Peter O. Koch - Eldorado and the Quest for Fortune and Glory in South America

. Robert Silverberg, The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996), 144.

. William Lewis Herndon, Lieutenant United States Navy. Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, Public Printer, 1854), 1718.

. Edgar Allan Poe, The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe (Philadelphia: Running Press, 1983), 1163.

In February of 1539, three separate European expeditions converged along a plateau in the Andes Mountains of central Colombia. These soldiers of fortune had set out from three different locations in search of a great treasure rumored to eclipse the extraordinary amount of gold and silver that fellow conquistadors had plundered during the recent conquests of the mighty empires forged by the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. To the many Spaniards who migrated to the New World during the early 16th century, the Americas appeared to be a vast realm of untold riches just waiting to be discovered, and there was certainly no shortage of ambitious and stouthearted men willing to risk everything, including their lives, for the chance to find fortune and glory.

From the distant Incan city of Quito there arrived an army of conquistadors led by Sebastin de Benalczar, a veteran conquistador determined to find the legendary realm of El Dorado, a Golden Man who lorded over Eldorado, a Golden City blessed with such an abundance of precious gold that its ruler would periodically cover himself entirely in gold dust prior to undertaking an elaborate ritual bath in a lake awash with a treasure trove of golden offerings accumulated over time.

The origin of the El Dorado tale can be traced to the coronation ceremonies of the Chibcha Indians, a tribe also known as the Muisca. The conquistadors of South America were told that a new chief of this distant region participated in an extravagant ritual in which his naked body was covered with a sticky resin and then coated from head to toe with finely ground gold dust. Afterwards, the golden chief was ceremoniously rowed out from a cave in a large reed raft to the very center of the sacred lake so that he could make an offering to the ancient deity that dwelled at the bottom of the lake. His loyal subjects encircled the rim of this hallowed lake, and each member of the tribe held a valuable item that was to be cast into the water as an offering to the fiery serpent-deity below. All solemnly looked on as the chief submerged himself until his body shed sparkling specks of gold that briefly fluttered atop the sacred water before sinking slowly down the great depths of the lake. Once the anointed chief had thoroughly washed off his splendid coating of precious gold and returned to shore, the reverent spectators hurled their golden trinkets and elegant emeralds into the water, an act which thereby confirmed him as their Grand Zipa.

Stories of the coronation of a new Chibcha chief quickly evolved into the oft-told tale of an omnipotent native ruler who lorded over a distant city made almost entirely of gold, and who bathed daily in a vast lake named Guatavita, a body of water laden with gold dust, precious stones, and numerous other valuable items. Located in Colombia, Lake Guatavita, which came to be known as the Lake of El Dorado, is believed to be a naturally formed sinkhole. Many conquistadors convinced themselves that another native empire awaited their discovery, one which surpassed the immense wealth of either the Aztec or Incan empires.

Tales of a mighty chief who lorded over a golden realm did not seem terribly far fetched to the conquistadors. Many who heard this intriguing tale of riches that awaited at Eldorado, including Sebastin de Benalczar, were veterans of the conquest of Peru, and had seen with their own eyes the lavish amount of gold and silver summoned as ransom for the imprisoned Atahualpa, the Inca ruler who had been captured by Francisco Pizarro and his small army. Many had viewed the wealth of precious metals stored at the city of Cuzco, the Inca capital, and knew that many of the tribes who paid tribute to their Inca overlords had an abundance of gold and silver, much of which was worked into remarkable pieces of jewelry by highly skilled craftsmen. In addition, there were a few Spaniards who had served under Hernn Corts during the epic conquest of the Aztec empire and had had an opportunity to marvel at the wealth of tribute collected and stored at Tenochtitln. It therefore stood to reason that there were surely other rich native kingdoms that had not been conquered by the Incas. These rumors seemed credible enough for Sebastin de Benalczar and his troops to abandon their post at Quito and seek out the distant realm of El Dorado.