The Spanish Conquistadors were the
first to set foot in the Americas, committing notable achievements of endurance,
conquest, and crime in the pursuit of gold. In the 1530s, a tale arose from Cundinamarca of
a gilded and splendid king who covered himself with gold for a yearly ceremony at the shores
of Lake Guatavitá. This tale of a gilded man, known in Spanish as El Dorado, ruling over
a nation so wealthy that it could afford to coat its monarch’s skin with gold, quickly drew
the attention of the ambitious Conquistadors. Through the decades, the legend
would undergo several mutations, as the gilded man transformed into a city
of gold, then a golden kingdom, and finally, a rich and mysterious empire. In this time, many
explorers would look for the land of El Dorado. In this video we will talk about lesser-known
German Conquistadors, their role in the search of this mythical land of gold and the
establishment of a German colony in the Americas. The sponsor of today’s video Rise of Kingdoms
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such as iPhone 13, airpods pro, and other prizes! Before Charles V was the monarch
that controlled half of Europe, he was just Charles I, the teenage king of Spain,
who had the goal to become Holy Roman Emperor, just as his grandfather had been. In 1519,
Emperor Maximilian died, leaving Charles to contest the title with French king Francis I. Both
monarchs tried to buy the votes of the electors, forcing Charles to borrow large sums of money from
German merchants and bankers, and Bartholomeus Welser the V from Augsburg lent the young monarch
nearly 150000 ducats expecting to take advantage of the trade from the New World in the future.
Charles became the Emperor, but that left him highly indebted, so he started giving lucrative
commercial privileges to the German families, with the Welsers getting benefitting the most.
In 1524, they established a factory in Seville dedicated to trade with the Americas, controlled
by the most powerful German merchant in Spain, Lazarus Nuremberger. Soon they set up
a similar institution in Santo Domingo, directed by two merchants from the city of
Ulm, Heinrich and Ambrosius Ehinger. In 1528, the two merchants arranged a contract with Charles
V to manage the colony of the area between Cabo de la Vela and Cape Maracapana . It was a great
opportunity, as they could recoup their investment with the harvesting of gold, slaves and the
drug known as guaiac rumored to cure syphilis. The Welsers would rename their colony to
Klein Venedig, or Little Venice, leading to the popularization of the name among Europeans and
its subsequent Spanish translation to Venezuela. Believing that the Lake Maracaibo would allow them
to pass to the Southern Sea, the Welsers sent an expedition of 600 Spaniards, to establish
two towns and three fortresses in the area. In January 1529, Ambrosius Ehinger
became the first governor of Venezuela. He then set off by sea from Santo Domingo to the
town of Coro , the capital of their new colony, but was horrified by the misery of the town .
Ehinger would have to spend the next few months rebuilding Coro, renaming it Neu-Augsburg, and
preparing for his expedition to Lake Maracaibo. In August, he crossed the mountains of Jideharas
with 180 Spaniards, but encountered considerable opposition from the indigenous Coquivacoa, led
by chieftain Mara. After winning a series of battles , Ehinger finally reached the east side of
the lagoon and founded the town of Neu-Nuremberg on September 8. He named the lake Maracaibo in
honor of the brave chieftain he fought with. Although he didn’t find the shores of the Southern
Sea, Ehinger discovered the fabulous tale of El Dorado. The German Conquistador then decided to
continue westward to look for what he believed was a city of gold, but at the end of the year had
to start returning to New Augsburg to resupply. Meanwhile, the Welsers had dispatched a new force
commanded by the young Conquistador Nikolaus Federmann . Shortly after Federmann’s arrival,
three more Welser ships docked at New Augsburg, and as the Germans didn’t find Ehinger anywhere,
they ended up believing he was dead. A Welser agent by the name of Seissenhoffer became the
new governor, making Federmann his right-hand man. Luckily, Seissenhoffer died before Ehinger’s
return on July 30, preventing a conflict. However, the latter was sick and weakened from his
grueling journey, so he was forced to sail back to Santo Domingo, leaving Federmann in charge.
