN NICARAGUA. 1531-1550.

Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 235. Valdivieso was a native of Villahermosa, and the son of Antonio de Valdivieso and Catalina Álvarez Calvento. He became a Dominican in the convent of San Pablo, Búrgos, of which he was an inmate when the emperor called him to the bishopric of Nicaragua. Datos Biog., in Cartas de Indias, 857, and Col. Doc. Inéd., i. 117; Herrera, dec. vii. lib. vi. cap. vi., states that he was made bishop 'por muerte del obispo Mendauia,' referring to dean Mendavia, but Rios would not have dared to send him a prisoner to Spain had he been a bishop. To whom Valdivieso refers when, while speaking of himself as being the second bishop concentrated in Nicaragua, he remarks: 'Fue el lo. antecesor que murió a 40 dias que llegó a la tierra,' Squier's MSS., xxii. 125, it is impossible to determine. The first bishop, Osorio, was appointed in 1531, and died in 1536. That another prelate was chosen before Valdivieso is nowhere recorded. It is probable, however, that he alludes to Fray Juan de Arteaga, bishop elect for Chiapas, who, when Las Casas first refused that appointment, left Spain on February 15, 1541, and died at Puebla the same year, soon after his arrival. Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 202.