El Dorado

For other uses, see El Dorado (disambiguation).

El Dorado

Lake Parima and the city of El Dorado on a map from 1625.
Type	Kingdom
Other names	Manoa
Location	Viceroyalty of New Granada (Present-day Colombia)
Time	16th century

El Dorado is a legendary city made of gold, located in the territory of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada, in an area where abundant gold mines were believed to exist. The legend originated in the 16th century, in present-day Colombia, when the Spanish conquistadors heard of a ceremony carried out farther north (the Altiplano Cundiboyacense), where a King covered his body with gold dust and made offerings in a sacred lake. Today it is known that this people was the Muisca, and the site where the ceremony was performed would have been Lake Guatavita (Colombia). News of the Muisca wealth drew expeditions originating in Quito (Ecuador), Santa Marta (Colombia) and Coro (Venezuela) to the Bogotá savanna. The supposed existence of a golden kingdom motivated numerous expeditions and remained alive until the 19th century, although its location gradually shifted from Colombia toward the Guianas, as the process of conquest and colonization of the South American territory advanced.

Origin of the legend

First news of Peru

Main article: History of Panama

Main article: Conquest of Peru

View of Panama. Here the Spaniards received the first news of the riches of Peru.

The story of the great riches of South America begins in Panama, when the conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa undertook the first expeditions into the interior of the isthmus. On their way, the Spaniards came across the tribe of the Indian Comagre, from whom they received slaves and some gold, among other things. According to the chronicles, when Núñez de Balboa was distributing the gold among the soldiers, a quarrel broke out among some Spaniards who were dissatisfied with the division. At that moment Panquiaco, Comagre's eldest son, struck the scales and said:

"Had I known, Christians, that you would quarrel over my gold, I would not have given it to you, for I am a friend of all peace and concord. I marvel at your blindness and folly, that you undo jewels well wrought in order to make little sticks of them, and that, being such friends, you quarrel over a vile and paltry thing. It would have been better for you to stay in your own land, which is so far from here, if there are such wise and polished people there as you claim, than to come to quarrel in the land of others, where we live content, we coarse and barbarous men, as you call us. But nevertheless, if you have such a longing for gold that you disquiet and even kill those who have it, I will show you a land where you will have your fill of it".

Amazed, the Spaniards asked him how far it was from there, to which Panquiaco replied that it was called "Tumanamá" and that it lay six days' journey away, although on the way they would have to cross some mountain ranges before reaching the other sea. It was through this account that in 1513 Vasco Núñez de Balboa would discover the Pacific Ocean, which he would name the «South Sea».

In 1519 Panama City was founded on the shores of the Pacific, and three years later Pascual de Andagoya set out on a voyage toward the southeastern coasts, as far as the Gulf of San Miguel, where the local Indians told him that every full moon people came by sea in canoes to make war on them from a province located to the south called Birú (later Peru). Thus Andagoya embarked to explore those coasts, reaching the present-day San Juan River (Colombia), where he gathered the first news of the Inca Empire. From then on, as the chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo relates, in Darién "nothing else was spoken of but the rich and distant province of Peru".

In 1524 the Spaniards Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Luque joined together to discover that unknown land. They spent two years of continuous failures there, sailing along the coasts of South America without finding anything of note. In the fighting with the Indians, Diego de Almagro even lost an eye, coining the phrase "This business has cost me an eye of my face". The turning point came on the Isla del Gallo (Colombia), when Diego de Almagro left for Panama in search of reinforcements while Francisco Pizarro waited for him on that island with the rest of the eighty soldiers, several of whom were held there against their will. The Governor of Panama, Pedro de los Ríos, having learned of the hardships those men were enduring, demanded that they be allowed to return without any hindrance. By then the discontent among the troops was already very great and almost all of them showed intentions of deserting. In that extreme situation, with everything on the verge of being lost, Francisco Pizarro drew his sword, traced a line in the sand and challenged his soldiers, telling them that they had to choose between staying on that side, going to Panama to be poor, or risking crossing the line toward Peru, where they would become rich. Only thirteen men decided to continue with the expedition; they would later be known as the "Famous Thirteen". Shortly afterward, after continuing to sail south, in April 1528 Pizarro and his men landed at Túmbez (Peru), where they found great riches. Having obtained what they had so longed for, Pizarro returned to Panama with the aim of having the King of Spain appoint him Governor of Peru, marking the beginning of the Conquest of the Inca Empire.

The conquest of Colombia

Main article: Conquest of Colombia

Viceregal building in Santa Marta, Colombia.

The first stable Spanish settlement in New Granadan territory was the city of Santa Marta (Colombia), founded in 1525 by Rodrigo de Bastidas. From there began the conquest of the neighboring tribes, most of which were rich in gold, which further increased the ambition of the Europeans. The American tribes quickly discovered the Spaniards' weakness for precious metals and used this to their advantage, creating numerous fables about marvelous places at the far reaches of the region.

The term «El Dorado» was in general applied to almost all fantastic creations, whether invented by the Native Americans or imagined by the Spaniards themselves. The first "Dorado" on record was the mythical hill of gold that was supposedly located in the valley of the Tayronas, warrior aborigines who dominated the other tribes of the Santa Marta region.

The decisive impulse for the conquest of the continent came in 1528, when Francisco Pizarro sent to Spain the treasures he had discovered in Tumbes (Peru). The general ignorance of South American geography led the Spaniards to believe that by heading south from the Colombian or Venezuelan coast they could reach the Pacific Ocean, since they assumed that the coast followed the same orientation as in Panama, that is, in an east–west direction.

When the news of the riches discovered in Tumbez reached Santa Marta, an expedition was organized from there with the aim of finding a route to the South Sea and thus getting ahead of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. The first expedition, led by the interim governor Pedro Badillo, managed to skirt the Sierra Nevada and reach Valledupar. The next governor, García de Lerma, led the first explorations of the Magdalena River, convinced that it crossed all of South America as far as the Inca Empire.

The conquest of Venezuela

Main article: Conquest of Venezuela

Basin of the Magdalena River, the Cordillera Oriental and Lake Maracaibo.

In 1531 the Iberian conquistador Diego de Ordás explored the Orinoco River for the first time, in search of the rich peoples of Peru. After many difficulties the expedition reached the confluence with the Meta River, and the local Indians told him that there was much gold, but upriver, which led him to suppose that great gold mines lay at its source. The natives also told him that in those lands lived a very powerful prince, who was one-eyed and used riding animals like horses, but smaller than deer, so Ordaz supposed that they were Sheep of Peru (llamas).

Diego Ordás returned to the coast intending to carry out a second expedition by land, but he died before he could do so.

At the same time, Antonio Sedeño, governor of the island of Trinidad, decided to intervene on the Venezuelan coast in search of the gold that, according to him, came from the «Tierra Firme». Sedeño managed to penetrate the territory, but he died of poisoning in the valley of the Tiznados in 1537.

In 1533 Jerónimo de Dortal had been appointed Governor of Paria, in eastern Venezuela. At that time Francisco Pizarro was continuing to advance in the Conquest of Peru, and that same year he sent to Spain the treasure obtained in Cajamarca from the frustrated ransom of Atahualpa. Although Pizarro was collecting numerous pieces of gold, he had not yet discovered where the mines from which that metal was extracted were located, which suggested that they lay in the interior of the South American territory. Dortal reached Paria in 1534 and there he partnered with Alonso de Herrera, a former lieutenant of Diego de Ordás. Herrera would go up the Orinoco and Ortal would make the same journey by land, the two meeting at the confluence of the Orinoco and Meta rivers. Herrera reached the objective first and, instead of waiting for his partner, decided to continue upriver along the Meta as far as the llanos, where he died in a clash with the Indians. Shortly afterward Dortal reached the same place where Herrera had died and there decided to turn back, convinced that there was no gold there.

In 1528 the German bankers the Welser of Augsburg obtained the governorship of Venezuela. A year later Ambrosio Alfinger arrived at Coro, from where he led an expedition toward the south of Lake Maracaibo, where he hoped to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean. On his return to Coro, Alfinger said he had seen sheep of Peru and men dressed in blankets. Finding no gold in the interior of Venezuela, the German expeditionaries decided to venture along the Magdalena River. In 1530 they reached the lands that today form the departments of Cesar and Norte de Santander in Colombia, and advancing through the Valle de Upar the expedition reached, in 1532, the Sabana de los Caracoles, where Bucaramanga stands today. There Alfinger learned from the Indians of the existence of a very rich province called "Xerira", although it was impossible for him to reach it for lack of men and weapons. During the return journey Alfinger was killed by the Indians, although the news of "Xerira" reached the Caribbean coast. Today it is understood that "Xerira" was simply the plateau of "Jerida" (or Jerira), inhabited by Indians of the Chibcha community; however, this account of a rich province and the death of Alfinger only fed the version of a mythical land located in the southwest.

