User:Sojourner in the earth/sandbox

Background


When European explorers began searching for new lands across the Atlantic in the 15th century, their expectations were high. The uncharted west had long been a convenient setting for utopian legends. The ancient Greeks believed that somewhere in the Atlantic lay the Isles of the Blessed, an earthly paradise with a permanently temperate climate. The 2nd-century author Lucian wrote that the inhabitants of these isles dwelt in cities made of gold, ivory and emeralds. The Atlantic also gave its name to the legendary continent of Atlantis, which was said to be home to an advanced civilization rich in gold, silver and orichalcum. During the Middle Ages, stories were told of the Isle of Seven Cities, a supposed Christian haven which frequently appeared on 15th-century maps, and which may have inspired the later legend of the Seven Cities of Gold.

Christopher Columbus, the first known European to reach America, would have been aware of these legends. He was also interested in finding the location of two regions mentioned in the Bible, Ophir and Tarshish, from whence King Solomon was said to have imported vast quantities of treasure. Columbus believed that not only these two countries but also the Garden of Eden were to be found somewhere on the newly discovered continent, and many of those who followed him shared the same beliefs.

Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean islands in 1492, during an expedition sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. On seeing the golden ornaments worn by some of the native inhabitants, he assumed that he had discovered a prosperous country, and spent several months travelling from island to island, searching for the source of the gold. Although he found no mines, he was unshaken in his conviction, and promised the Catholic Monarchs that with a little assistance he could "give them as much gold as they have need of".

Early settlers in the Caribbean islands found little evidence to justify this claim. The natives possessed a small amount of gold, but did not mine it systematically, and the Spaniards' own mining activities quickly exhausted the local supply. The settlers' attention therefore turned towards the mainland, and colonies began to be established along the American coast. Despite this unpromising beginning, the conquest of the Aztecs by Hernán Cortés and the conquest of the Incas by Francisco Pizarro soon rekindled European hopes that vast gold deposits remained to be found somewhere on the continent.

Rumours of gold


The first European incursion into Venezuela was made by Ambrosius Dalfinger, governor of the Spanish settlement of Coro. Dalfinger was an employee of the Welser banking family, a German firm to whom Charles V of Spain had granted, as security for a loan, the governorship of Venezuela and a licence to explore the country. One of the Welsers' principal concerns was to find a passage through the continent to the Pacific Ocean (then known as the South Sea); such a passage, if found, would open up a new route to India and give Spain an edge in the spice trade.

It was to this end that in August 1529, Dalfinger set out with an expeditionary force to Lake Maracaibo. The Europeans drastically underestimated the breadth of the South American landmass, and it seemed possible that this lake would prove to connect with the Pacific. During the course of their nine-month journey, they looted numerous golden trinkets from the local population, and were told that these had been acquired through trade with a certain tribe high in the mountains. Upon his return to Coro, Dalfinger found that in his absence he had been presumed dead; the Welser had sent along a replacement governor, Hans Seissenhofer, who had named Nikolaus Federmann as deputy. Dalfinger now resumed the governorship, but temporarily left Federmann in charge while he recovered from an illness.

Federmann, taking advantage of his new authority, soon launched his own expedition into the interior. Placating the indigenous tribes with gifts of beads and iron tools, and searching for information about the South Sea, he was told that the countries bordering this sea were rich in gold, pearls, and gemstones. Enquiring further, Federmann's party were directed to a hilltop from which they could see what appeared to be a large body of water. This was in fact the llanos, a grassland plain which is subject to periodic floods. Having failed to find a route to the Pacific, and faced with difficult terrain, mass illness, and increasingly hostile natives, Federmann was forced to return to Coro empty-handed.

Dalfinger banished Federmann from Venezuela for four years as punishment for abandoning his post. Dalfinger then ventured inland once again in June 1531, travelling south-west to the banks of the river Cesar. Here, he heard of a mountain province called "Xerira", which was said to be the source of all the golden artefacts found amongst the lowland peoples. This was probably a reference to Jerira, located at the northernmost extreme of the Muisca plateau. Dalfinger also heard that the tribe who made the golden objects also exported large quantities of salt. Armed with this clue, he led his party south to the trading centre of Tamalameque, then followed the salt trail into the highlands. At a height of 8,000 feet, waging war against the natives in freezing temperatures, they realised they could go no further south and turned back towards Coro. Dalfinger died on the return journey after being shot with a poisoned arrow.

