SUAREZ, Juan (soo-ah-reth), Spanish colonist, born in Andalusia about 1540; died in Araucania in 1588. He served as captain in the expedition of Diego Flores de Valdes and Pedro Sarmiento, who sailed from Seville, 25 September, 1581, to found a colony in the Strait of Magellan. After five ships were wrecked, the fleet, reduced to sixteen vessels, arrived, 24 March, 1582, at Rio Janeiro. Having made several vain attempts to reach the strait, they at length arrived at its entrance, 7 February, 1583, and cast anchor, but were forced out again by a gale. They returned the following year, when the fleet was reduced to five ships, and were again carried back by the strength of the ebb tide, but anchored close to Cape de las Virgines, and the landing of the settlers began immediately under the direction of Suarez. When 300 persons had gone on land a gale obliged the ships to quit their anchorage. On the same day Diego de Ribero left for Spain during the night, taking with him the whole fleet except the vessel of Suarez, who refused to abandon the colony. Sarmiento had 400 men, 80 women, and provisions for eight months. They immediately built a city, Nombre de Jesus, near the mouth of the strait, and about eighty miles south founded San Felipe. Sarmiento, leaving the command to Suarez, sailed on 25 May, 1584, for Brazil, and subsequently went to Spain in April, 1585. In August, 1584, the two colonies united, but subsequently Suarez removed with 200 men to Nombre de Jesus. Many died during the winter, and by the hands of the Indians, who ruined the crops. In the beginning of 1586 an attempt was made by the colonists of San Felipe to build two barks, but they were wrecked, and in January, 1587, only eighteen men survived. One of these was rescued by Thomas Cavendish, and one other lived to be taken from the strait in 1589 by Andrew Merrick. He belonged to the colony of Nombre de Jesus. The latter suffered, perhaps, greater hardships than those that were experienced by the colonists of San Felipe. Nearly all of them set out toward the middle of 1587 in hope of reaching by land the establishments of the Plate river: but they were either killed by the Indians or died from hunger in the deserts of Araucania. Accounts of the expedition are to be found in Hakluyt's and James Burney's collections, and in the "Noticias de las expeditiones al Magellanes" (Madrid, 1788).