Juan de Velasco Juan de Velasco Juan de Velasco y Pérez Petroche (1727–1792) was an 18th-century Jesuit priest, historian, and professor of philosophy and theology from the Royal Audience of Quito. He was born in Riobamba to Juan de Velasco y López de Moncayo and to María Pérez Petroche. Among the universities where he taught was the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima in the Viceroyalty of Peru. He is best known for his history book "Historia del Reino de Quito", although he also wrote books in fields other than history, such as physics textbooks and poetry anthologies. The book "Historia del Reino
Juan Bautista Alvarado was born in Monterey, Alta California, to Jose Francisco Alvarado and María Josefa Vallejo. His grandfather Juan Bautista Alvarado accompanied Gaspar de Portolà as an enlisted man in the Spanish Army in 1769. His father died a few months after his birth and his mother remarried three years later, leaving Juan Bautista in the care of his grandparents on the Vallejo side, where he and Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo grew up together. They were both taught by William Edward Petty Hartnell, an English merchant living in Monterey. In 1827 the eighteen-year-old Alvarado was hired as secretary to the territorial legislature. In