Meanwhile, another group of conquistadors, led by Diego de Ordaz, were searching for the source of the Orinoco River. Sailing inland from the east, rowing hard against the current, they eventually reached the confluence of the Orinoco and the Meta. They attempted to continue along the Orinoco, but soon ran into impassible rapids. Returning downriver, they were attacked by Caribs; Ordaz's men routed their attackers and captured two. One of the prisoners, being asked if he knew of any gold in the vicinity, told the Spaniards that if they followed the course of the Meta River they would find a kingdom ruled by "a very valiant one-eyed Indian", and that if they found him "they could fill their boats with that metal". Ordaz attempted to follow this advice immediately, but it was now the dry season and the river level was dropping rapidly. Finally admitting defeat, Ordaz sailed for Spain to make preparations for a second expedition, but died of an illness at sea. Before long, "Meta" would become the general name for the legendary golden kingdom.

In 1534, Sebastián de Belalcázar, one of Pizarro's lieutenants, conquered the Incan city of Quito, where he expected to find great quantities of treasure. Disappointed in his expectations, he assumed that the treasure had been hidden and set about capturing the local chiefs, whom he tortured for information. One of the chiefs captured during these campaigns was not an Incan; he said that he came from a land twelve days' march to the north. The Spaniards called him el indio dorado, "the golden Indian". The reason for this is not clear, but it may have been because he wore golden armour or other body ornaments. Interested in finding the homeland of this "golden Indian", Belalcázar sent an expedition party north, where they discovered the province of Popayán. However, Belalcázar himself made no further move at this time.

Journeys of Hohermuth and Quesada
Following the death of Dalfinger, Georg Hohermuth von Speyer became the new governor of Coro, arriving at the colony in 1535. Federmann returned to Coro in the same year and resumed his former post. Hohermuth sent Federmann on an expedition to the Upar valley in the west, while he led an expedition of his own to the south, hoping to find gold in one direction or the other. Hohermuth's party followed the course of the Andes south-southwest along the edge of the llanos; a two-year trek brought them to the region of the Ariari River, where they heard rumours of a rich land to the west. By this time, however, morale was low – over two hundred men had died along the way, and many of the remainder were too ill to fight – and Hohermuth was forced to turn back.

On the other side of the mountain range, a party led by the lawyer-turned-general Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was also searching for the land of Meta. This expedition had set out from the Spanish colony of Santa Marta in April 1536, with the dual goal of finding an overland route to Peru and a strait to the Pacific. It was thought that both these goals could be accomplished by following the Magdalena River to its source. The party travelled south as far as La Tora (modern-day Barrancabermeja), where they found the river became too narrow and fast-flowing for any further progress to be made. Although they had suffered heavy losses, Quesada convinced his men not to turn straight back for home, declaring that "it would be ignoble to return with nothing done". He had noticed cakes of rock salt in use among the tribes of La Tora and surrounding areas, which he suspected had been acquired by trade with a more advanced society to the east. His thoughts turned to the rumours he had heard of the "powerful and rich province called Meta", and he decided, like Dalfinger before him, to follow the salt trail into the mountains.

In March 1537, after a lengthy climb, Quesada's party arrived at the edge of a high plateau, at a place which they named Grita Valley (near modern-day Vélez). This plateau was home to a prosperous civilization; the villages they passed through now yielded impressive quantities of gold and emeralds. They were entering the territory of the Muisca.

Quesada's conquest of the Muisca


The Musica were an agricultural people who built in wood rather than stone. They were not a unified tribe, but a loose organization of independent chiefdoms. The two most important rulers, to whom most of the other chieftains paid fealty, were the zipa, who ruled the lands to the south, and the zacque, who ruled the lands to the north. The Musica were skilled at goldsmithing and cotton-weaving, but they produced little cotton of their own and there were no gold mines within their territory. They acquired these raw materials through trade, their own principal exports being salt, which was extracted from naturally-occurring deposits, and manufactured objects such as golden jewellery and cotton blankets. Most of the golden objects crafted by the Muisca were actually made of a gold-copper alloy called tumbaga. Gold played an important role in Musica religion; it decorated the principal temples and was used for votive offerings and funerary goods, often in the form of an anthropomorphic tunjo.

Quesada's first move was to march on the zipa's palace at Bacatá (modern-day Funza). The armies sent to halt the advance of the Spaniards were easily defeated, and by the end of April they had entered Bacatá. The zipa, however, had fled, taking all his treasure with him. After a few failed attempts to track him down, Quesada removed to the northern territory, where he had heard there were emerald mines. He found the mines at Somondoco, but they were difficult to work and his men were unable to recover more than a few emeralds. He therefore continued north to Tunja, home of the zacque, and here the conquistadors uncovered "the single greatest haul of treasure in the entire conquest of Muisca territory". They captured the zacque and looted the palace, then turned their attention to nearby Sogamoso. This was a major religious centre and the location of the Muisca's most sacred temple. The Spaniards accidentally burnt this temple to the ground, but not before acquiring another substantial haul of gold.

