Ancient Explorations: The Search for El Dorado

Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro conquering the Aztec and Inca empires

Gonzalo Pizarro

After the conquest of the Incas, Francisco Pizarro named his brother Gonzalo as governor of the entire province of Quito. Gonzalo's assignment was to use Quito as a base to look for El Dorado. Adventurers and conquistadors from all over Europe flocked to the New World, hoping to be part of the next expedition that would find, conquer and plunder a rich American empire. These men followed rumors of gold all across the unexplored interior of South America, many of them dying in the process.

1. There was a grain of truth in the El Dorado myth

The Muisca people of Cundinamarca (present-day Colombia) had a tradition: kings would coat themselves in a sticky sap before covering themselves in gold powder. The king would then take a canoe to the center of Lake Guatavitá and, before the eyes of thousands of his subjects watching from shore, would leap into the lake, emerging clean. Then, a great festival would begin. This tradition had been neglected by the Muisca by the time of their discovery by the Spanish in 1537, but not before word of it had reached the greedy ears of the European intruders in cities all over the continent. "El Dorado," in fact, is Spanish for "the gilded one:" the term at first referred to an individual, the king who covered himself in gold. According to some sources, the man who coined this phrase was conquistador Sebastián de Benalcázar.

The scene depicted in this ancient artwork, on display at the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia, shows the origin of the El Dorado myth. Legend tells of a Muisca king who would cover himself in gold dust during festivals, then dive from a raft into Lake Guatavita.

Portraits of rulers of Muisca

2. El Dorado was discovered in 1537

The earliest reference to the name El Dorado was in 1535 or 1536, before Spanish contact with the Muisca people. The Muisca people were discovered in 1537 by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada: they were swiftly conquered and their cities looted. The Spanish knew the El Dorado legend and dredged Lake Guatavitá: they found some gold, but not very much, and the greedy conquistadors refused to believe that such a disappointing haul could be the "real" El Dorado. They therefore kept searching for it in vain for decades.


3.  It Didn’t Exist After 1537

For the next two centuries, thousands of men would scour South America in search of El Dorado, or any other wealthy native empire like the Inca. Somewhere along the line, El Dorado stopped being an individual and began being a fabulous city of gold. Today we know that there were no more great civilizations to be found: the Inca were, by far, the most advanced and wealthy civilization anywhere in South America. The seekers of El Dorado found some gold here and there, but their quest to find the lost city of gold was doomed from the start.

4.  Several Germans Searched for El Dorado

Spain claimed most of South America and most of the seekers of El Dorado were Spanish, but there were some exceptions. Spain ceded part of Venezuela to the German Welser banking family in 1528, and some Germans who came to rule this land spent time searching for El Dorado. Notable among them were Ambrosius Ehinger, Georg Hohemut, Nicolaus Federmann and Phillipp von Hutten.

The English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh leads a raid on the island of Trinidad

5.  Sir Walter Raleigh Looked for El Dorado

English courtier Sir Walter Raleigh made two trips to Guiana to search for El Dorado. During his second trip in 1617, he sent his son, Watt Raleigh, with an expedition up the Orinoco River. But Walter Raleigh, then an old man, stayed behind at a base camp on the island of Trinidad. The expedition was a disaster, and Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards. Eric Klingelhofer, an archaeologist at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, says Walter Raleigh was furious at the survivor who informed him of Watt's death and accused the survivor of letting his son be killed. "The man goes into his cabin on the ship and kills himself," says Klingelhofer, who is trying to find the site of Raleigh's base camp on Trinidad.

Raleigh returned to England, where King James ordered him beheaded for, among other things, disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish.

6.  It kept Moving Around

The place where El Dorado was “supposed” to be kept changing, as one expedition after another failed to find it. At first, it was supposed to be in the north, somewhere in the Andean highlands. Then, once that area had been explored, it was believed to be in the foothills of the Andes to the east. Several expeditions failed to find it there. When searches of the Orinoco basin and Venezuelan plains failed to turn it up, the explorers thought it had to be in the mountains of Guyana. It even appeared in Guyana on maps printed in Europe.

7.  Lope de Aguirre was the Madman of El Dorado

Lope de Aguirre was unstable: everyone agreed on that. The man had once tracked down a judge that had ordered him whipped for abusing native workers: it took Aguirre three years to find him and kill him. Inexplicably, Pedro de Ursua selected Aguirre to accompany his 1559 expedition to find El Dorado. Once they were deep in the jungle, Aguirre took over the expedition, ordered the murder of dozens of his companions (including Pedro de Ursúa), declared himself and his men independent from Spain and began attacking Spanish settlements. "The Madman of El Dorado" was eventually killed by the Spanish.

8.  It led to Much Abuse of the Native Population

Not much good came of the El Dorado myth. The expeditions were full of desperate, ruthless men who only wanted gold: they often attacked native populations, stealing their food, using the men as porters and torturing elders to get them to reveal where their gold was (whether they had any or not). The natives soon learned that the best way to get rid of these monsters was to tell them what they wanted to hear: El Dorado, they said, was just a little bit further away, just keep going that way and you’re sure to find it. The natives in the interior of South America soon hated the Spanish with a passion, enough so that when Sir Walter Raleigh explored the region, all he had to do was announce that he was an enemy of the Spanish and he quickly found the natives willing to help him however they could.

9.  It led to Much Exploration

If anything good can be said to have come of the El Dorado myth, it is that it caused the interior of South America to be explored and mapped. The German explorers scoured the area of present-day Venezuela and even the psychotic Aguirre blazed a trail across the continent. The best example is Francisco de Orellana, who was part of a 1542 expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro. The expedition became divided, and while Pizarro went back to Quito, Orellana eventually discovered the Amazon River and followed it to the Atlantic Ocean.

10.  It Lives On

Although no one is still looking for the fabled lost city, El Dorado has left its mark on popular culture. Many songs, books, movies and poems (including one by Edgar Allen Poe) have been produced about the lost city, and someone said to be "looking for El Dorado" is on a hopeless quest.

Reposted from Latin American History