The young Conquistador, however, was relentless, and he quickly abandoned his responsibilities
to explore the interior of the country . In this unauthorized expedition, Federmann took with him
100 footmen and 100 allied natives to search for the Southern Sea, which he believed was south of
his capital. On September 12, Federmann left New Augsburg for the Tocuyo River. After crossing the
river, he drifted southwest and then ascended the rugged hills of the Mérida mountain ranges,
getting as far as the modern-day city of Trujillo, but he was discouraged to continue by the raids
of the hostile natives. During his march back, the young Conquistador acquired 30 pounds
of gold and learnt of the tale of El Dorado, and by March of 1531, returned to New Augsburg
with ambitions of discovering the golden city. Ehinger was furious though, as the young
Conquistador had relinquished his responsibilities for an unauthorized expedition. As a punishment,
Federmann was banished to Europe for a period of four years. This, however, wouldn’t be
young Conquistador’s last expedition. Soon after Federmann’s departure, Ehinger came
back to New Nuremberg for his second expedition with several hundred Spaniards and allied
natives. He pushed southwest towards the fabled land of gold, thus trespassing into the Spanish
government of Santa Marta. Ehinger’s route took him over the mountains of Perija and into the
Magdalena River , as the German Conquistador suspected that the river led south through a
thick jungle area to the true land of El Dorado. The Chimila natives of the region opposed
his advance, and he met their enmity with extraordinary cruelty : chieftains were enslaved
and captives were burnt alive as they progressed. Ehinger looted 600 pounds of gold and
forced chained slaves to carry the treasure. Four months after the expedition began,
the German halted his men at Tamalameque, where the river was in flood. Here, he ruthlessly
slaughtered the native Chitareros and gathered a great treasure from them. A party of men was sent
back to New Augsburg with the enormous loot, but they would get lost in the forests while suffering
from tropical fevers and famine, soon succumbing to cannibalism. They ended up burying the treasure
under a tree, never to be found again, and never returned back to camp. One of them - Francisco
Martín fell in love and married a local women. As the months passed, Ehinger waited
fruitfully [fruitlessly?] at Tamalameque. His men never returned and he ended up
concluding that he had been betrayed and abandoned to rot in the jungle. He then decided to
press southwards down the valley of the Magdalena, continuing to search for El Dorado. Slowly
ascending the eastern range of the Andes , the explorers suffered greatly from the cold, and
many died. But Ehinger and a few dozen stubbornly continued through starvation and hostile
natives, even though they didn’t know where they were going. As their forces were dwindling,
the German Conquistadors had to concede defeat. Just a few miles from Cundinamarca, where the
legend had begun, Ehinger started his march home. But in the valley of Chinacota, his cruelty
and crimes against the natives would finally see retribution. On May 27, 1533, Ehinger
and his men were ambushed by Chitareros. In the struggle, Ehinger would be wounded
in the neck with a poisoned arrow, dying from his wounds three days later. His men
buried him in the valley and continued northwards, but they were too weak to survive. Luckily
for them, they encountered Francisco Martín, who interceded with his new tribesmen on behalf
of his former countrymen. The explorers were granted safe passage through the lowlands
and In November limped into New Augsburg. Though they didn’t find El Dorado, they were the
first explorers to get to the Andean mountains. When news of Ehinger’s death reached Spain,
Federmann quickly applied to become new governor of the colony. He was allowed to sail back but
only as second-in-command to the German knight Georg Hohemut von Speyer. They arrived at the
colony in 1534, and Speyer sent Federman with a small force to a valley west of Maracaibo which
was disputed with the Spaniards of Santa Marta. The young Conquistador was happy to
do so as he hoped that El Dorado might be to the west of New Augsburg.
But Speyer also dreamt of gold, and he believed that El Dorado had to lay south
with the Meta civilization. In 1535, Speyer began to assemble his own expedition, and on May 13,
started retracing Federmann’s path . By July, the explorers were fighting the natives near the
modern town of Barquisimeto, before continuing to the southwest . A few days later, Speyer got to
the eastern foothills of the Mérida mountains, but instead of crossing, he decided to keep going
through the plains to avoid the mountain cold. Back at the capital, Federmann had returned
in late 1535 after securing the valley from Santa Marians. Learning of Speyer’s expedition, he
left New Augsburg with 400 men towards the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo, with the mountain ranges
of the Andes standing on the right to guide him in Spring of 1536. From there, Federmann
continued southwards until he reached the western foothills of the Mérida mountain ranges. The young
Conquistador knew this was the last known location of Speyer, and suspected that the governor would
order him to return to the capital if they met. To avoid encountering his superior, Federmann
began an eastward veer into the difficult plains of the Orinoco. At the junction of the Apure
and the Orinoco rivers, he encountered a ragged band of stranded Spaniards incorporating them
into his company. He also learnt of Speyer’s whereabouts from the natives, altering his
course as necessary to avoid the encounter. Speyer meanwhile was facing many
suffering from difficult terrain, weather , and jaguar ambushes killed their
horses. Despite all of this, on February 2, 1536, he passed through the Apure River
and reached the Casanare River, which flows into the Meta. There, Speyer found
the friendly Zaquitios natives, who told him that they could lead him to a mountain pass that
led to the Muisca of Cundinamarca. However, the explorers were ambushed by the hostile
natives, causing the Zaquitio guides to flee and without them the pass proved impossible to
locate, so, Speyer kept going southwards into the lands of the ferocious and well-organized Uaupés .