In a letter from the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo, dated January 30, 1534, His Majesty was informed about the riches of Peru and of the Audiencia's fear that the settlers would abandon the Caribbean islands to go to South America. However, what is interesting about the account is that it describes the existence of a land even richer than Peru, located in the interior of the continent:

"...according to information obtained from those who have come from there, they hold it as certain, according to the altitudes and degrees, that on the coast of Tierra Firme, at the place opposite this island and that of San Juan, entering by it in a straight line to the south and midday, upon reaching the equinoctial line, and before and after passing it, one will come upon the best of all the riches of that land, because it lies almost in the middle between the Río de la Plata, which is to the east, and the other land of Peru, which is to the west; and that, since the extremes have been taken, by entering through this middle they will discover the best of it all, which none of the discoverers of the Plata and of Peru will be able to reach for a long time."

— Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo, January 30, 1534.

Map from 1897 showing the Lower Orinoco, the Gulf of Paria and the island of Trinidad.

Thus in Venezuela three possible locations were conjectured for this mythical land, two of them directly linked to Muisca influence. The first reference is the one obtained by Alfinger on the lower Magdalena River, about a rich province called "Xerira", that is, part of the Muisca plateau. The second variant had been provided by Diego de Ordás when the Indians of the Meta, probably the Goahibo, told him about the great riches that lay upriver, in the eastern Andes, near the place where the Muisca lived. The third version is that of the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo itself, which placed these great riches south of Venezuela at the latitude of the Equator.

Jorge de Espira, or Spira, was appointed by the Welser as the new Governor of Venezuela after Alfinger's death. Espira arrived in Coro in 1534 and immediately organized an expedition bound for the lands south of Lake Maracaibo and beyond the mountains of Carora, where gold was supposed to exist in abundance. The new Governor charged Nicolás de Federmann with going to Santo Domingo in search of the resources needed for such a journey, after which the two were to meet in the mountains of Carora. The goal of the Venezuelan conquistadors was to reach the mythical province of "Xerira", and although the easiest route was to enter through Valledupar, Espira decided not to go that way, since that territory belonged to Santa Marta, whose authorities had stationed a detachment there in order to prevent further intrusions by the Venezuelans. Another direct route would have been the valley of the Zulia River; however, Alfinger's death at the hands of warlike Indians caused this option to be ruled out. The only possible route was then to go around the Cordillera Oriental, considered an isolated mountain range like the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and from there enter Xerira; however, Espira discovered that the mountains continued to the southwest, this being a branch of the Andes mountain range, which extends from there all the way to the distant Strait of Magellan, at the other end of the continent. Without news of Federmann and harassed by the Indians and the rains, Espira decided to camp on the banks of the Upía River, where they were decimated by the tigers that inhabited the area. There the Indians told the Europeans about the existence of the Muisca; however, convinced that it was a trick to divert him from his path, the Governor decided to continue a little farther south across the llanos, without any result. Disheartened, the expedition began its final return to the Venezuelan coast.

Meanwhile, in 1536, Nicolás de Federmann finally set out from Coro with the mission of relieving Espira, of whom nothing more had been heard. The itinerary of this exploration would run through the Llanos of Carora to the headwaters of the Guaviare River. There Federmann also discovered that the eastern cordillera was not an isolated mountain range, so he resolved to undertake its crossing, since the local Indians assured him that they acquired the gold from "the other side of the Sierra, which lay on the right hand toward the west". Federman and his people reached the Bogotá savanna in March 1539.

Emergence of El Dorado

View of Quito in the mid-19th century.

In 1534, while Cuzco was falling into Pizarro's hands, to the north Sebastián de Belalcázar was undertaking the conquest of Quito (Ecuador), which was supposed to be equally rich, although the Spaniards found no treasures there. Belalcázar continued exploring the territory because an Indian in Latacunga (Ecuador) told him about his place of origin, a land farther north called Cundinamarca, whose tribe had lost a great battle with the Chizcas (Chibchas). According to that prisoner, the king of his tribe used to cover his body with gold dust to offer it to the gods, and thus was born the present legend of El Dorado, which would later merge with other rumors and myths that led people to believe it was an entire city or kingdom built entirely of gold. From then on, the Spaniards of Quito began to call that territory the province of El Dorado.

Thus Belalcázar set out "in search of a land that is called El Dorado and Pasquies", as the treasurer Gonzalo de la Peña declared in July 1539. Belalcázar's dream was to conquer these lands and reach the sea of the Antilles, which was supposed to be close to Quito. From there, avoiding the voyage across the Pacific to Panama, he could embark directly for Spain without having to cross paths with Pizarro, from whom he intended to make himself independent. The troops of Belalcázar and his mother advanced through the provinces of Pasto and Popayán, crossed the valley of Neiva and reached the Bogotá savanna, where they met the expeditions of Nicolás de Federmann and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, which had advanced from Coro and Santa Marta respectively.

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada

View of Bogotá in the 19th century.

In 1535 the lieutenant governor Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada arrived in Santa Marta and decided to organize an excursion into the interior of the territory, following the course of the Río Grande (the Magdalena River), with the aim of reaching Peru. Along the way, Quesada observed a curious fact: along the river the Indians consumed grains of salt brought from the coast of Santa Marta; however, after seventy leagues had been covered, salt was already very expensive and scarce. After this, they began to see Indians who consumed another kind of salt, no longer in grains but in loaves similar to lumps of sugar, and as they advanced along the river the salt became cheaper and cheaper, which caught the conquistadors' attention. According to the Indians, the lands from which that salt came belonged to a powerful lord who possessed great riches.

The Spaniards decided to explore the origin of that salt, thus reaching the lands of the Muisca Confederation, a people rich in gold and emeralds who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense. There Jiménez de Quesada would carry out the conquest of this people and would found the city of Bogotá.

The religious customs of the Muisca included offering gold and precious stones to their gods at remote, almost inaccessible shrines, which were mainly lakes located at the tops of mountains. The main shrine was Lake Guatavita, which was in turn the best-fortified stronghold of the Muisca. One of the customs that most caught the Spaniards' attention was the one performed to invest the new caciques of Guatavita, which the Europeans named the ceremony of El Dorado. According to the chroniclers, when the cacique of Guatavita died, his nephew and future cacique was anointed with a sticky paste of earth mixed with gold dust and taken to the center of Lake Guatavita, where he had to throw pieces of gold and emeralds as an offering. However, this ritual had ceased to be performed after the loss of autonomy suffered by Guatavita The truthfulness of this account was confirmed in 1856 through the discovery of a gold piece known as the «Muisca raft», although it later disappeared, and a similar one was subsequently discovered in 1969, which is currently on display in the Gold Museum in Bogotá. Paradoxically, neither of these two rafts was found in Lake Guatavita: the first was discovered in Lake Siecha and the second turned up in a cave in the municipality of Pasca.

The reason this ceremony was performed at Lake Guatavita was that the Muisca priests claimed that the Cacica had thrown herself into it with her son, fleeing from the Cacique, who had accused her of infidelity. According to the story, the Cacica and her son lived in a magnificent palace built at the bottom of the lake. This belief also spread among the Spaniards, giving fame to that "Dorado".

The right to these newly discovered territories remained in dispute for some years among Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, Sebastián de Belalcázar and the German Nicolás de Federmán. The second, coming from Quito (Ecuador), claimed the territory in the name of Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, and the third, who came from Coro (Venezuela), did so on behalf of the German bankers the Welser, leaseholders of the Province of Venezuela.

Ceremony of the golden Indian

The famous Muisca raft, evidence of the sacred ceremonies that gave rise to the legend of El Dorado.

The ceremony of the golden Indian of Lake Guatavita was probably what gave rise to the legend of the mythical golden kingdom. Since remote times, Lake Guatavita had been the center of worship of an unknown deity that manifested itself in the form of a small dragon or snake, to which offerings were made. Later, according to the chronicles, a tragedy occurred in the waters of the lake when the Cacica threw herself into them together with her son, having been accused of infidelity by the Cacique. Both were supposed to live in a marvelous temple located at the bottom of the lake. Later the religious ceremony was established that had to be performed by future caciques before exercising power. There the ruler had to be covered entirely with gold dust and then be carried on a raft to the middle of the lake, where he threw objects of gold and emeralds as a symbol of offering. However, this ceremony had ceased to be performed long before the arrival of the Spaniards.

