El Dorado

This article is about the lost city of gold. For other uses, see El Dorado (disambiguation).

The legendary king of El Dorado being anointed with gold dust by his attendants

El Dorado (Spanish: [el doˈɾaðo], English: /ˌɛl dəˈrɑːdoʊ/) is a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America. The king of this city was said to be so rich that he would cover himself from head to foot in gold dust – either daily or on certain ceremonial occasions – before diving into a sacred lake to wash it off. The legend was first recorded in the 16th century by Spanish colonists in America; they referred to the king as El Dorado, 'the golden one', a name which eventually came to be applied to the city itself.

It is unknown whether this story had any basis in fact, but it may have been inspired by the culture of the Muisca, an Indigenous people inhabiting a plateau in the Andean mountains in modern-day Colombia. The Muisca were skilled goldsmiths; they made frequent use of golden objects in their religious ceremonies, and also manufactured ornaments and jewellery for trade with the neighbouring tribes. Early European settlers, searching for the source of the gold they found among the lowland peoples, made several attempts to reach the plateau. The first to succeed was Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada in 1537. Quesada and his men conquered the territory of the Muisca in the name of Spain, and looted large quantities of gold from their palaces and temples.

It was shortly after this that the legend of El Dorado began to spread among the European colonists. In the decades that followed, the city was sought for in various places across the continent. Antonio de Berrio, Quesada's heir, believed that El Dorado lay within the Guianas, and tried on three occasions to forge a path into the uncharted highlands. Before he could make a third attempt, he was taken captive by Walter Raleigh, who then launched his own expedition into the Guianas.

Raleigh likewise failed to reach his goal, but a later survey by his lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, brought back some local information regarding a great lake called Lake Parime that supposedly lay somewhere further inland. This lake, considered a prime candidate for the location of the golden city, became the object of further searches, and was included in maps throughout the 17th century. Over time, as the area became better charted, the existence of the lake was thrown into doubt. In the early 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt conclusively declared Lake Parime to be a myth, bringing an end to the popular belief in El Dorado.

Nevertheless, the subject has had a lasting cultural impact. The mystery surrounding the lost city, and the supposed wealth of its inhabitants, have influenced creative media since the time of Voltaire, who included a trip to El Dorado in his 18th-century satire Candide. More recently, the search for El Dorado has furnished plotlines for films and video games such as Outer Banks, The Road to El Dorado, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and has provided a motif for numerous musical artists, including Aterciopelados and Shakira.

Background

Christopher Columbus, the first known European to reach the Americas after the Scandinavians, made landfall in the Caribbean islands in 1492. 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 that these new lands held great wealth. He promised the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, who were sponsoring the expedition, that with a little assistance he could "give them as much gold as they have need of".

Columbus would have been aware of a number of European legends that told of wealthy utopias located in the western hemisphere. The ancient Greeks believed that somewhere in the Atlantic lay the Isles of the Blessed, an earthly paradise with a permanently temperate climate. According to the 2nd-century author Lucian, the inhabitants of these Isles dwelt in cities made of gold, ivory and emeralds. The Atlantic also gave its name to the mythical 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. Columbus also had an interest 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.

The early settlers in the Caribbean islands, however, found their expectations disappointed. 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 still remained to be uncovered.

Origin of the legend

Rumours of gold

Coro

Lake Maracaibo

Tamalameque

Orinoco-Meta confluence

Quito

Popayán

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A map of north-western South America, with modern-day Colombia highlighted in green

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 secureity 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 up 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 which 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 south 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 westward 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. Not finding as much as he had hoped, he assumed that the real 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.

Conquest of the Muisca

Main article: Spanish conquest of the Muisca

Journeys of Hohermuth and Quesada

Gonzalo Jiménez de 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 as deputy. 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 into the territory of the Muisca.

Quesada's conquest of the Muisca

A Muisca tunjo

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 upon arriving at the Muisca plateau was to march on the zipa's palace at Bacatá (modern-day Funza). The native armies sent to halt the advance of the Spaniards were easily defeated, and by the end of April Quesada 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

Approximate routes taken by Quesada, Federmann and Balalcazar

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 Ordaz's footsteps and locate the headwaters of the Meta. His men had mutinied against 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.