His musketeers managed to keep the Uaupés at bay, giving Speyer enough time to learn that the
source of the Meta River was nearby. At the river, they found friendly Uaupés that traded in gold and
silver, but as they couldn’t cross the mountain ranges from there either, Speyer continued south
until he crossed the Guaviare River. No matter how far south he traveled, the mountain ranges
kept seeming impassable, and at the Caqueta River the explorers were ambushed by the Chogue natives,
suffering many casualties in the struggle. Speyer, frustrated by his lack of progress, then ascended
the Caqueta in revenge and slaughtered a whole Chogue village. On August 10, 1537, the prospect
of war with the Chogues finally forced Speyer to turn back. He had reached the line of the Equator,
traversed 1500 miles and discovered many places, but he had only gathered 50 pounds of gold
with no evidence of El Dorado to show for. At the same time, Federmann was approaching
the Meta River from the west. After a year roaming in the plains of the Orinoco, the young
Conquistador finally crossed the Meta and learned of Speyer’s retreat in the summer of 1537. Taking
particular care not to cross the governor’s path, Federmann began to march south along the
foothills of the Andean mountain ranges in search of the same mountain pass that Speyer
had failed to find. Federmann would fruitlessly spend all of the year trying to find the mountain
pass, but luckily, early in 1539, the young Conquistador came to the village of Pasacote and
finally discovered the mountain pass of Sumapaz. But the hardships of the passage were immense.
13000 feet above sea level, the bedraggled explorers traced their way along a trail that
reached from one frightful precipice to another. After a great struggle, Federmann managed to cross
the mountain ranges and got to the grassy savannah of the Bogotá plateau. The young Conquistador
now longed to find the golden land of El Dorado that lay ahead. But his dreams quickly broke into
pieces when he found out that they had all been forestalled. The plateau was full of
Spaniards under the leadership of the Conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Another
Spanish expedition under Sebastián de Belalcázar then arrived from Quito, and with them, the German
found out that the Muisca of Cundinamarca were not a rich and complex civilization that could rival
the Incas or the Aztecs. Both German and Spanish Conquistadors were highly disillusioned by the
discovery that there was no gold at El Dorado. There was however, a good amount of salt springs
that yielded a rich supply of this necessary commodity. It turns out the Muisca traded their
valuable salt for gold and silver as the people of the lowlands were happy to trade their useless
metal for the commodities of salt. The Muisca indeed used imported gold dust to coat the skin
of their chieftain, but there was no real gold in their lands. Quesada, Federmann and Belalcázar
had wandered through unexpected jungles for years only to come together at Bogotá in the same
month of February, 1539, just to discover that their search was a fraud. Together, the three
Conquistadors then founded the city of Bogotá and feasted for several days as they quickly became
friends. The newly discovered territory was left under the jurisdiction of Quesada while Federmann
received 40 pounds of gold as compensation. In May, the three Conquistadors parted together
for Spain for an audience with Charles V regarding their discovery. Federmann would never return
to America, having lost the favor of the Welsers because of his second and final insubordination.
Speyer also got back to New Augsburg on May 27, 1538, where he learnt of Federmann’s
recent adventures and achievements. But the German governor was worn out and
tired from his long and gruesome journey. Before launching another expedition,
Speyer would die in 1540. Replacing him was German adventurer Philipp von
Hutten who served with Speyer on his expedition south and had learnt of another El Dorado east of
the Orinoco basin with the Omagua civilization. He would leave New Augsburg in an expedition in July,
1541, accompanied by Bartholomeus Welser the VI. Two years later, he would get to the land of
the Omaguas, where he discovered there was no El Dorado there either. After a fight with the
Omaguas, Hutten would be severely injured and the company would have to retreat under the leadership
of Bartholomeus. Arriving back to New Augsburg in 1544, the Germans were ambushed by the Spaniard
Juan de Carvajal. Welser managed to fight off and wound Carvajal, but in April of 1546, Hutten
and Welser would be captured by the Spaniards. For some time, Carvajal kept them in chains
at his capital before having them beheaded, thus ending the Welsers aspirations
to have a colony in the New World. Eight years later, the Welsers grant of
Venezuela was officially taken from them when Charles V abdicated his throne. This would
be the end of German Venezuela, but the German Conquistadors left a great legacy behind, not
only with the name of a modern-day country, as they also managed to explore and discover much
of northern South America with their expeditions, playing a crucial role in the search of
El Dorado and the conquest of New Granada. More videos on the age of
colonization are on the way, so make sure you are subscribed and
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