...On that lake of Guatavita a great raft of rushes was made, and they adorned it as showily as they could… At this time the whole lake was crowned with Indians and lit up all around its circumference, the Indian men and women all crowned with gold, feathers and chagualas… They stripped the heir (...) and anointed him with a sticky lime, and sprinkled him all over with gold dust, so that he went entirely covered with that metal. They put him on the raft, on which he stood, and at his feet they placed a great heap of gold and emeralds for him to offer to his god. Four caciques, the most principal ones, went with him into the boat, adorned with plumage, crowns, bracelets, chagualas and ear ornaments of gold, and also naked… The golden Indian made his offering, throwing all the gold and emeralds he had at his feet into the middle of the lake, and then the other caciques who accompanied him followed… When the ceremony was concluded they waved the banners... And as the raft set off toward land they began the shouting... With rings of dances and dancing in their manner. With this ceremony the newly chosen one was recognized as lord and prince.

— Juan Rodríguez Freyle

Search for El Dorado

Alonso de Alvarado

View of the Huallaga River.

Nephew of the Adelantado Pedro de Alvarado, conqueror of a large part of Central America, Alonso de Alvarado served under his uncle's command, first in Guatemala and then in Ecuador. Francisco Pizarro later appointed him captain and entrusted him with the discovery of the country of the Chachapoyas. Once this objective was accomplished, Alvarado founded the town of San Juan de la Frontera de los Chachapoyas and continued his advance toward the East. However, as he went deeper into the Amazon, the land became more densely forested and the climate rainier, which exhausted the troops, and Alvarado decided to put an end to that journey. Shortly afterward came the uprising of Manco Inca against Cusco, so Francisco Pizarro summoned him to put down the rebellion. Alonso de Alvarado answered Pizarro's call, deciding to move the population of San Juan de la Frontera to Trujillo, while he himself would go to Lima and then to Cusco to relieve the Spanish troops. After the Inca rebellion was suppressed, the civil war broke out among the conquistadors of Peru, Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, with Alvarado siding with the Pizarrists. After the victory at the Battle of Las Salinas, Alonso de Alvarado requested permission to continue the conquest of the Chachapoyas region, a request that was granted by Hernando Pizarro. He once again refounded San Juan de la Frontera and set out to find a great river of which the natives of the place spoke, this being the Huallaga River, a tributary of the Marañon. While there he received news that on the other side of the river, fifteen days' journey away and beyond a great mountain, lay a flat land with a great lake where an "orejón of the lineage of the Incas" named Ancallas (Ancoallo) lived. Alonso began building a boat to cross the swift waters of the Huallaga; however, when he was about to finish it, he was informed of a mutiny of the Indians of San Juan de la Frontera, so he had to return, leaving his brother, Hernando de Alvarado, in charge of the discovery of that great kingdom. Hernando had to advance over unfavorable terrain, penetrating jungles and mountains until the troops threatened to mutiny, which led to the return to San Juan de la Frontera.

Having secured a truce with the Chachapoyas curacas, Alonso de Alvarado decided to travel to Lima to bring reinforcements and to inform the Marquis of his discovery; however, while he was returning with more men to San Juan de la Frontera, Francisco Pizarro was executed by the Almagrists led by Almagro the Younger, son of Diego de Almagro, who in turn had been killed in 1538 by the Pizarrists. Alonso de Alvarado once again sided with the Pizarrists, who achieved the defeat of Almagro the Younger, after which Alvarado decided to return to the Peninsula, where he would remain for three years. Eager to return to Chachapoyas, and in view of the new civil war, which this time pitted Gonzalo Pizarro against the Viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela, the Prince asked Alvarado to accompany Pedro de la Gasca, who had the mission of restoring order in Peru. Although Gonzalo Pizarro was quickly defeated, the uprisings continued, with Alvarado being one of the main defenders of royal authority. Alonso de Alvarado was finally mortally wounded after the field battle of Chuquinga, without being able to return to Chachapoyas.

Francisco de Orellana

Naturalist engraving of the Amazon River, by Henry Walter Bates (1863).

After the disloyalty of Sebastián de Belalcázar, Francisco Pizarro decided to appoint his brother, Gonzalo, as Governor of Quito and Captain General of the expedition that was to discover a place they called the "Land of Cinnamon". This expedition set out from Quito in December 1540 toward the east, as far as Cumaco, a place located at the foot of a volcano, where the cinnamon trees they were seeking were found. However, this cinnamon was of inferior quality to that of the East Indies, whose monopoly belonged to the Portuguese. Dissatisfied with this find, Pizarro decided to continue to the Coca River, which they reached in July 1541. They then went downriver until they could advance no further because of the hunger they were suffering. There, Francisco de Orellana offered to continue with a brigantine in search of food and then return to relieve the rest of the expedition. Gonzalo Pizarro agreed, and so, accompanied by 57 men and Friar Gaspar de Carbajal, Orellana set out on December 26, 1541, continuing downriver along the Coca and then along the Napo. Orellana's plan was not to return to where Pizarro was, but to lead his own expedition in search of riches. Once the longed-for food had been found, Orellana continued his course to the Great River, which would later be known as the River of the Amazons or of Orellana. Seeing that there was no news from the advance party, Pizarro decided to continue overland, until he finally confirmed Orellana's desertion and decided to undertake the hard return to Quito.

Meanwhile, in the province of Machifaro, located on the Amazon River, Orellana learned that inland, on the left-hand side, there was a great lord called Aomagua. A little further on, in a village, the Spaniards found some gold and silver and a great quantity of glazed pottery. There the villagers confirmed that going inland there was much of those metals. Orellana decided to investigate this report, discovering along the way two royal roads, along which he advanced some two miles, observing that these roads grew wider with every step. Finally Orellana returned to the village and embarked to continue downriver with his men. On June 24, 1542, the expedition was attacked by fierce Indian warrior women, who reminded them of the mythological "Amazon" women, a peculiarity that ended up giving its name to that river and to the entire region. Once he reached the Atlantic Ocean, Orellana set out for Spain in order to be appointed conqueror of the Land of the Amazons. By virtue of the important discovery made, the Council of the Indies played down the betrayal of Gonzalo Pizarro and granted him the capitulation. However, in February 1546 Orellana died of fevers at the mouth of the Amazon River when he was preparing to venture into those lands once more.

Hernán Pérez de Quesada

Region of Los Llanos in Colombia.

In 1540 Hernán Pérez de Quesada, brother of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, left Bogotá in search of "El Dorado". He marched toward the East as far as Los Llanos and then south as far as Pasto. The hardships suffered by the expedition were such that the Spanish conqueror had to sacrifice his horses to feed the starving troops. After his fruitless search, Pérez de Quesada returned to Bogotá with half of his men.

Philipp von Hutten

Philipp von Hutten (or Felipe de Utre), Lieutenant General of Coro and a veteran of the ill-fated Welser expedition of Jorge de Espira, set out in 1541 from the Venezuelan coast following the route taken by Espira and Federmann, reaching the area of Los Llanos, where he learned that Hernán Pérez de Quesada had recently been there, and decided to follow in his footsteps. In a village in the province of Papamene, the principal Indian advised Utre not to follow Quesada's path, but rather to retrace his steps toward where the sun rose, as far as the city of "Macatoa", located on the other bank of the Guayuare River (today the Guaviare), because there was a kingdom abundant in riches there, from which a brother of his had taken certain golden and silver apples. Utre initially dismissed the Indian's advice, considering it an invention to get him off their lands, and continued on his way following Quesada's trail. The Lieutenant General's obstinacy lasted for eight days, while his men grew ever more discouraged and angry at not having followed the route indicated by the Indian. And so Utre agreed to turn toward the southeast as far as a high range they called "Punta de Pardaos", belonging to a supposedly unexplored mountain range known today as the Sierra de la Macarena. The dreadful condition of the expedition forced them to return to San Juan de los Llanos to resupply and set out in search of the city of Macatoa. Along the way, Utre gathered more news about the kingdom he was seeking, managing to learn that those lands belonged to the Omeguas or Ditaguas, depending on the tribes of the region.

Sunset on the Orinoco, painting by Ferdinand Bellermann from 1843.

