In October 1630, in residence in Rome during his service to the Spanish ambassador, Captain Alonso de Contreras began to write the story of his life. By the time of his death some 15 years later, Contreras had fought Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean and English corsairs in the West Indies. If not for an untimely shipwreck, he would have set sail for the Philippines with an infantry company under his command. Instead, despite his humble origins, he was named presidio captain in Sinaloa and later castle governor of San Juan de Ulúa in Mexico. Contreras's autobiography, titled Discurso de mi vida, recounts deeds both admirable and abhorrent, from the rescue of a Christian concubine from the harem of the king of Algiers to the murder of Contreras's adulterous wife and her lover in Palermo. The drama and violence of this peripatetic life, like those of other Spanish soldiers...
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