"""El Dorado"" and the civilisation that produced all this precious gold. The leader of the first and main expedition under Spanish flag was Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, with his brother Hernán second in command. Several other soldiers were participating in the journey, who would later become encomenderos and take part in the conquest of other parts of Colombia. Other contemporaneous expeditions into the unknown interior of the Andes, all searching for the mythical land of gold, were starting from later Venezuela, led by Bavarian and other German conquistadors and from the south, starting in the previously founded Kingdom of Quito"
"and the Americas have been named after the imagined cities made of gold, rivers of gold and precious stones. Shipwrecked off Santa Catarina island in present-day Brazil, Aleixo Garcia living among the Guaranís heard tales of a ""White King"" who lived to the west, ruling cities of incomparable riches and splendour. Marching westward in 1524 to find the land of the ""White King"", he was the first European to cross South America from the East. He discovered a great waterfall and the Chaco Plain. He managed to penetrate the outer defences of the Inca Empire on the hills of the"
"Francisco Vázquez de Coronado Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luján (; 1510 – 22 September 1554) was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Vázquez de Coronado had hoped to reach the Cities of Cíbola, often referred to now as the mythical Seven Cities of Gold, which is a term not invented until American gold-rush days in the 1800s. His expedition marked the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, among other landmarks. His name is often"
"they believed to be a city rich with gold; El Dorado. In 1541 Gonzalo Pizarro, governor of Quito, Ecuador, banded together 340 soldiers and about 4000 natives and led them in search of the fabled city. That same year, Philipp von Hutten led an exploring party from Coro on the coast of Venezuela. Despite having been disproven by Alexander von Humboldt during his Latin-America expedition (1799–1804). There are some people who still believe El Dorado is yet to be found. Other fictional cities appear as settings or subjects in literature, movies and video games. Most superhero and secret agent comics"
"Spaniards found the legendary city, all that remained were ruins. They wondered what happened to the fabled splendor and riches of the second Inca capital. After having been abandoned by the Cañari and then the Incas, Tomebamba was sparsely populated until the 1550s. Tomebamba is considered a candidate for the mythical city of gold which the Spanish called ""El Dorado"". The Spanish thought El Dorado was burned by the inhabitants after they heard of the Spanish conquests. Tomebamba's destruction by its inhabitants prior to the arrival of the Spanish suggests it may have been what the Spanish called ""El Dorado""."
"in the unknown Andes, a rich area with an advanced civilisation must exist. These tales bore the -not so much- legend of ""El Dorado""; the city or man of gold. The Muisca, skilled goldworkers, held a ritual in Lake Guatavita where the new ""zipa"" would cover himself in gold dust and jump from a raft into the cold waters of the high lake to the northeast of the Bogotá savanna. After a journey of almost a year, where the Spanish lost over 80% of their soldiers, the conquistadors following the Suárez River, reached the Bogotá savanna in March 1537. The"
"the Indians and the forest itself. ""El Dorado"" described from the imaginary one of the conqueror, is a city which streets and temples are covered of gold and he keeps, in his constructions and squares, made pieces of massive gold. Sometimes he was looked to the north, from Chachapoyas; others, from Quillabamba; in other occasions, some more recent explorers located his track (that later they ""lost"") in the central forest and inclusive in Colombia. Nevertheless, this golden legend opened the doors for the initial colonization and evangelization of some of the most extensive and remote regions of South America. Alonso"
"he found little more than straw-thatched villages. Seven Cities of Gold The Seven Cities of Gold is a myth that was popular in the 16th century. It is also featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold could be found throughout the pueblos of the New Mexico Territory. The cities were Hawikuh, Halona, Matsaki, Quivira, Kiakima, Cibola, and Kwakina. While there have always been mentions of a seventh city, no evidence of a site has been found. In the 16th century, the Spaniards in New Spain (now Mexico) began to hear rumors of"