Guided by the Indians, his expedition reached the mighty Guaviare River. There one of them informed him that Macatoa was a short distance upriver, and Utre decided to send him in a canoe as ambassador on behalf of the expedition. As a result of this initiative, the next day five canoes appeared with ninety Indians, one of them being the son of the Cacique of Macatoa, who offered to take the Europeans to his city. And so the next day they all marched to Macatoa, which was empty, since its inhabitants had been taken out by the Cacique so that the strangers could be lodged more comfortably. It was a city for eight hundred people, in a perfect state of preservation, with streets and squares. There they were received by the Cacique, a man of medium height, who advised them not to go on to the land of the Omeguas with so few men, since it was a very warlike tribe. Nevertheless, the cacique confirmed the riches that land possessed and offered to accompany them with a hundred Indians to the first settlement of the Omeguas. After five days' march along wide roads, they made out in the distance a large settlement with straight streets, houses very close together and a tall building that stood out among all the constructions. The Spaniards asked the Cacique what function such a building served, to which he replied that it was a dwelling and temple with many idols of solid gold, and he further stated that further on there were other peoples still richer and more powerful. There the Cacique considered his involvement finished and advised Utre to capture one of the natives who were wandering in the vicinity in order to obtain more information about the territory from him. It was in this hunt that Felipe de Utre himself was wounded between the ribs, creating uncertainty among the rest of the expedition about the dangers of continuing onward. The thunder of great drums and the shrieking of many people in the depths of the jungle served to confirm the retreat, though not before suffering a skirmish at the hands of the Omeguas. The Europeans departed convinced that they had seen the threshold of "El Dorado".

Meanwhile, after five years without news of Felipe de Utre, the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo decided to appoint Juan de Carvajal as interim governor. Since the families of Coro were suffering numerous hardships because the city was located in a desert land, Carvajal's first measure was to found a new settlement on fertile lands, called El Tocuyo. Utre would pass through there on his return from his expedition, giving rise to a conflict between the two governors. Felipe de Utre decided to take the families back to Coro, and Carvajal, enraged, caught up with him and ordered his men to behead him. An act that would cost Carvajal himself his life a month later, after a brief trial.

Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre

17th-century map, with El Dorado, Lake Parima and the basin of the Amazon River.

In 1560 an expedition set out from Peru under the command of Pedro de Ursúa, organized by the Viceroy himself, Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, with the aim of searching for El Dorado, which was believed to lie in the direction of the River of Orellana, also known as the Marañón or Amazon. This version of the existence of El Dorado in that region was also supported by the account of some Indians who, as they told it, were natives of the coast of Brazil and had set out toward Peru in search of better lands. Originally this migration would have been made up of some ten or twelve thousand Brazilian Indians who crossed the entire continent over ten years, until finally 300 of them managed to reach the Spanish town of Chachapoyas. There they told the Spaniards about the characteristics of the Amazon region, highlighting above all the countless riches and the great number of natives who lived in the province of Omagua.

The four hundred soldiers who made up Ursúa's expedition had been recruited on the basis of their courage and experience in previous campaigns, without taking into account their morals or their attachment to authority, which would mark the unexpected future of the expedition. The first months of travel along the Amazon River yielded no results, increasing the discouragement among the soldiers. Although Pedro de Ursúa was warned several times that a conspiracy was being organized against him, he paid it little attention. Ursúa was finally stabbed to death on the night of January 1, 1561, in an Indian village in the province of Machífaro, where they had stopped to camp and to investigate a road that went inland. The mastermind of the conspiracy had been the soldier Lope de Aguirre, who already had a long record of uprisings and insurrections. Aguirre, who was traveling on the expedition with his mestiza daughter Elvira, had managed to win the esteem of all the officers, turning them against the authority of Ursúa, who had a rigid and distant attitude toward his subordinates.

On the morning after the murder, the mutineers gathered to decide the future of the expedition, which passed into the charge of Don Fernando de Guzmán, while Lope de Aguirre was appointed maestre de campo. Most of the officers, captains and other members of the uprising agreed to continue the search for the land of the Omaguas (El Dorado), since fulfilling the mission would guarantee them royal pardon for the murder of the Governor.

Two days after the death of Pedro de Ursúa, the advance party that had gone out to explore the road leading into the interior of the jungle returned to the camp. Sancho Pizarro, in charge of that mission, reported that inland he had found only two Indian villages of no great importance. A few days later, the expedition left that camp, and what followed was a succession of murders, intrigues and internal disputes. Lope de Aguirre, who had not given his opinion at the first meeting, began to proclaim the return to and conquest of Peru. According to him, once the Governor was dead, they no longer owed obedience to the authority of the King, and obtaining the lands they sought would not guarantee them a pardon either.

At one stop along the route, those who supported Aguirre's position sabotaged the horses' flat-bottomed barge, which held the expedition up for three months. There Aguirre convinced Guzmán that it was better to abandon the original mission and embark on the "war of Pirú", which would raise his status to the height of King Philip. Enthused by the idea, Guzmán proclaimed himself "Prince of Tierra Firme and Pirú, and Governor of Chile", and everyone began to call him Excellency. The new plan of the "Marañones" consisted of reaching the ocean as soon as possible to resupply on Margarita Island and then seizing the region of Panama in order, finally, to launch the conquest of Peru, where they speculated on the support of other Spaniards and, above all, of the Black slaves, who would be armed and freed. They were even already dreaming of the future division of Peru among themselves, not only of the properties and the haciendas, but also of the women.

At another stop on the itinerary, Fernando de Guzmán and his captains, seeing the bad path they were on and repenting of the mutiny they had perpetrated against Pedro de Ursúa, met to reexamine the situation. There they proposed that the best course would be to resume the original mission and that to do so it would be necessary to get rid of Lope de Aguirre, who was always surrounded by a large number of strong and well-armed friends, and that therefore it would be best to kill him while they were sailing in the brigantines. However, one of the captains, named Gonzalo Guiral de Fuentes, warned Aguirre of the Prince's plan, and Aguirre in turn decided to strike first, killing first some of Guzmán's trusted men, then a priest, and finally the Prince himself.

After Guzmán's death, Aguirre justified his acts as normal for a situation of war and proclaimed himself General. Thus the "Marañones" continued their journey toward the Atlantic, arriving at and storming Margarita Island, where the Governor, several clergymen and some men and women were murdered. Aguirre then crossed with his men to Tierra Firme and on his way sacked and burned several towns. Finally, his own men, as cruel and ferocious as their leader, betrayed him and put him to death in Barquisimeto (present-day Venezuela). Before dying, Lope de Aguirre stabbed his own daughter, so that, according to him, she would not pay for his crimes.

Pedro Malaver de Silva

Map from 1562 showing the territory of New Andalusia and the "Province of Omagua" at the level of the Amazon River.

A participant in the conquests of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, the Spaniard Pedro Malaver de Silva heard in the last of these regions reports of a land located toward the East where highly developed Indian peoples were to be found, which prompted Malaver in 1568 to set out for Spain with the intention of obtaining a license from the King for the conquest of those lands. Following this request, the Court declared him Adelantado, Governor and Captain General of "New Extremadura", a territory of three hundred leagues that encompassed the provinces of the Omaguas, the Omeguas and Quinaco. Malaver's governorate would be adjacent to the Province of New Andalusia, a territory granted to Diego Hernández de Serpa, which covered some three hundred leagues between the mouths of the Orinoco and Unare rivers, the latter located in the present-day Venezuelan state of Anzoátegui State. Both governors recruited men in different regions of Spain, motivating them with the possibility of finding El Dorado.

Pedro Malaver de Silva began his journey in the Venezuelan city of Valencia and from there began to advance southward, always skirting the mountain range. Soon the expedition began to feel the hardships of that inhospitable and unpopulated area. Although at first the hope of finding great fortunes made the men endure all the hardships, the endlessness of the plains ended up discouraging them. Fatigue also affected the temperament of Pedro Malaver de Silva, who instead of encouraging his soldiers became ever more distant and intractable.

After five months without any result, the Adelantado resolved to send Captain Céspedes, together with thirty men, to reconnoiter the territory before advancing further. Carrying out these orders, twenty-six days after his departure Céspedes found a large lake whose waters, according to a member of the advance party, a mestizo familiar with the place, flowed near the city of Barquisimeto. Eager to abandon the ill-fated expedition, everyone asked Céspedes to follow the route indicated by the mestizo, which the Captain accepted without much hesitation, on the sole condition of sending a messenger to where Pedro Malaver de Silva was, together with a note written on the bark of a tree informing him of the decision in the following terms:

Lord Governor, weary now of wandering lost for so long, with no hope of finding better land, nor better fortune than what we have seen so far, we have resolved to go out and die among Christians; Your Lordship may do the same, following our steps, for we are serving you by opening the way for you.