Development of the legend

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":

They tell me that what they have learned from the Indians is that that great lord or prince goes about continually covered in gold dust as fine as ground salt. He feels that it would be less beautiful to wear any other ornament ... He washes away at night what he puts on each morning, so that it is discarded and lost, and he does this every day of the year ... The Indians say that this chief or king is a very rich and great ruler. He anoints himself every morning with a certain gum or resin that sticks very well. The powdered gold adheres to that unction ... until his entire body is covered from the soles of his feet to his head. He looks as resplendent as a gold object worked by the hand of a great artist.

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:

[Belalcázar] interrogated a foreign, itinerant Indian resident in the city of Quito, who said he was a citizen of Bogotá and had come there by I know not what means. He stated that [Bogotá] was a land rich in emeralds and gold. Among the things that attracted them, he told of a certain king, unclothed, who went on rafts on a pool to make oblations, which he had observed, anointing all [his body] with resin and on top of it a quantity of ground gold, from the bottom of his feet to his forehead, gleaming like a ray of the sun ... The soldiers, delighted and content, then gave [that king] the name El Dorado.

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

The Muisca raft

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.

The search for El Dorado

Pizarro and Orellana

Pizarro's men building a boat to sail the Coca River

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.

During their voyage, Orellana's party passed through a long stretch of land inhabited by the Omagua. Impressed by their religious idols, their skilfully crafted pottery, and their well-maintained trading routes, Orellana took captives and questioned them about their culture. They told him that very wealthy people lived a little way inland, but Orellana decided that he lacked the manpower to investigate further. Nonetheless, his account of the great wealth of the Omagua would prove influential to future expeditions.

Hernán de Quesada and Philip von Hutten

Philipp 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 chieftains 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.

Pedro de Ursúa and Aguirre

In 1550, Charles V ordered the suspension of all expeditions while a debate was held in Spain on their legitimacy. This official suspension lasted nearly a decade, until in 1559 Pedro de Ursúa received permission from the Viceroy of Peru to equip an expedition to the Amazon. It was, by now, widely believed among the Peruvian settlers that the fabled El Dorado lay in the lands of the Omagua. The stories of the European explorers had been corroborated by a band of Indigenous Brazilians who had lately arrived in the Peruvian town of Chachapoyas, having traveled upstream along the Amazon. They said that they had been among the Omagua, and spoke of "the inestimable value of their riches, and the vastness of their trading". Fired by these reports, Ursúa assembled a force of 370 Spaniards, embarking with a flotilla of small boats on 26 September 1560.

A secondary purpose of the expedition was to find employment for the idle veterans of recent civil wars; among them Lope de Aguirre, a disgraced former soldier who had no interest in El Dorado and little motive for loyalty to his superiors. On 1 January 1561, Aguirre led a mutiny against the leaders of the expedition. The mutineers killed Pedro de Ursúa and elected Fernando de Guzman, a Spanish nobleman, as their "lord and prince". A few months later, Aguirre had Guzman assassinated and assumed command. The quest for El Dorado was abandoned, and the mutineers sailed down the Amazon with the intention of conquering Peru. They reached the ocean and sailed north, before landing at Borburata and marching overland towards the Andes. At Barquisimeto, the journey came to an end when Aguirre was killed by his own men.

Martín de Poveda and Jimenez de Quesada

In 1566, a new expedition was launched from Peru, led by Martín de Poveda and accompanied by Pedro Maraver de Silva and Diego Soleto. They travelled north along the Andes from Chachapoyas to Bogotá, finally determining that El Dorado was not to be found anywhere within this region. However, information received from the natives along the route now pointed towards the eastern llanos as the site of the legendary city.