"been built by Native Americans somewhere in the desert Southwest. As early as 1611, Sebastián Vizcaíno surveyed the east coast of Japan and searched for two mythical islands called Rico de Oro (Rich in Gold) and Rico de Plata (Rich in Silver). Books such as The Travels of Marco Polo fuelled rumours of mythical places. Stories included the half-fabulous Christian Empire of ""Prester John"", the kingdom of the White Queen on the ""Western Nile"" (Sénégal River), the Fountain of Youth, cities of Gold in North and South America such as Quivira, Zuni-Cibola Complex, and El Dorado, and wonderful kingdoms of"
"Seven Cities of Gold The Seven Cities of Gold is a myth that was popular in the 16th century. It is also featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold could be found throughout the pueblos of the New Mexico Territory. The cities were Hawikuh, Halona, Matsaki, Quivira, Kiakima, Cibola, and Kwakina. While there have always been mentions of a seventh city, no evidence of a site has been found. In the 16th century, the Spaniards in New Spain (now Mexico) began to hear rumors of ""Seven Cities of Gold"" called ""Cíbola"" located"
"Sierra de la Plata The Sierra de la Plata (""Silver Mountains"") was a mythical source of silver in the interior of South America. The legend began in the early 16th century when castaways from the Juan Díaz de Solís expedition heard indigenous stories of a mountain of silver in an inland region ruled by the so-called White King. The first European to lead an expedition in search of it was the castaway Aleixo Garcia, who crossed nearly the entire continent to reach the Andean altiplano. On his way back to the coast, Garcia died in an ambush by indigenous tribespeople"
"in Paraguay, but survivors brought precious metals back to corroborate their story. The legend inspired other expeditions, all of which ended in failure. The Río de la Plata (literally ""Silver River"") and the modern country of Argentina (from the Latin ""argentum"", ""silver"") both take their names from the myth. The legend of the Sierra de la Plata may have been based on the Cerro Rico de Potosí in Bolivia, which was discovered by a Spanish expedition traveling from Peru in 1545. The legend of the White King and the Sierra de la Plata began with the expeditions of Juan Díaz"
"Opus"" is entitled ""Father Padilla Meets the Perfect Gnat."" Juan de Padilla Father Juan de Padilla (1500–1542), born in Andalusia, was a Spanish Roman Catholic missionary who spent much of his life exploring North America with Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. Padilla and three other Franciscans, together with more than 300 Spanish soldiers and workers, accompanied Coronado on his quest for the Seven Cities of Gold, a mythical land of great wealth. When Coronado abandoned his search, Padilla and others followed him to explore what is now the Southwestern United States; Padilla was one of the first Europeans to see the"
"shows the skilled goldworking of the inhabitants of the Altiplano. The Muisca were the only pre-Columbian civilization known in South America to have used coins (""tejuelos""). The gold and ""tumbaga"" (a gold-silver-copper alloy elaborated by the Muisca) created the legend of ""El Dorado""; the ""land, city or man of gold"". The Spanish conquistadors who landed in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta were informed of the rich gold culture and led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and his brother Hernán Pérez, organised the most strenuous of the Spanish conquests into the heart of the Andes in April 1536. After an"
"there was a province by this name with ""Seven Cities of Gold"", located across the desert hundreds of leagues to the north. These rumors were largely caused by reports given by the four shipwrecked survivors of the failed Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and an African slave named Esteban Dorantes, or Estevanico. Upon finally returning to New Spain, the adventurers said they had heard stories from Natives about cities with great and limitless riches. Upon hearing the castaways' tales, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza organized an expedition headed by the Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza, who took Estevanico"
"never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Nothing came of that plan, either. In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, created great interest in a crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. William H. Aspinwall, the man who won the federal subsidy for the building and operating the"
"by the indigenous people that deep in the then unknown Andes, a ""city of gold"" would exist, which formed the basis for the mythical ""El Dorado"". In April 1536, conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada set up an expedition into the mainland of what later would become Colombia, where he gathered various young men for the ""quest of El Dorado"". His brother Hernán Pérez de Quesada and other Spanish soldiers, Juan de Céspedes, Juan de Sanct Martín, Pedro Fernández de Valenzuela, Lázaro Fonte, Antonio de Lebrija, Juan de(l) Junco, Gonzalo Suárez Rendón, Gonzalo Macías, Martín Galeano, Hernán Venegas Carrillo, Juan Tafur,"