Old cathedral of Barquisimeto, today the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The one charged with carrying the message was an Indian servant of the Captain, whose wife had remained with Malaver and the rest of the expedition, so he gladly accepted Céspedes's order. On learning of his soldiers' insubordination, the Governor demanded that another Captain, Don Luis de Leiva, go with thirty other soldiers in search of Céspedes to hang him and bring back the other deserters. The Captain accepted the assignment; however, shortly afterward, just like Céspedes, Luis de Leiva dispatched an Indian to inform the Governor not to waste time waiting for him because he had no intention of returning. Following the trail left by the deserters, Captain Luis de Leiva's men soon caught up with those of Céspedes, who were resting beside a stream abounding in fish. There both captains decided to join forces to continue the journey to Barquisimeto, a settlement they reached a few days later.

After receiving Don Luis de Leiva's message, Pedro Malaver had to accept that he had lost the loyalty of his most faithful followers and that he could not continue under those conditions, so he decided to follow the path left by his captains, reaching the city of Barquisimeto in March 1570. However, the numerous material losses, the desertion of his soldiers and the real possibility of having died on the plains were not enough to dissuade Pedro Malaver from his obsession with finding El Dorado, an enterprise that would equal the glories of Cortés and Pizarro. And so, a few days later, the Adelantado set out for the Peruvian city of Chachapoyas, where he sold all the property he had to raise enough money and then head for Spain.

Pedro Malaver de Silva's second exploration set out from San Lucar with one hundred and sixty men, who in 1574 arrived at a place located between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. There almost the entire expedition ended up dying, some from the harshness of the territory and the others killed by the Carib Indians, this latter group including Pedro Malaver and two of his daughters. One of the survivors was the soldier Juan Martín de Albujar, who after spending some time as a captive among the Indians managed, ten years later, to reach the mouth of the Essequibo River, where he was able to contact the Spaniards who lived on Margarita Island, living there for some years and later in the city of Carora.

It should be noted that the lack of greater precision later gave rise to disagreements among historians as to whether the governorate of New Extremadura lay to the west or to the south of New Andalusia. One version held that New Extremadura extended from the Unare River some 300 leagues toward the West and from North to South from the Caribbean coast to the Amazon River, since the capitulation covered the territories of "Omaguas, Omeguas and Quinaco"; however, the existence of the governorate of Venezuela made it impossible to occupy the region located on the Caribbean Sea west of the Unare River. The other version held that New Extremadura lay to the south of New Andalusia, that is, from the Amazon River to the Mato Grosso region, with the Line of Tordesillas (the border with Brazil) as its limit to the East. This reasoning was based on the account of Friar Pedro Simon, according to which "...Silva would begin his (his governorate) from the boundaries of this one (the governorate of Serpa), always running to the South". For his part, a letter from the Viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, dated March 1, 1572, protested, arguing that Silva's governorate might include cities as important as Cuzco and La Paz; however, this assertion, impossible under either of the two theories, was justified by the false geographical belief that the American Pacific coast mirrored that of the Atlantic.

Diego Hernández de Serpa

Map from 1635 with the provinces of Venezuela and New Andalusia.

Diego Hernández de Serpa was for some years a hunter of corsairs in the Caribbean Sea, and some sources link him to the first voyage up the Orinoco made by Ordaz in 1531. At the same time, his brother, Ginés Hernández, was one of those who accompanied Orellana in the discovery of the Amazon (1542), bringing back from that voyage news of "great kingdoms and settlements and lands of great riches".

After Orellana's death in 1546, that land became free, and so shortly afterward, in 1549, Diego Hernández embarked on an expedition bound for Guayana, a voyage that was disallowed by the Audiencia of Santo Domingo. Finally, in 1568 he was granted the license to govern a territory of three hundred leagues called "New Andalusia". This territory covered the entire Caribbean coast between the Unare and Orinoco rivers, extending southward as far as the Amazon River.

In October 1569 Serpa arrived at Nueva Córdoba (today Cumaná) and from there dispatched two captains with the mission of advancing for forty days without stopping, in order to examine the territory and establish contacts that would allow food supplies to be replenished. On their return, both captains, who had taken different routes, informed the Governor that they had seen nuggets and worked pieces of gold. Serpa's plan was to reach the Orinoco at the level of Caboruto, spend the rainy season there and then continue on to Guayana. However, a few days after the journey began, some of the men deserted and some Indians attacked the expedition, causing the death of the Governor.

Juan Ponce de León II

In January 1569, King Philip II granted Juan Ponce de León II the capitulation for the settlement of the islands of Trinidad and Tabago (Tobago). The new governor arrived in Trinidad in December of that same year and built the fort and city of La Circuncisión on the same spot where, years earlier, Sedeño had established a settlement, and where, years later, Antonio de Berrío would found the town of San José de Oruña.

Once settled there, the Spaniards of Trinidad established contacts with the Indians of the Gulf of Paria, who were interested in trading with the Europeans. According to a letter from Friar Miguel Diosdado, the Indians had told them that the gold they had was extracted from the valley of the Caroní River.

However, hunger, disease and the resistance of the island's native Indians caused Trinidad to be depopulated once again.

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada

In 1569, the Real Audiencia of Santa Fe de Bogotá granted Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada the government of an extensive territory of 400 leagues in longitude and latitude between the Pauto and Papamene rivers, the right of usufruct for himself and one heir, and the grant of the title of marquis or count of the land he occupied, as well as that of alguacil. With this recognition, and beset by economic hardship, Jiménez de Quesada began an expedition to San Juan de los Llanos, east of the Andes, in search of "El Dorado". This enterprise ended in 1573 without any result.

Antonio de Berrío

National Museum of Port of Spain (Trinidad).

From the 16th century, the rumor arose in the Guianas that a great lake existed in the interior of the continent. The natives called that place Paragua or Parava, which in the Carib language means precisely sea or great lake, and which the missionaries of Píritu began to call Lake Casipa in honor of the Casipagoto Indians who lived in that area.

On January 3, 1584, the Spanish conqueror Antonio de Berrío, heir to the capitulation of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, undertook an expedition toward the Orinoco basin. At the level of the Meta River, the Indians "certify to him that within ten leagues there are ten thousand Indians...". From there he set off overland toward the Guaviare River, a place where he made out a mountain range to the East and stated "...that in the mountain range there is a very great lake and that on the other side of it there are great settlers,... and great wealth of gold and stones..."; however, with his forces depleted, he decided to return and draw up a record of the results of the expedition. Berrío's contributions made it possible to know better the geography of the unexplored Guiana Shield, but they also served to fix on the maps a geographical myth: the great lake of the City of Manoa (El Dorado), a flooded valley surrounded by high mountains, located between the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. It should be noted that in the Achagua language the term "manoa" was used to identify all lakes; therefore, saying City of Manoa was the same as saying City of the Lake.

In 1587, Berrío undertook another expedition toward the mountains he had made out some years before. There he tried in vain to find a pass or some important settlement in order to replenish his food supplies. After two months without results and without receiving reinforcements, he decided to return to Margarita Island. Despite his failure, Berrío was convinced that behind those mountains lay a lake with the magnificent city of Manoa.

In 1590 Berrío undertook his third exploration, advancing once again along the Orinoco River and then along the Caroní; however, he lacked the resources to continue advancing, after which he decided to request reinforcements. As the weeks passed and there was no news, Berrío decided to go to Margarita in person, passing first through the island of Trinidad, looking for the perfect place to establish a town that would serve as a logistical center for his conquest of El Dorado, since Berrío took it for granted that Trinidad formed part of his capitulation. However, on his arrival in Margarita he was informed of the death of his wife, after which he decided to bring the expedition to an end.

