The Legend of El Dorado

There are several theories explaining the origin of The Legend of El Dorado, this is however the most dominant theories of all.

It was in the year 1537 as the Spanish army was taking control of most parts of South America when the legend of El Dorado began to take hold. According to the locals, 600 miles south of Quito, modern-day Ecuador, on the shores of the Amazon River lay the city of El Dorado. This city had a lot of gold and the people living there were adorned in gold. Gonzalo Pizarro a Spanish soldier who had risen the ranks to become the vice governor of Quito decided to go on an expedition to search for the city of El Dorado.

In February 1541, Pizarro together with his cousin Francisco De Orellana led a group of 340 Spaniards and 4,000 indigenous people in a quest to find and conquer the city of gold, El Dorado. After 11 months of traveling, the group had covered nearly 2,000 miles with nothing to show for it. The group arrived at the banks of the Cocoa River with most of their men dead and some of the remaining very sick; in total, they had lost around 3,000 natives and 140 Spaniards from starvation, dehydration, and diseases.

At this point, they had run out of food and were eating their horses to stay alive. It was now more of a fight for survival than a quest for gold.

On December 26, 1541, the team built a boat to travel down the river and Pizarro told his partner Orellana to take with him 50 men in the boat down the river to find food and bring it back to the team before they could continue with their expedition. The current was strong and in 14 days, Orellana and the team had covered a long distance. When they finally found food, they learned that the current was so strong that they could not sail back to the rest of the team who were waiting for them about 10 miles away, they decided to proceed with the journey on their own.

The rest of the team waited for Orellana's group on the shores of Coca River for more than 30 days when they realized that the team was not coming back. Pizarro thought that his cousin was attacked by a hostile tribe or found El Dorado and decided not to come back for him. As Orianna’s group kept making progress, Gonzalo Pizarro took the remaining men who were stranded on the shore of the river and began the journey back to Quito.

Pizarro’s team arrived in Quito months later shoeless and in rags and he vowed to kill Orellana the next time he saw him. Orellana on the other hand had made good progress down the river but was yet to see any signs of the city of gold.

After months of sailing, Orellana's team finally reached where Coca River meets the larger Amazon River and they quickly figured out that this was the sacred body of water that would eventually lead them to the city of gold.

After sailing in the Amazon River for some months, they started seeing signs of civilization for the first time since they started their journey over 12 months ago. As they got further into the Amazon basin, they started to see great settlements and thriving cities. Those who settled in these cities welcomed them, fed them, taught them some of their language, and told them of bigger cities deep in the jungle where there was lots of gold.

Orellana and his team travel deeper into the forest following the Amazon River. The further they traveled into the forest, the less friendly the natives became. They encountered hostile tribes that were more defensive and kept attacking them denying them the opportunity to land anywhere on the shore of the Amazon River.

On June 24, 1542, one tribe attacked Orellana's team, and in this tribe, the women fought alongside men; Orellana described this tribe as Amazonas based on the mythical Greek women warriors described by Herodotus and this name stuck as the name of the whole forest and the river.

After traveling for 24 months and covering over 3,000 miles, the team finally reached the Atlantic Ocean making them the first European to travel the whole length of the world’s longest river, the Amazon River. They failed to locate the real El Dorado but they believed that they were close to locating it and with better preparations, they could locate and conquer the city of gold.

When Orellana and his team headed back to Spain, they had one goal in mind, to head back to South America, find El Dorado, and conquer it. This eventually set the stage for the second and subsequent expeditions to find El Dorado.

I am working on the next part of this story where I will highlight the second expedition, I hope you will stay around to read it.