"encountered were limited. Therefore, Spain started to invest in America with the creation of cities, because Spain was in America due to religious reasons. Matters began to change in the 1520s with the large-scale extraction of silver from the rich deposits of Mexico's Guanajuato region, but it was the opening of the silver mines in Mexico's Zacatecas and Potosí in Upper Peru (modern-day Bolivia) in 1546 that became legendary. During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver received from New Spain. These imports contributed to inflation in Spain and Europe from"
"City of the Caesars The City of the Caesars (Spanish Ciudad de los Césares), also variously known as ""City of Patagonia"", ""the Wandering City"", ""Trapalanda"" or ""Trapananda"", ""Lin Lin"" or ""Elelín"", is a mythical city of South America. It was supposedly located somewhere in Patagonia, in a valley of the Andes between Chile and Argentina. Despite being searched for during the colonization of South America, no evidence proves that it ever existed, although reports of it circulated for two hundred years. In 1766 a Jesuit, Father José García Alsue, explored the area now part of Queulat National Park in Aysén"
"Quivira Quivira is a place named by explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1541, for the mythical ""Seven Cities of Gold"" that he never found. The location of Quivira is believed by most authorities to be in central Kansas near present-day Lyons extending northeast to Salina. The Quivirans were the forebears of the modern day Wichita Indians and Caddoan tribes, such as the Pawnee or Arikara. The city of Etzanoa, which flourished between 1450 and 1700, is thought to be part of Quivira. In 1540, the Spaniard, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, led a large expedition north from Mexico to search"
"region, which he named Rio de Oro after discovering gold deposits nearby. On Columbus's return during his second voyage he established the settlement of La Isabela in what is now Puerto Plata on Jan. 1494, while he sent Alonso de Ojeda to search for gold in the region. In 1496 Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher's brother, built the city of Santo Domingo, Western Europe's first permanent settlement in the ""New World."" The colony thus became the springboard for the further Spanish conquest of the Americas and for decades the headquarters of Spanish colonial power in the hemisphere. Soon after the largest discovery"
"paid limited attention to this distant part of the world. It was not until the middle of the 18th century, that both Russian and British explorers and fur-traders began encroaching on the margins of the area. About 1530, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (President of New Spain) was told by an Indian slave of the Seven Cities of Cibola that had streets paved with gold and silver. About the same time, Hernán Cortés was attracted by stories of a wonderful country far to the northwest, populated by Amazonish women and abounding with gold, pearls, and gems. The Spaniards conjectured that these"
"the Americas between 1540 and 1580. After the opening of Potosí in 1546, silver was shipped north to Panama City and carried by mule train across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios for shipment to Havana and Spain. As Nombre de Dios was situated near an unhealthy swamp and was nearly impossible to fortify, it declined in importance. In June 1572 the English privateer Francis Drake sacked the colony and in April of the following year he ambushed the Spanish Silver Train, a mule convoy carrying a fortune in precious metals. Drake captured the town again in 1595 but found"
"800 conquistadors left the relative safety of the Caribbean coastal city of Santa Marta to start a strenuous expedition up the Magdalena River, the main fluvial artery of Colombia. Word got around among the Spanish colonisers that deep in the unknown Andes, a rich area with an advanced civilisation must exist. These tales bore the -not so much- legend of ""El Dorado""; the city or man of gold. The Muisca, skilled goldworkers, held a ritual in Lake Guatavita where the new ""zipa"" would cover himself in gold dust and jump from a raft into the cold waters of the high"
"Old Spanish Treasure Cave The 'Old Spanish Treasure Cave' is located on Hwy 59 between Sulphur Springs and Gravette, Arkansas in the northwest corner of the state. Over 350 years ago, Spanish Conquistadors traveled north through the wilderness to find the Seven Cities of Cibola, a treasure of gold. Though Coronado went back to Mexico empty-handed, it is believed that some of the Spaniards found treasure, and hid it in the cave before Indians killed them. The cave was sealed up until it was re-discovered in 1885 by an old Spaniard from Madrid. The legend apparently led him to two"
