Expeditions
El Dorado is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous abundance along with gold coins. The concept of El Dorado underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of the legendary city. The resulting El Dorado enticed European explorers for two centuries, and was eventually found to be in Colombia.Among the earliest stories was the one told by Diego de Ordaz's lieutenant Martinez, who claimed to have been rescued from shipwreck, conveyed inland, and entertained by "El Dorado" himself (1531).
In 1540 Gonzalo Pizarro, the younger half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, was made the governor of the provenance of Quito in northern Ecuador. Shortly after taking lead in Quito, Gonzalo learned from many of the natives of a valley far to the east rich in both cinnamon and gold. He banded together 340 soldiers and about 4000 Indians in 1541 and led them eastward down the Rio Coca and Rio Napo. Francisco de Orellana, Gonzalo’s nephew, accompanied his uncle on this expedition. Gonzalo quit after many of the soldiers and Indians had died from hunger, disease, and periodic attacks by hostile natives. He ordered Orellana to continue downstream, where he eventually made it to the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the Amazon (named Amazon because of a tribe of female warriors that attacked Orellana’s men while on their voyage.)
Other expeditions include that of Philipp von Hutten (1541–1545), who led an exploring party from Coro on the coast of Venezuela; and of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the Governor of El Dorado, who started from Bogotá (1569).
Parime Lacus on a map by Hessel Gerritsz (1625)
Sir Walter Raleigh, who resumed the search in 1595, described El Dorado as a city on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Guyana. This city on the lake was marked on English and other maps until its existence was disproved by Alexander von Humboldt during his Latin-America expedition (1799–1804)
HISTORY
The year was 1969. Some farm workers were working in a cave near Bogata in South America. Suddenly their hands struck against a model of a raft. As soon as they saw it clearly, they shrieked with surprise - “Eldorado! Eldorado!”. It meant the Golden Man. The model showed a king on a raft standing with his bodyguards. The solid gold model raft is similar to the one taken from Lake Siecha in the 19th century by the adventures of Spain and Britain who were on their mission to discover the golden land. They couldn't find the golden land. And soon people forgot all about it. But in 1969 the discovery of golden man once again forced the people to search for the land - the Golden Land whose very existence till now is in doubt.
The mania for gold started in 1530 with the Spanish adventurer Francisco Pizarro who set sail from Panama to plunder the treasures of the Inca Empire in Peru. In 1535, Sebastian de Belalcazar, veteran of the Inca conquest and founder of Quito, the capital of Equador, met an Indian, who told him of a far off tribe King who sprinkled his body with gold dust before swimming in a sacred mountain lake. After hearing this story Belalcazar coined a new name for this mysterious king Eldorado, meaning the Golden Man. It was this name which became so famous among the adventurers. The word Eldorado signified different things to different adventurers. To some it meant the Golden Man but to some it signified the Golden Land. Anyhow, Eldorado became a hypnotic legend and allured many adventures to loose their fortune, reputation, life itself in its vain pursuit.
The first man to think of Eldorado was Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesda. He started on his journey in 1536 with 900 men from Santa Marta, situated on Colombia's northern coast.
Quesada's journey was full of peril. He and his men had to face various animals and had to fight diseases and were often decimated by fever, malaria and the attacks of hostile natives before they reached Chibehas. At Chibehas, Spaniards were told of some more tales about the Golden Man. Going by the tales, Quesada preceded the Guatavita Lake with an Indian guide. They reached the lake which was deep, dark expanse of water set in the crater of an extinct volcano almost 9,000 feet above sea-level. Few huts were there but nowhere could Quesada and his left over 200 men see the Golden Man or the Golden Land.
Quesada returned, but only to sit quiet for sometime. In 1568, the old Quesada, haunted by the lake and the possible treasures hidden beneath it restarted the journey. He left Bogota, the new city he discovered, with a force of 2,800 men. They hunted in vain for three years before Quesada gave up the search.
So even after four decades of expeditions the men had failed to find any gold, leave aside discovering a Golden Man or a Golden Land. In return, expeditions had cost huge amounts. Nevertheless, the lure of discovering huge mass of gold made the men to pursue their search. But by the end of the 16th century the interest shifted from Columbia to Guyana.
In 1584, Antonio de Berrio, Governor of a vast tract of land between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, set off from Tunja in central Colombia to explore the hinterland of Guyana. He was convinced that the Golden Man was to be found at the lake surrounded my mountains. His expedition was unsuccessful. So was his second expedition which lasted from 1585 to 1588.
In 1591, Berrio launched a third expedition and traveled down the Orinoco. He sailed to the island of Trinidad and established his base for future expeditions to Eldorado. In Trinidad, he met Sir Walter Raleigh, who was searching for a new source of wealth for the queen, Elizabeth I. Berrio passed on the information to Raleigh who published his journal - The Discovery of the Empire of Guyana. In this journal, he described extensively about the golden city, although with very little truth in it.
Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. Raleigh was also convicted of trumped-up charges of treason and sentenced to death. The sentence was however suspended for sometime. Raleigh led a second expedition. But was unsuccessful and when he returned he was beheaded in 1618.
His death did not deter other men from searching for the Golden Man. Right up to the end of the 18th century, search for the Parima Lake continued. This was the lake which Raleigh described in his journal “Discovery of the Empire of Guyana”. He had shown that on its shores stood the imperial city of Manoa - the City of Gold. The explorers searched for the lake Parima. And like earlier quests, the explorers failed in their effort.
The last Spanish expedition in search of Eldorado was led by Diez de la Furente. He set off into the Caroni river region of south-east Venezuela. At this point, he divided his expedition into three columns. The expedition put under the command of Gonzalo Suarez Rondon, it was assumed, nearly reached Lake Parima. But a sudden attack by Indians forced Spaniards to turn back. The Spaniards finally had to give up the search and leave Guyana. The English, Dutch and French divided the colony among themselves.
People began to wonder whether Eldorado really existed. But myths die hard. And by the beginning of the 19th century the quest for Eldorado passed to a new breed of adventurers. The two new adventurers were Humboldt (with scientific interest) and Bonpland (a botanist). They traveled extensively and finally concluded that the search for Eldorado was futile and that there was no such lake as Parima. However, Hamboldt noted the spot where Sepulveda's expedition had made a breach in the crater wall in the 1580's. So once again interest was drawn on Lake Guatavita. Humboldt had no interest in the treasure of the lakes but others had. So, in 1912, a British company - "Contractors Ltd" arrived in Colombia with 150,000 dollars worth of equipment to pump out Lake Guatavita's water. The company did partially succeed in pumping out the water. But lo! What they found was not worth the effort. The ground was covered with thick black mud and little bit of gold, which was not even enough to repay a fraction of the cost spent. More valuable than this find was the raft gold model found at Lake Siecha earlier in the 19th century.
Thus, ended the search of Eldorado - the Golden Man - the Golden Land. The expeditions failed to discover the Golden Man or the Golden Land but in their pursuit they discovered unknown tribes, platinum, silver, bauxite and manganese. And above all, they discovered oil in the Lake Maracaibo basin of Venezuela. The Golden Man on the raft still stares into the eyes of the adventurers, as if asking - “Are you ready to unfold to y mystery - the mystery of Eldorado?”
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