Not satisfied with these twin gains, Quesada led his men back to Bacatá to resume the search for the treasure of the zipa. Finally discovering the ruler's stronghold in the mountains, he launched a night-time attack, during which the zipa was accidentally killed. The zipa's successor, Sagipa, negotiated an alliance with the Spaniards, but was unable to tell them the location of the hidden treasure. In an effort to make him talk, they eventually tortured him to death, though Quesada himself disclaimed any responsibility for this action.

Arrival of Belalcázar and Federmann


In early 1539, after nearly two years on the plateau, Quesada received reports that a group of Europeans were camped in the Magdalena valley near Neiva, southwest of Bacatá. This was an army led by Sebastián de Belalcázar. Belalcázar had left Quito hurriedly in March 1538, after learning that his former general, Francisco Pizarro, had issued a warrant for his arrest. Arriving at Popayán, he had decided to venture east into the highlands. According to Belalcázar's treasurer, Gonzalo de la Peña, the expedition left Popayán "in search of a land called el dorado". This is the first appearance of this phrase in the historical record.

Quesada sent a scouting party to investigate the newcomers; the rival expeditions met amicably, and shortly afterwards Quesada was informed that Belalcázar's forces were approaching Bacatá. At the same time, he was told by his Indigenous allies that a third army was making its way up the slopes from the direction of the llanos. This force would prove to be headed by Nikolaus Federmann.

Federmann, following his mission to the Upar valley, had returned to Coro in September 1536. Finding Hohermuth still absent, he embarked on an unauthorized journey to the south-southwest, following Hohermuth's trail. He was joined by survivors of another venture led by Jerónimo de Ortal, who had attempted to follow in de Ordaz's footsteps and locate the headwaters of the Meta. These survivors had mutinied against de Ortal and struck out on their own; meeting up with Federmann, they brought with them the idea that the legendary land of gold was situated on higher ground. Federmann, like Hohermuth, skirted the edge of the Andes, but at one point took a detour into the plains, which happened to prevent his party from meeting Hohermuth's returning expedition. Contemporary accounts suggest that Federmann deliberately avoided Hohermuth so as not to have to abandon his own quest and give assistance.

Reaching the Ariari River towards the end of 1538, Federmann heard from the natives that there was much gold to be found to the west, and consequently began an assault on the Andean slopes. In February 1539, Federmann's bedraggled troops emerged onto the plateau near Pasca. Within two months, the armies of Federmann, Quesada and Belalcázar were encamped within sight of each other at Bacatá, "all within a six-league triangle". Each of the new arrivals believed that they had a claim to the plateau and its spoils. The geography of South America was still uncertain, and Belalcázar insisted that the Muisca territory lay within his jurisdiction, while Federmann argued that it was part of Venezuela. Quesada, a lawyer by training, resolved the tension by drawing up a contract. He granted each of his rival conquistadors a portion of the wealth he had looted from the Muisca, and all three agreed to return to Spain together and lay their territorial claims before the Council of the Indies. Then, on 29 April 1539, the three men jointly founded the city of Bogotá in the name of Charles V.

Contemporary accounts


Aside from the aforementioned statement by Gonzalo de la Peña (from a testimony given in July 1539), there are no written references to a place or a person called "El Dorado" prior to 1541. It was in this year that the historian Oviedo recorded a story that was current among the Spanish inhabitants of Quito, relating to a native ruler called the "Golden Chief or King":

The timing suggests that this story was brought back to Quito by the men who had assisted in the conquest of the Muisca. Oviedo did not specify where the golden prince was to be found, but by the 1580s the legend had become definitely associated with the Muisca, as evidenced by the following account written by Juan de Castellanos:

A later author, Antonio Herrera, connected this "itinerant Indian" with the indio dorado captured by Belalcázar in 1534. However, modern scholars have argued that there would be no reason for a citizen of Bacatá to travel as far south as Quito, either for purposes of trade or, as suggested by Herrera, as a diplomatic envoy. It is likely that Castellanos's account is unreliable, and that Belalcázar had not heard the El Dorado legend prior to his arrival in Muisca territory.

A new element in Castellanos's version of the story is the king's habit of making oblations on a raft. In the early 17th century, Pedro Simón elaborated on this ceremony, claiming that it took place at Lake Guatavita near Bogotá, and that the gold dust was offered as a sacrifice to a supernatural entity living in the lake. Juan Rodríguez Freyle, in 1636, was the first to describe the ceremony as an investiture ritual undergone by each new zipa. Freyle claimed to have received his information from the nephew of the last Indigenous ruler of Guatavita.

