Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

His march was, in some respects, the most difficult and remarkable in the annals of the conquest. He had to contend against relentless savages, dismal swamps and almost impenetrable forests, where he had to cut his way through the tangled vines and bushes, and where it was often impossible to make more than a league a day. His men were decimated by disease and starvation. When he at last arrived at the Valle de Alcazares, near the present site of Bogotá, he could count but one hundred infantry and sixty cavalry. But with this handful of men he had conquered the Chibcha nation, numbering, according to the old chroniclers, one million people and having twenty thousand soldiers in the field.

Scarcely, however, was his campaign against the aborigines successfully terminated, when information was conveyed him of a new danger in the person of a German competitor, who had just arrived from the llanos.

Five years previously, Federmann, in the service of the Welsers, had left Coro in Venezuela, with four hundred well-armed and well-provisioned men. After wandering over trackless plains and through dark and almost impenetrable forests, enduring frightful hardships of all kinds, he finally got word of the Chibchas and of their treasures of gold and precious stones. He forthwith changed his route and crossed the Eastern Cordilleras, where the traveler André assures us it is now absolutely impossible to pass.[8]

Thus, almost before Quesada was aware that Federmann was in the country, he was constrained by policy to receive him and his one hundred ragged and famished followers—these were all that remained of his gallant band—as his guests. The Spanish conquistador knew that the German leader would put in a claim for a part of the territory that they had both been exploring, and which, until then, each of them had regarded as his own by right of conquest. He was then naturally eager to effect a settlement with his competitor on the best terms possible, and get him out of the country with the least possible delay. Federmann agreed to renounce all his claims in consideration of his receiving himself the sum of ten thousand pesos, and of having his soldiers enjoy all the rights of discoverers and conquistadores accorded to those of Quesada.

Scarcely, however, had these negotiations been happily terminated, when another and a more formidable rival appeared on the scene, on his way from the distant South. This was Sebastian de Belalcazar,[9] the famous lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro. He was then governor of Quito and the conqueror of much of the territory now included in Ecuador and Southern Colombia. Hearing casually of El Dorado and of the marvelous riches this ruler was reputed to possess, the Spanish chieftain lost no time in organizing an expedition to the country of gold and emeralds, of fertile plains and delightful valleys. Setting out with the assurance of an early and easy victory, and of soon becoming the possessors of untold wealth and all the enjoyment that wealth could command, the soldiers, in quest of El Dorado, exclaimed with unrestrained enthusiasm:

“Nuestros sean su oro y sus placeres,

Gocemos de ese campo y ese sol.”[10]

But anticipation is not fruition. This the Spaniards soon learned to their sorrow. Like Quesada and Federmann and their followers, Belalcazar and his men had to endure frightful hardships during the long and painful march of many months from Quito to the plateau of Bogotá. According to Castellanos, who wrote while many of these adventurers were still living, and who had received from them directly an account of their privations and sufferings and the countless obstacles that at times rendered progress almost impossible, their journey was made through mountains and districts that were inaccessible and uninhabitable, through gloomy forests and dense, tangled underbrush; through inhospitable lands and dismal swamps, where there was neither food nor shelter for man or beast.[11]

This extraordinary and accidental meeting of the three conquistadores, coming from so great distances, from three different points of the compass, is one of the most interesting episodes in the history of the conquest. It was a critical moment for the Europeans. If they had failed to agree, and had turned their arms against one another, those who would have escaped alive would have been at the mercy of the Indians, who would at once have rallied their forces to repel the invaders. But, fortunately, wise councils prevailed and a clash was averted.

“While the clergy and the religious,” writes Acosta, “were going to and from the different camps endeavoring to prevent a rupture, the three parties of Spaniards, coming from points so distant, and now occupying the three apices of a triangle, whose sides measured three or four leagues, presented a singular spectacle. Those from Peru were clad in scarlet cloth and silk, and wore steel helmets and costly plumes. Those from Santa Marta had cloaks, linens and caps made by the Indians. Those, however, from Venezuela, like refugees from Robinson Crusoe’s island, were covered with the skins of bears, leopards, tigers and deer. Having journeyed more than thirteen hundred leagues through uninhabited lands, they had experienced the most cruel hardships. They arrived poor, naked, and reduced to one-fourth of their original number.