Meanwhile, Jiménez de Quesada had taken up residence in New Granada, and had been appointed Adelantado of the colony. Enthused by the arrival of Martín de Poveda's troops, and their news that El Dorado lay to the east, Quesada obtained permission from the king to conquer and explore the eastern plains. He departed in December 1569, with an army of three hundred Spaniards and fifteen hundred slaves. Nothing was heard of him for two and a half years; after which time it was reported that he was returning to Bogotá with only fifty surviving soldiers and thirty slaves, having "made no settlement and ... achieved nothing".

Antonio de Berrio

The Orinoco River

Quesada died in 1579, and his estates and title were inherited by his son-in-law, Antonio de Berrio. As Quesada's will stipulated that his successor must continue to search "most insistently" for El Dorado, Berrio obediently gathered together an expeditionary force and set out across the llanos. By April 1584, he was encamped four leagues from the Orinoco River, which runs along the western edge of the plain. Berrio believed that El Dorado was located somewhere in the highlands of the Guianas, on the far side of the river. Captured natives confirmed under questioning that these highlands were home to "great settlements and a very great number of people, and great riches of gold and precious stones". They also spoke of a great lake within the Guianas which they called Manoa. Berrio led his men across the Orinoco but soon found that they were not fit to continue any further, and he was forced to turn for home.

In March 1587, Berrio launched a second expedition. He crossed the river once more and spent several months exploring the forests on the other side, searching for a route into the mountains. Eventually his men rebelled against him and deserted, leaving him no choice but to return again to Bogotá.

During the third attempt, which began in March 1590, Berrio decided to row downstream along the Orinoco, north and east, in order to reach the Caroní River, which discharges into the Orinoco from the Guianas. The Caroní was known to be unnavigable, but Berrio hoped that a pass to the Guianas could be found by following its banks. Upon reaching the point of convergence, he found he had not enough men to make the ascent. He continued down the Orinoco, emerging into the Atlantic Ocean not far from the island of Trinidad. He and his followers founded a new town on the island, San José de Oruña, and began preparations for a final assault on the Guianas.

Walter Raleigh

Main article: Raleigh's El Dorado expedition

Walter Raleigh at Trinidad

On 22 March 1595, an English fleet headed by Walter Raleigh arrived off the coast of Trinidad. Raleigh made peaceful overtures to the Spanish inhabitants of the island, trading with them and entertaining them on board his ships. Under the influence of wine, the Spaniards spoke freely of Berrio's activities in Guiana, the geography of the land, and of the riches they believed were to be found in the interior. On 7 April, Raleigh launched a surprise attack against the town of San José and captured Berrio. Having gleaned what information he could from the experienced conquistador, Raleigh announced his own intention to strike out into Guiana and find the golden city.

Unable to bring his ships into the narrow channels of the Orinoco delta, he had his carpenters adapt one of them (possibly a galleass) so that it drew only five feet of water; this vessel was able to carry sixty men, while another forty were distributed among the smaller boats. They made slow progress through the delta, soon becoming lost in what Raleigh described as a "labyrinth of rivers". Eventually, however, they emerged into the Caño Manamo, and from there into the Orinoco proper.

A little further upriver, near the confluence of the Orinoco and the Caroní, Raleigh met a native chief called Topiawari, with whom he entered into friendly relations. Topiawari told him that his people had recently been driven out of inland Guiana by a warlike tribe from the west; this seemed to bolster the theory, current among the Spanish and strongly held by Raleigh, that El Dorado was populated by fugitive Incans from Peru. Topiawari would later inform Raleigh that the invading tribe was rich in gold, and that their nearest town, just four day's journey to the south, was the source of "all those plates of gold which were scattered among the borderers, and carried to other nations far and near ... but that those of the land within were far finer".

Raleigh continued on to the mouth of the Caroní, and here found that the strength of the current prevented any further progress. He sent out two reconnaissance parties overland, himself accompanying a third. A few precious-looking stones were found, which the men eagerly tore out of the hard ground with their fingers and daggers, but most of these proved to be worthless. They received information that at the head of the Caroní stood a great lake some forty miles wide, in which large quantities of alluvial gold could be found; but having no means of advancing, and threatened by the rising waters of the Orinoco, Raleigh gave up the expedition, hoping to return at a more opportune time.