"a similar environment. The Cerro de Mercado is named after him. Other explorers such as Nuño de Guzmán, Alvar Cabeza de Vaca and Juan de Tapia realized expeditions but were not successful in establishing a permanent presence. However, the expedition of Cabeza de Vaca gave rise to the myth of the cities of gold and silver called Cibola and Quivira. The other expeditions would give rise to claims to the area by Jalisco and Michoacán. The Spanish left the area alone for a time but the discovery of silver and other metals in Zacatecas in 1546 renewed interest in the"
"the development of markets, and the formation of states... It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures."" For almost three centuries after Columbus' voyages to the New World, much of western North America remained unsettled by European colonists, despite various territorial claims made by imperialist nations. Europeans interest in the vast territory was motivated by the search for precious metals, especially gold, and the fur trade, with miners, trappers, and hunters among the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the West. The early years were also"
"about by alternate methods of manufacturing and mining silver, signaled the end of the silver crisis in Europe. In addition, Portuguese explorations of the coast of Africa initiated new and innovative routes for Europeans to acquire sub-Saharan gold. Demand for gold would later be a great motivator of exploration in the Americas during the Age of Discovery, and may have even contributed to the myth of the Seven Cities of Gold. Christopher Columbus mentioned gold in the diary documenting his first voyage 65 times. After the mid-16th century, the discovery of silver in Latin America put an end to the"
"Seven Cities of Gold were attributed to mainland Central or North America, as the various European powers vied for territory in the New World. Antillia Antillia (or Antilia) is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities (""Ilha das Sete Cidades"" in Portuguese, ""Isla de las Siete Ciudades"" in Spanish). It originates from an old Iberian legend, set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania c. 714. Seeking to flee from"
"have been attributed to the Tumaco people of the Pacific coast and date to around 325 BCE. Gold would play a pivotal role in luring the Spanish conquistadores to the area during the 16th century. Gold was considered sacred by most of the precolumbian civilizations of the area. In Muisca mythology, Gold (Chiminigagua) was considered itself a deity, and the force of creation. Copper mining was very important for the classic Quimbaya civilization, which developed the tumbaga alloy. Although significant in the colonial economy, it never commanded a large portion of Colombia's GDP in modern times. With the discovery and"
"870 men. Having prevailed with the assistance of allies and reinforcements from Cuba, Cortés besieged Tenochtitlán and captured its ruler Cuauhtémoc in August 1521. As the Aztec Empire ended he claimed the city for Spain, renaming it Mexico City. A first attempt to explore western South America was undertaken in 1522 by Pascual de Andagoya. Native South Americans told him about a gold-rich territory on a river called Pirú. Having reached San Juan River (Colombia), Andagoya fell ill and returned to Panama, where he spread news about ""Pirú"" as the legendary El Dorado. These, along with the accounts of success"
"New World Spanish Empire. The silver was taken by llama and mule train to the Pacific coast, shipped north to Panama City, and carried by mule train across the isthmus of Panama to Nombre de Dios or Portobelo, whence it was taken to Spain on the Spanish treasure fleets. Some of the silver also made its way east to Buenos Aires, via the Rio de la Plata. Cerro de Potosí's peak is above sea level. Located in the Bolivian Tin Belt, Cerro Rico de Potosí is the world's largest silver deposit and has been mined since the sixteenth century, producing"
"Treasure of Lima The Treasure of Lima is a buried treasure reputedly removed from Lima, Peru, in 1820 and never recovered. It is estimated to be worth up to £160 million or $208 million in today's money. Spain had controlled Lima since the 16th century, when it defeated the Incas. In the centuries that followed, the Catholic Church gathered a huge treasure in Lima. In the early 19th century, Spain began to have difficulties with its colonies due to wars of independence in South America. Lima was no exception, and in 1820 the city came under heavy pressure and finally"