The main source consulted by Berrío was a supposed diary deposited in Puerto Rico, written by a man named Iones Martínez, who had taken part in the expedition of Diego de Ordaz. As the story went, through Martínez's carelessness a powder magazine had caught fire, after which he was punished by being abandoned alone in a canoe while they were still on the Orinoco River, which was practically a death sentence. However, some Guianese Indians found him and took him to the great city of "Manoa", where he lived for seven months. According to him, Manoa was a city where gold was abundant and was used for various things, such as the making of armor and war shields. The king of this city even used to organize festivities in which everyone stripped naked to anoint themselves with a white balm called "curcai", after which some of the king's servants blew gold dust through reeds until the entire body was covered. Once this process was finished, everyone sat down to drink, even for several days in a row, this being the main vice in Manoa. At a certain point the great cacique of the city asked the Spaniard whether he wanted to return to his people or stay there, and so Martínez decided to leave that kingdom by going up the Orinoco, being assaulted on the way by some Indians called Orenoqueponi, who were at odds with the natives of Manoa. In this incident they took from him all the treasure the cacique had given him, leaving him only some vessels full of beads worked in gold, since the Indians assumed they contained only water inside. After passing through Trinidad and Margarita, Martínez landed in Puerto Rico, where he died before he could continue his journey to the Peninsula. There he handed over the vessels full of gold to the Church and narrated everything that had happened on the journey, his diary remaining in the chancery of San Juan de Puerto Rico. This was how Berrío imagined a Manoa with golden roofs and streets where an Inca lived, as he stated to the King in a letter of 1593: "...that it is said as a certain thing that the Inca kings of these provinces went out to conquer Pirú, and afterward, with discord that arose between two brothers, the one, out of fear of the other, came back fleeing to these provinces."

Continuing with his plan to find El Dorado, Berrío founded on the large island of Trinidad the town of San José de Oruña (1592) and settled there the following year. This act would bring him lawsuits with the governors of Caracas, Cumaná and Margarita, who claimed that Berrío had no rights over the island.

In 1594 the squadron of Walter Raleigh intercepted a Spanish vessel carrying Berrío's letters in which he reported that he had found El Dorado. This news drove Raleigh to land in Trinidad in March 1595, after which he burned the city and took Berrío prisoner. The English then went up the Orinoco River as far as the Caroní River, whose strong current prevented them from advancing. There Raleigh sent a party to contact the nearest cacique, who presented himself the following day: this was Wanuretona, who, accustomed to dealing with the Spaniards, informed him that all the Guianese peoples of the south were subjects of the Inca and that they would unite to defend the gold of Manoa. The heavy winter rains decided the return to England, passing first through Cumaná, where Berrío was released as part of a prisoner exchange.

Free once again, Berrío gathered men and set out from Margarita toward the Orinoco, founding in 1595 the city of Santo Tomé de Guayana (today Ciudad Bolívar) in order to organize the expedition to Manoa from there. Berrío awaited the arrival of his son Fernando, who was to bring reinforcements from Bogotá; however, he arrived two years later, finding the settlement abandoned and his father on the point of death.

Later, Fernando de Berrío inherited his father's governorate and carried out several expeditions to the Guiana massif in order to find El Dorado, being the first European to observe the waterfall called Angel Falls.

Domingo de Vera e Irigoyen

Region of La Gran Sabana, one of the last South American territories to be explored.

Settled in San José de Oruña and with no possibility of leading a large expedition, Governor Antonio de Berrío decided in 1593 to send his Maestre de Campo, Domingo de Vera e Irigoyen (or Ibargoyen), with thirty-five soldiers and some Indians, to explore the interior of the continent. Among these Indians was a cacique named Morequita or Morequito, who had been kidnapped by Berrío but who, after being Christianized, undertook to guide the Spaniards toward the gold of the Guianas.

Thus Vera e Irigoyen entered the Orinoco and reached the level of the Caroní River, where Morequito's tribe was. Once there, the cacique was partially freed so that he would honor his word; however, Morequito set out to sabotage the expedition and, among other things, warned the other Indians to hide all the pieces of gold they possessed.

With the aim of continuing inland and distrustful of his guide, Vera e Irigoyen decided to free Morequito completely, though taking one of his sons as hostage. However, Morequito continued with his plan and made contact with other tribes so that they would hinder the passage of the Spaniards as much as possible, although this maneuver was discovered by the conqueror, who ordered the cacique to be put back in chains.

The Maestre de Campo continued his journey overland across a plain inhabited by a great number of Indians, with plenty of water and food. In a village whose cacique was called Parigua, he decided to inform himself about what awaited him further on. There they told him that they belonged to the province of the Guayana and that one day's journey away began the land of the Mucuraguaray, with whom they were at war, and that beyond that province there was another called Guayacapari, which had a great number of inhabitants. According to Irigoyen, beyond Guayacapari "is a great salt lake which they call sea, all of it populated round about by very many natives, and next to it rises the Caroní River, to which said lake, from this province of Guayana, it will be eleven or twelve days' journey, which according to what they walk will be 80 or 90 leagues."

Vera e Irigoyen describes that as one advances, the way is populated by "very many people" and that "they have gold in their noses, on their chests, on their arms, on their legs, and they are a very rich people". In a curious detail of the journey, he reports that toward where the sun rises there is a mountain range inhabited by Indians who speak the Ypurgota language, "who have shoulders so high that they almost come level with their heads".

However, the Maestre de Campo learned that Morequito planned to send the Spaniards along a road where there would be no water for two days, so that they could then be ambushed, which led to the end of the journey, with Irigoyen and his men able to return safely.

Walter Raleigh

Map from 1599 drawn up by Jodocus Hondius. Lakes Casipa and Parime and the city of El Dorado can be seen.

In 1595, the Queen of England, Elizabeth I, ordered a major attack on the Spanish Caribbean with the ultimate aim of establishing a British colony in Panama. According to the plan, the corsair Walter Raleigh would make an incursion up the Orinoco River, while Amyas Preston would harass the Spanish positions in Tierra Firme. Along the way Raleigh destroyed and sacked Spanish towns, occupied Trinidad and then entered the Orinoco River and part of the Caroní, exploring the area of Guiana, a territory that theoretically belonged to Spain but which in fact was being disputed among France, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Raleigh discovered some tin mines and set off back to England when he could no longer continue advancing with his ships along those rivers.

Back in Great Britain, Raleigh wrote a book called The Discovery of the Vast, Rich and Beautiful Empire of the Guianas, with an Account of the Mighty and Golden City of Manoa (Which the Spaniards Call El Dorado) in order to make the British aware of the riches they could find in those unexplored lands. In it he speaks of an inland lake of salt water which he compares to the Caspian Sea, and he states that during the summer its waters recede, leaving gold nuggets of considerable size exposed to view.

In 1616 Raleigh set out once again for Guiana with the aim of finding the supposed gold mines that lay in its interior, although this time the King imposed the express condition of not damaging Spanish property. During the voyage the expedition had to endure great storms, disease and shortages of provisions. The British reached the Guianas in November 1617, although by mistake they entered by the Galiana River, whose currents were very dangerous. There they were helped by some Indians, and Raleigh himself had to go ashore and rest because of his delicate physical condition. Nevertheless, he ordered five of his ships to head for the Orinoco to continue the expedition. On their way these ships passed in front of the Spanish fortress of Santo Tomé, from which they were attacked, and Raleigh's own son died in the engagement. The British managed to take the fort, although they could not avoid the continual siege by the Spaniards. Amid so much jungle, the British began to doubt the existence of those gold mines, and even if they did exist, they considered that it would be very complicated to work and control them.

The desertion of Captain Thidney marked the end of the expedition. On his return to England in June 1618, Raleigh was sentenced to death for having attacked Spanish possessions, against the King's orders.

Although Antonio de Berrío had popularized the existence of an enormous lake or inland sea in his searches for El Dorado, this geographical reference did not appear on maps until 1599, when Jodocus Hondius incorporated it under the name of Lake Parima (Parime Lake), based on the account of Walter Ralegh's voyage. From then until the middle of the 18th century, successive maps would echo this geographical myth, always maintaining the image of an inordinately wide lake (following Berrío's first sketch), crossed by the equinoctial line, surrounded by mountains (the Guiana massif) and equidistant from the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, with the city of Manoa located on the eastern shore of the Lake. The reality is that no such lake existed; rather, it was a river, later known as the Parima or Branco River, which, being surrounded by plains, would often overflow, giving the appearance of a great lake, while in reality it was a floodplain valley.

José Cabarte

At the beginning of the 18th century, Father José Cabarte, of the Society of Jesus, spent thirty-nine years in the missions of the Orinoco following the traces of the expedition that the German Philipp von Hutten had made in search of El Dorado. In these missions Father Cabarte catechized and baptized an Indian named Agustín, who, as he told him, had been captured at the age of fifteen and enslaved by the inhabitants of the city of Manoa or Enaguas, spending another fifteen years there. Finally he and three other Indians managed to flee at the urging of another slave who knew the way. After leaving Manoa they had to walk some twenty-three days until they reached the banks of the Orinoco River. The Indian Agustín certified to Father Cabarte that that city possessed great riches and many inhabitants.

Manuel Centurión

Jungle in French Guiana.