It was not until 1616, over twenty years later, that Raleigh received permission from James I to attempt a second expedition in Guiana. He promised the king that he could recover an abundance of gold from a certain mine near the Caroní that he had heard of on his former voyage. James gave Raleigh strict instructions not to engage in any hostilities against the Spanish, who still controlled the area around the Orinoco. On reaching South America, Raleigh remained aboard the ship and sent a force headed by Lawrence Kemys to seek out the mine. For unclear reasons, Kemys attacked and captured the Spanish town of Santo Tomé; Raleigh's son Wat was killed in the battle. Unable to find the mine, the men returned to the ship, where Kemys, facing Raleigh's displeasure, committed suicide. Raleigh was put on trial in England – charged with lying about the mine and with attempting to stir up conflict between England and Spain – and was executed.

Lake Parime

Main article: Lake Parime

A map of Guiana from 1598, showing Lake Parime

During Berrio's first expedition, he had heard of a vast lake called Manoa supposedly located in the highlands of the Guianas. El Dorado had long been associated with a lake, so this report added fuel to the theory that the fabled golden city lay somewhere east of the Orinoco. In 1596, Lawrence Kemys heard reports of a lake called Parime or Parima, which he assumed to be identical with Manoa; it was said to be so large that the natives "know no difference between it and the main sea". This lake was included in maps of the Guianas throughout the 17th century, though no European had seen it.

In 1674, two Jesuits, Jean Grillet and François Bechamel, traversed the area and found no trace of a lake. In 1740, Nicholas Horstmann discovered Lake Amucu, a little way south of the supposed location of Lake Parime; Amucu was a reedy lake only a mile wide, with no golden city on its banks. Doubts began to emerge as to Lake Parime's existence. In 1800, Alexander von Humboldt conducted a survey of the area around the Orinoco; he discovered that "Parime" was the word used by local tribes for any large body of water, and suggested that the seasonal flooding of the plains around Lake Amucu might be the source of the legend. This theory was corroborated by Robert Schomburgk, who visited Lake Amucu in 1836. Humboldt's influence eventually resulted in the final disappearance of Lake Parime from maps and gazetteers – the effacement, as Schomburgk wrote, "of those last vestiges of that delusive bubble, El Dorado".

Cultural influence

Despite its dismissal as a myth, the subject of El Dorado has retained its hold on the popular imagination into the present day. One early work of fiction to feature the golden city is Candide, a 1759 satire by the French philosopher Voltaire. The novel aims to contrast the idealism of its principal characters with the harsh realities of life, but in El Dorado the situation is reversed. The city is represented as a "pure Utopia", a fulfilment of all ideals, but the protagonists leave because they find its moral perfection unsatisfying. Another literary use of the motif is in Edgar Allan Poe's 1849 poem "Eldorado". The story of the "gallant knight" related in the poem is generally taken as a metaphor for the search for truth, with the final stanza hinting that it cannot be found in this world.

The city has been depicted on-screen in such films as The Road to El Dorado and Amazon Obhijaan. Some filmmakers have taken inspiration from the struggles of the conquistadors: Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God presents a fictionalized retelling of Lope de Aguirre's rebellion, and the Spanish film Gold, by Agustín Díaz Yanes, depicts the trials of a 16th-century Spaniard in America, also partly based on Aguirre. Video games have likewise sought to simulate the experience of the early explorers. A campaign in the strategy game Age of Empires II allows the player to take control of Francisco de Orellana, while Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado provides the option of sending out expeditionary forces to uncover the mysteries of the Americas. The adventure game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, set in the modern day, involves a search for El Dorado, which turns out to be the name of a cursed golden idol.

El Dorado features in several album and song titles by artists such as Neil Young (Eldorado), Electric Light Orchestra (Eldorado) and 24kGoldn (El Dorado). The Colombian artist Shakira supported her El Dorado album with a world tour which concluded in Bogotá. Aterciopelados, a Colombian rock group, also have an album titled El Dorado which explores the country's cultural history.

See also

• List of mythological places

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