The search for El Dorado brought failure and death to Sir Walter Raleigh
Posted in Exploration, Historical articles, History, Legend, Myth on Tuesday, 12 November 2013
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This edited article about El Dorado originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 454 published on 26 September 1970.
Around Lake Guatavita, two miles up in the Colombian Andes, thousands of Indians were gathering to hail their new chief. Huge bonfires burned on the hills overlooking the lake, as the chief, surrounded by nobles and priests, was borne on a litter hung with golden discs to its shore.
The chief’s body had been anointed with resin and then covered all over with gold dust. He walked towards the lake, then, as the fires blazed up to the sky, and the vast throng threw gold and emeralds and other offerings into the lake, the Gilded Man – El Dorado in Spanish – plunged into the water.
When he emerged his golden load had gone. He stepped ashore, as the people hailed him as their new ruler.
This ceremony happened in the 15th century, or possibly some centuries before, and from it stems the whole fabulous story of El Dorado, the Gilded Man, who was later transformed in people’s imagination into a city of gold, and, finally, into a word meaning a dream country full of easy riches and happiness.
The very beginning of the story may have been when a meteorite fell at Guatavita several thousand years ago. The golden, fiery mass from the sky must have seemed like a golden god to the local Indians who saw it, and it was assumed that it was his spirit in Lake Guatavita, and this probably inspired the great ceremony.
In the early 15th century the first Spanish settlements sprang up along the Caribbean coast. The Gilded Man ceremony no longer took place, but the legend lingered on and the gold-hungry Spaniards became obsessed with it. By 1533, reports of the vast loot that Pizarro and his band of adventurers had gained in overthrowing the Inca Empire of Peru, was driving them to a frenzy of gold-fever. El Dorado stories grew wilder and wilder especially after the death-bed babblings of a Spaniard named Martinez who claimed he had been taken by natives to a golden city and met El Dorado himself.
Martinez also claimed that all the kitchen- and table-ware in El Dorado’s house were made of gold and silver, that the chief had a mock-garden in which every herb, flower and tree was golden. He related that he had been sent away bearing precious gifts, but hostile Indians attacked him and, apart from a few beads, he had lost the lot!
Whether Martinez had had feverish visions or was speaking the truth, his story did not seem so amazing to Spaniards who had seen something of the incredible wealth of the Incas, and their staggering workmanship in gold. The golden city, known as Omoa, or Manoa, became the central point in the whole legendary El Dorado story, and from the 1530s expeditions were continually searching for the Gilded Man in his Golden City.
The first expedition, led by a lawyer turned adventurer named Gonzalo de Quesada, had more success than most. It set out from Cartagena on the coast in 1536, eight hundred strong, and took a whole year to go less than five hundred miles! After getting lost and enduring months of hardship as they trekked south by way of the Magdalena River, the Spaniards had to face the barrier of the Andes with only a fifth of the expedition left alive and less than sixty horses. The animals had to be lifted over cliffs in baskets, while men and supplies were hauled up by ropes.
At last they reached the spot where Bogota, capital of Colombia, now stands, and found to their joy that the peaceful-loving Indians were wearing emeralds and living in huts decorated with golden discs.
Quesada’s men moved fast, conquering the Indians, who were descended from the followers of the Gilded Man. Then they relaxed, enjoying themselves and revelling in their luck.
Then other treasure-hunters appeared. One party, under the German, Nikolaus Federmann, arrived looking like living skeletons. They had come up the Orinoco, but had endured a terrifying climb through the snows of the Andes, and the survivors were dressed in rags and their hair was long and matted. Quesada’s men gave them a friendly welcome. There was as yet room for all.
The third expedition “well-clothed Spaniards” riding fine horses, and driving swine before them for food, came from Ecuador. All three expeditions marched in the name of Charles V. King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Their leaders went off together to Spain to argue the question of who was to own this particular El Dorado, which had been named New Granada, while their men simply sat back and enjoyed life.
From then onwards there was one El Dorado expedition after another. Somewhere over the horizon – or in the next clearing in the rain-forest – was a golden city or a golden man, or both! The lust for gold drove the Spaniards on and on, and, incidentally, led them to explore the vast, unknown Amazon Basin. Francisco de Orellana, searching for El Dorado from Ecuador, sailed right down the Amazon to the Atlantic.
Around 1550, Indians reached Peru with new reports of golden cities. The local governor craftily decided to get rid of his criminal element and sent out an expedition almost entirely composed of cutthroats and desperadoes. While the criminals were searching, the crime rate at home shot down.
By now, El Dorado was world famous and so was the legendary Manoa. English adventurers became interested, and it was one of these, Sir Walter Raleigh, who was to become the most famous of all those who succumbed to the lure of the golden phantom. It was to cost him his life.
Raleigh’s two expeditions in, 1595 and 1617, were failures, though on the first he penetrated far up the Orinoco, searching vainly for Manoa with a hundred men in five small boats.
His second voyage was an utter disaster, yet he might have found gold if his men had not refused to follow him. He returned to England, where James I had him executed to appease the Spanish. El Dorado had claimed its noblest victim.
The hunt has never really ended. Colombia, which produces more gold than any other South American country, is a worthy home for a great legend, and, as for the place it all started, Lake Guatavita, yet another expedition is trying its luck at finding the treasure of the Gilded Man. Modern electronic equipment increases the modern treasure-hunter’s chances, so perhaps this time the lake will reveal its secrets.
Some say that all treasure-hunting is a form of greed, but this is not fair to the thousands who have searched for an El Dorado, knowing their chances were slim. The quest for El Dorado was – and still is – more than a matter of potential wealth: it is a great adventure.