Francisco Pizarro (1476? - 1541) was the illegitimate son of a captain from Trujillo in Estremadura, the same region from which Cortés came. Pizarro served as a soldier in Italy before arriving in the New World in 1502 with much experience of war. He became a citizen of the new colony of Panama when it was founded in 1518, with farms and Indian slaves, and was part-owner of a gold-mining company. A bachelor of sparse tastes, he was a very different character from Cortés, to whom he was distantly related, but they shared a similar drive. Like Cortés, Pizarro had made a small fortune; he could have retired in Panama on his profits or gone back to Trujillo and built himself a fine house with his bust on the frieze and a coat of arms on the door. But he wanted more.