Modern-day assessment


Historians disagree on the veracity of these reports. Warwick Bray states that the Spanish conquerors heard the legend from Muisca natives who had witnessed the ceremony first-hand. Demetrio Ramos Pérez, followed by John Hemming among others, argues that the story was invented by the Spaniards themselves. José Ignacio Avellaneda regards it as "rather certain" that the legend had a factual basis. J. P. Quintero-Guzmán suggests that the Guatavita ceremony may have been a one-time event which lived on in the oral history of the Muisca until the arrival of the Spaniards.

Lakes did feature heavily in Muisca religion. It was said that the mother goddess Bachué emerged from a lake before peopling the earth and then returned to the water in the form of a serpent. Guatavita was one of several sacred lakes found within Muisca territory, and it was not uncommon for gold, emeralds and other objects to be deposited at the lakeside as sacrificial offerings.

An archaeological find known as the Muisca raft has often been cited as evidence for the historicity of the El Dorado legend. Discovered in 1969 in a cave in the region of Pasca, this golden artefact depicts a man of high status, probably a chief, seated on a raft and surrounded by attendants. Quintero-Guzmán calls the relationship between this object and the legend of the golden man "almost undeniable". A similar object, discovered at Lake Siecha in 1856 but later destroyed in a fire, was also described as a representation of the same ceremony, though others argued that it depicted an ordinary leisure cruise.

Pizarro and Orellana
Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Francisco, was governor of Quito at the time when the legend of El Dorado was developing. In February 1541, he led an expedition out of Quito to the east, hoping to find the country of this golden king. He was guided in his choice of direction by the report of a Spaniard who claimed to have been in a place called Cinnamon Valley, and had heard that beyond the valley was a flat, open country whose inhabitants wore golden jewellery. Accompanying the expedition as second-in-command was Francisco Orellana, a kinsman of the Pizarros.

On finding a few cinnamon trees, Pizarro enquired among the locals about the way to El Dorado; when they were unable to give him any information, he had them tortured and killed. After some aimless searching, the expedition arrived at the banks of the Coca River, where they met an Indigenous chief named Delicola. Pizarro's reputation preceded him, and Delicola quickly told him what he wanted to hear: that further downstream he would find a wealthy and powerful civilization. Pizarro built a boat, and the expedition sailed down the Coca to the Napo River.

On 25 December, Pizarro was forced to call a halt, as his starving men were threatening to mutiny. Delicola, whom they had brought with them as a prisoner, assured them the land they sought was just a few days' journey down the river. It was decided that Orellana should take the healthiest men aboard the boat and go in search of food, while Pizarro and the others followed on foot. However, Orellana was unable to find sufficient quantities of food to satisfy Pizarro's army, and soon realized that in any case returning upstream would be impossible. He made the decision to abandon Pizarro and sail on. Reaching the confluence of the Napo River with the Amazon, he and his men became the first Europeans to sail upon the latter river. They successfully navigated its entire length, eventually emerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Hernán de Quesada and Philip von Hutten
When Jiménez de Quesada departed for Spain, he left his brother Hernán in temporary command of the Muisca province, now known as New Granada. When Hernán de Quesada heard the story of El Dorado, he was eager to be the first to find it, and believed that his position in the heart of Colombia, together with the local knowledge of his men, would give him an advantage in the search. He consequently organized an expedition to the south, leaving Bogotá in September 1541. After a time, suffering greatly from illness and starvation, but urged on by persistent rumours of golden lands ahead, his party turned westward and found themselves in the region of Pasto, an area already colonized by Belalcázar. The expedition was here given up as a failure.

In early 1542, Philipp von Hutten, a German nobleman who had travelled with Hohermuth, set out to find the rich country that he was sure Hohermuth had almost discovered. He was joined by Bartholomeus Welser, a member of the merchant banking family which governed Venezuela. Leading their men along the edge of the llanos, they came upon the tracks of Hernán de Quesada's south-bound expedition. Judging that Quesada would not have deserted his province except in expectation of finding even greater wealth, they decided to follow the same route. A native chief informed them that there were no rich settlements in that direction, and added that he had received word from neighbouring tribes that the Spaniards who had passed that way earlier were now all dead or dying, but von Hutten believed this to be merely an attempt to distract him from his mission.

Towards the end of 1543, on the banks of the Guaviare River, von Hutten heard from the locals that nearby were "enormous towns of very rich people who possessed innumerable wealth". He was guided to a village of the Omagua people, and was told that the village chief owned several life-sized effigies of solid gold, and that still richer chieftans lived in the regions beyond. The Europeans launched an attack, during which von Hutten and his captain were badly wounded by native lancers. The expedition retreated to Coro, with the intention of returning with a larger force. Upon their return, however, a Spanish revolt against the Germans resulted in the execution by beheading of Bartholomeus Welser and von Hutten.

Draining of Lake Guatavita
[Hernán, Sepúlveda]