Paramaribo, capital of Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana).

The name "Guayana" originated through Diego de Ordaz, who in 1532 established the short-lived settlement of Santo Tomás de Guayana (today Ciudad Bolívar) at the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroní rivers. From then until the end of the 16th century that region remained practically unexplored, which led to the supposition that the legendary city of El Dorado was hidden there. In 1591, Antonio de Berrío proclaimed the creation of the Province of Guayana, dependent on Santa Fe de Bogotá. In 1729, Guayana became part of the Province of New Andalusia until 1762, when this territory regained the status of Province, initially under the Viceroyalty of New Granada and finally as part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela, with its seat in Caracas.

The Governor of Guayana, Manuel Centurión, devoted himself to settling, fortifying and mapping the territory with the aim of consolidating Spanish rule and preventing the intrusion of other powers that threatened to occupy the region. Motivated mainly by a political-military need, Centurión took on the mission of definitively unraveling the mystery of Lake Parima and of the Cerro Dorado, whose control would be fundamental to limiting the advance of the Dutch along the tributaries of the Essequibo River, of the French from the settlement of Cayenne, and of the Portuguese who were advancing along the Rio Negro. Centurión's effort was joined by a cacique of the region named Paranacare, who offered to guide the Spaniards to the "Cerro Dorado".

At that time it was presumed that the Caroní River rose very close to the supposed Lake Parima and that the Caura and Paragua rivers were the natural routes of access to the region. In addition, the Capuchin friars, the first explorers of the area, knew from the Carib Indians of the existence of some veins of gold and silver in that place. Centurión began his project in 1770 by founding towns south of the Orinoco, which would serve as intermediate stops in the progressive advance toward the interior of Guayana. At the same time he sent a note requesting help from the Council of the Indies and from the Governor and Captain General of Venezuela, José Solano y Bote, attaching a schematic plan of the province and warning that the layout of the central area was hypothetical. This map shows Lake Parima displaced toward the southwest and as the feeding center of the basins of the Orinoco (through the Caroní-Paragua), the Essequibo and the Amazon, with the Caño Blanco standing out as the largest water contribution to the supposed lake.

In 1771 Centurión ordered the drawing up of a new General Plan of the Province of Guayana, including topographical references, an updated hydrological network and a Lake Parima of reduced dimensions. In January 1772 the Governor sent an expedition led by the artillery lieutenant Nicolás Martínez to discover the legendary lake. The men of the expedition reached the upper Caura River, and at the mouth of the Erebato, while they were recovering physically, news reached them that the best route to reach the lake was by following the Paragua River. Taking advantage of the rainy season, the expedition members went up the Paragua as far as its tributaries the Paraguamusi and Anacapora, where they had to turn back because of the fatigue the men were already suffering and the impossibility of continuing to navigate such shallow rivers.

On the initiative of the Capuchin missionaries, who were estranged from Centurión and wished to get ahead of him in the exploration of Parima, in May 1772 an advance party made up of Spaniards and Indians set out, led by Friar Benito de la Garriga and Friar Tomás de Mataró. These men went up the river courses of the Caroní, the Icabarú and the Mayarí, being attacked on this last river by natives armed by the Dutch. In addition, the natives of the place informed them that the Portuguese had reached the region of Parima. This news alarmed Governor Centurión, who discovered that the Lusitanians were not only advancing along the course of the Rio Negro but were also occupying the southeast of Spanish Guayana.

In March 1773 the Governor dispatched a new expedition under the command of the infantry lieutenant Vicente Díez de la Fuente. Following the course of the Paragua, Díez de la Fuente reached the fork formed by the Paraguamusi and Antavari rivers, where he set up a camp, and from there he sent Corporal Isidoro Rendón in command of a group of men who were to go up the Uraricoera River to its confluence with the Tacutu and from there continue along the upper stretch of the latter, known to the Makuxi Indians as Auaraurú (Abarauru to the Spaniards). On his return, Rendón reported having seen floodable savannas, but no lake or gold mine. Moreover, this advance party had to face attacks by Carib Indians, and the allied cacique Paranacare died in one of them. Centurión subsequently sent two hundred families to settle seven new settlements, three of which would be located on the border with the region of Parima.

The third Spanish expedition set out in October 1775, once again organized by Díez de la Fuente, who entrusted the command of the group to Second Lieutenant Antonio López, with the assistance of Isidoro Rendón. After passing through the recently founded towns, the expedition continued upriver along the Tacutu in the direction of the "Cerro Dorado" (probably the Apucuano). Meanwhile, the Portuguese authority of Barcelos, having learned of the construction of new Spanish settlements in the region of Parima, requested a reinforcement battalion with which it managed to dismantle the towns of San Juan Bautista and Santa Rosa, then intercepting the expedition of Antonio López, which had already begun the return journey. This episode gave rise to an exchange of protests between the Spanish and Portuguese governors over the sovereignty that both crowns claimed over that region. Added to this conflict was also the claim of the French court to expand its territory of occupation in Guiana, granting facilities and benefits to those who wished to settle and trade in the area.

The Viceroy of New Granada, Manuel Antonio Flores, invited the governors of Margarita and Guayana to set out the observations and measures necessary to prevent the French and Portuguese from taking possession of those territories. In Guayana, José Linares was governing provisionally in place of Manuel Centurión, who was in the Peninsula to defend himself in the lawsuit he had with the Capuchin friars. Through Linares, Centurión sent his missive together with a plan of the region in which the existence of Lake Parima and the Cerro Dorado was taken for granted. Meanwhile, the governor of Margarita, Brigadier Agustín Crame, who was familiar with the region of Guayana, sent his report recommending the occupation and fortification of the area of Portuguese penetration, considering it the real danger to the region, since the French were still at a considerable distance from the supposed Lake Parima. Crame accompanied his missive with a copy of the General Map of Guayana, drawn up by Luis de Surville, in which the French territory appeared less extended toward the interior and earlier ambiguities regarding the sources of the Orinoco and the location of Lake Parima were also eliminated.

After the military escalation recorded in 1776, there was a rapprochement between the governments of Spain and Portugal to fix new boundaries in South American territory. The arbitration was settled in the agreement of San Idefonso of October 1777, through which Spain managed to recover some areas of the region of Paraguay and the Río de la Plata, although in exchange it had to cede a broad sector north of the Amazon, where the Portuguese were evidently more consolidated than the Hispanics. Once the conflict with the Lusitanians was resolved, the Spanish authorities concentrated their efforts on developing the settlement of eastern Guayana in view of the danger posed by the Gallic occupation plan. Finally, various factors that hindered the development of the French colony led to the abandonment of its expansionist project around the 1780s.

By that time there were already numerous indications that the legendary Lake Parima or Parime was nothing more than the floodplain of a river basin whose main artery was the Parime River, which during floods inundated a considerable expanse of territory. This theory was confirmed after the expedition of Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, carried out in the territory of Venezuela in the year 1800, in which they observed that the flooding of the Parime River was what had given rise to the legend of the great lake in the interior of Guayana. Nevertheless, until approximately the 1820s, maps continued to appear which, although much more rigorous and precise in their topography and hydrography, still recorded the existence of Lake Parima with its typical quadrangular shape.

Draining of the Sacred Lakes

The story of the offerings of gold and emeralds also led to the first attempts to drain the sacred lakes of the Muisca.

The first draining of Lake Guatavita was carried out by Hernán Pérez de Quesada, obtaining only the equivalent of three or four thousand pesos of gold. In 1652, a rich merchant of Bogotá named Sepúlveda obtained from Philip IV the concession for a second search. Sepúlveda made a cut in one of the hills in order to drain the lake, obtaining from this enterprise only one valuable emerald. Finally, an English company, by concession of the government of Colombia, proceeded to drain Lake Guatavita completely, discovering at its bottom a layer of mud three meters thick. There some tunjos, emeralds and ceramic objects were found.

Lake Siecha was partially drained in 1856 by Messrs. Joaquín and Bernardino Tovar, in association with Guillermo Paris and Rafael Chacón. The water level dropped some three meters, allowing the discovery of several emeralds and some pieces of gold, among which a Muisca raft stood out, similar to the one found in 1969, but which is currently missing.

In 1870 a new attempt was made to drain Lake Siecha, carried out by Crowther and Enrique Urdaneta, who bored 187 meters through sandstone rock on the western wall. However, when there were 3 meters left to finish the tunnel, the two gentlemen and a laborer died of asphyxiation from the foul emanations of the mud combined with the fumes from the combustion of the gunpowder used for the boring.

