Which freed galley slave later appears as Master Pedro?

The freed galley slave who later appears as Master Pedro is Ginés de Pasamonte.

Don Quixote encounters Ginés in Part I, Chapter 22, among a chain gang of condemned galley slaves being marched to their punishment. Convinced that the prisoners are victims of injustice, Don Quixote attacks their guards and frees them. Ginés repays the favor badly: he escapes, helps cause trouble, and steals Sancho Panza’s donkey in an episode omitted from the first edition.

In Part II, Ginés reappears under the alias Maese Pedro, usually translated as Master Pedro. He now works as a traveling puppeteer and claims to possess a trained monkey that can reveal people’s pasts. His puppet show dramatizes the rescue of Melisendra, but Don Quixote mistakes the performance for reality and attacks the puppets.

The character’s transformation links the two parts of the novel and highlights Cervantes’s recurring themes of disguise, performance, and storytelling. “Master Pedro” is an alias, not a separate character; the freed prisoner and the puppeteer are the same person.