El Dorado in popular culture

Hat and whip of the fictional adventurer Indiana Jones, who searched for El Dorado in a film and a novel.

El Dorado International Airport (Bogotá-Colombia).

Museo del Oro (Bogotá-Colombia).

• El Dorado is the second studio album by the Colombian group Aterciopelados, released in 1995 on cassette, vinyl and CD. It was recorded between October and December 1994 and produced by Federico López.

• Carlos Saura filmed in Costa Rica the film El Dorado, based on the legend of the mythical city.

• In the film National Treasure: Book of Secrets, starring Nicolas Cage, the protagonist himself solves a series of clues until reaching the golden city located beneath the lake of Mount Rushmore.

• In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the archaeologist Indiana Jones is in search of the mythical Crystal Skull, and the story makes reference to the fact that "El Dorado" is in reality a city called Akator (in its name Ugha), where the archaeologist has to return the skull before the Russians. In the novel Indiana Jones and the Gold of El Dorado, published in Germany, the character also searches for this city.

• In the animated film The Road to El Dorado, two young men win a map that supposedly shows the way to the city of El Dorado. Both discover that the map is authentic and that the city exists.

• In the video game Gun, the protagonist Colton White must take down a cruel railroad magnate who is desperately searching for El Dorado, specifically the city of Quivira.

• In the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, the protagonist Nathan Drake follows the trail of the famous pirate Sir Francis Drake, who managed to reach El Dorado, leaving maps and clues for finding its location. They finally discover that it is a golden statue and that it carries a curse that turned all the Spaniards who sought it into mutant beings who wiped out an entire civilization.

• Both Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), a feature film directed in 1972 by the German director Werner Herzog, and El Dorado, directed by Carlos Saura in 1988, narrate the expedition organized by Pedro de Ursúa in search of the mythical city, an expedition that would end in the conspiracy and rebellion of Lope de Aguirre against the Spanish monarchy.

• The fourth album by the English band Electric Light Orchestra, released in 1974, is titled Eldorado.

• The first single from the album The Final Frontier by the English band Iron Maiden is titled "El Dorado".

• In the MCU's Black Panther, the Golden City, the capital of Wakanda, was named El Dorado, giving it the erroneous location in South America, when in reality it has always been in Southern Africa.

• The German duo Modern Talking included on the record "America" a song titled "The Witchqueen of El Dorado", making a rather spiritual reference to the functions of the rulers of El Dorado.

• The Spanish folk metal group Mägo de Oz has an instrumental song on its 2010 album Gaia III: Atlantia called "Fuerza y Honor (El Dorado)". The story that accompanies that album explains the story of El Dorado.

• Also, the Spanish group led by Carlos Goñi, Revólver, released in 1995 a CD called El Dorado, which includes a song of the same name.

• The French-Japanese-Luxembourgish animated television series The Mysterious Cities of Gold narrates the adventures of a young Spaniard who sets sail for the New World and befriends a young Inca girl and a native of the Galápagos Islands, who begin the search for El Dorado.

• In the adventure film The Mask of Zorro, the cruel millionaire Don Rafael Montero presents "El Dorado" to other magnates (among them the alter ego of the masked hero, Alejandro de La Vega), in which an enormous group of enslaved Californians work to extract the gold that Montero will use in his plan to buy California from Antonio López de Santa Anna.

• In the animated series DuckTales, some of its episodes narrate the adventures of its characters in search of the city of El Dorado, consuming them in a gold fever.

• In a work by Voltaire, called Candide, or Optimism, the protagonist manages to reach the hidden city of El Dorado, which is made of gold and whose inhabitants' behavior is exemplary, since they place no value on gold ore.

• In the anime One Piece, episode 187 tells the story of the warrior Karugara and Norland (the liar), in which Norland, an explorer and admiral of an exploration ship from a kingdom of the North Sea, is guided by the sound of a bell, and by this sound reaches the island of Jaya, which is being ravaged by a strange disease that has claimed many lives; the inhabitants of this village sacrifice a woman of their tribe to their Gods so that they will cure their disease. Norland offers to cure them all on the condition that they never again practice the ritual of sacrifice. Afterward, Norland manages to keep his promise to cure the disease of the inhabitants of Jaya. Norland and Karugara begin a great friendship. In gratitude for having helped them, Karugara leads Norland and his crew to Shandra, the "City of Gold", where he shows Norland the Golden Bell, the pride of his tribe. Following events that took place on the island, Norland returns to his country; Karugara manages to say goodbye to Norland and invites him to return to Jaya (Karugara promises him that every day he will ring the bell so that he and his crew can find their way to Jaya). Some time later, Norland tells the King of his people about the City of Gold, and the King accompanies him to see with his own eyes whether it is true. However, a Knoked Up carries part of the Island of Jaya up into the sky. Kuragara, desperate, rings the bell again so that Norland can find the island, and they struggle to recover it; not finding the Island of Gold, the King declares Norland a liar and sentences him to be executed.

• In the anime Digimon Data Squad or Digimon Savers, a digimon called Eldoradimon appears, which is a clear reference to El Dorado.

• In the video game Pitfall: The Big Adventure, Harry, the protagonist, finds the city of El Dorado.

• The music production company Two Steps from Hell has a track called El Dorado, included on its 2012 album Skyworld.

• The FOX telenovela Cumbia Ninja is based on the legend of El Dorado, in which it is told that there is a great treasure in a low-income neighborhood in the center of Bogotá, called "La Colina".

• The South Korean group EXO revealed the full version of the track "El Dorado" at its concert The Lost Planet #2 EXO'Luxion on March 6, 2015. This track was part of one of the same group's debut teasers in 2012, together with member Chanyeol.

• T.O.P, a member of the famous South Korean group BIGBANG, mentions El Dorado in the song Fxxk It, released in 2016.

• In the video game Plants vs. Zombies 2, there is a world called the Lost City, which is based on this place.
• Shakira released an album in 2017 called "El Dorado".

• In the anime Garo: Vanishing Line there is a city called El Dorado.
• The song "Gold" from the third studio album by the Welsh singer Marina and the Diamonds, Froot (album), makes reference to the legend of El Dorado.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh, there is a set of cards based on El Dorado, under the name "Eldlich". Some names of these cards are in Spanish (even in their printing in other languages), and one of them even mentions "The Golden Land" in its name.
• In Bad Piggies, a Rovio game, there is a chapter called Road To El Porkado, making reference to El Dorado.

See also

Places

• Lake Guatavita (Colombia)
• Sesquilé (Colombia)
• El Dorado International Airport (Colombia)
• Pasca (Colombia)
• Pedra Pintada
• Lake Parima
• El Callao (Venezuela)
• Orinoco Mining Arc (Venezuela)

Other American myths

• Cíbola (North America)
• Quivira (North America)
• Manuscript 512 (South America)
• Paititi (South America)
• Sierra de la Plata (South America)
• City of the Caesars (South America)
• Mines of Tisingal (Costa Rica)

Bibliography

• Bandelier, A. F. A. The Gilded Man, Eldorado, New York, 1893.
• Rodríguez Freyle, Juan (1859[1638]). Conquista y descubrimiento del Nuevo Reino de Granada... (in español). Bogotá: Pizano i Pérez. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• López-Serrano Páez, Daniel. Archivo de la Frontera: Sobre los documentos inéditos del Conde de Gondomar acerca de Walter Raleigh, March 2004; ISBN 978-84-690-5859-6
• Nicholl, Charles. The Creature in the Map, London, 1995, ISBN 0-09-959521-4
• Von Hagen, Victor. The Golden Man: A Quest for Eldorado, Saxon House, England 1974, ISBN 0-347-00006-1
• Wood, Michael. Conquistadores, BBC Books, 2000.
• Zweig, Stefan. Momentos estelares de la humanidad. Acantilado ed., Barcelona, 2002, ISBN 84-95359-92-8.

External links

• Gold Museum of Bogotá (in Spanish)
• Pre-Columbian Muisca raft — Famous golden figurine representing the El Dorado rite (currently in the Gold Museum of Bogotá, Colombia) (in Spanish)
• La Laguna de Guatavita y Eldorado (in Spanish)
• La Leyenda de Eldorado (in Spanish)
• Article on the search for El Dorado (in Spanish)
• Article on the legend of El Dorado and the ceremony of the golden man (in Spanish)
• Interview with the Chilean explorer Roland Stevenson about the search for El Dorado (in Spanish)
• El Oro de los Conquistadores - Ciencia y Mucho Más (in Spanish)
• El Mito de Eldorado (video) (in Spanish)