While Spanish and Portuguese colonization
in the New World is relatively well known, of course other countries in Europe didn't want
to be left out on all this newfound wealth that was coming across the Atlantic. Many other
countries and companies attempted to establish colonies that they thought would enrich them,
and perhaps among the least well known of these was the German attempt to establish colonies
in the New World with a short-lived colony of Klein Venedig. Though Germany didn't
exist as a unified country until 1870, the people of the German principalities or the
Holy Roman Empire were as interested as anybody else in trying to strike it rich by conquering
a New World Empire like the Aztecs or the Incas. Some were even driven to distractions seeking
the legendary Lost City of Gold, El Dorado. The German attempt to colonize the New World
is history but deserves to be remembered. In 1519, Charles the First, King of Spain
was elected Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Imperial election was contentious
and mostly involved an enormous expenditure of money. Charles faced Francis, King
of France and Henry V King of England, and all parties relied on borrowing money to bribe
the electors, and one of Charles's most important lenders was the German Welser family which lent
him more than 140,000 florins. Their support was given in exchange for Imperial privileges that
few others enjoyed. Licenses for trading enslaved Africans and participation in the conquest of
the New World. Bartholomeus Welser, head of the family was created a prince of the Empire and
made a privy counselor to the emperor himself. The Welsers were a banking family based largely
in Augsburg and Nuremberg, both of which were Imperial free cities within the Empire. They
claimed descent from the famed Byzantine General Belisarius, and by the 15th century have become
a wealthy trading family with trade connections all over Europe in the Levant. Their support
of Charles V involved large loans to finance his election and the many wars The Empire
fought during his Regency. As early as 1523, the family had involved itself in the New World
when they became involved in the slave trade in the Caribbean to support sugar production in Santo
Domingo. In 1526, agents established a trading establishment there and in 1532 they purchased
one of the larger sugar mills on the island. In 1527 the privileges they had received in
1519 were confirmed in the Contract of Madrid. Bartholomeus Welser had lent the Emperor such a
large sum of money that the contract also gave them as security, the Province of Venezuela which
was developed as Klein Venedig, or Little Venice. It is often known as Welserland in Germany. The
Province began with the 1527 Foundation of Santa Ana de Coro by a Spanish officer, the Welsers were
given the rights to explore Rule and colonize the area at their own expense, but could only enlist
Spanish and Flemish troops for that purpose. They fitted out two expeditions and built two
cities and three forts within two years. The contract was partially in response to reports from
a nearby province that conquest was difficult due to bellicose Indians armed with arrows. The
Welsers were to pacify that land and to place it in our service in a manner that we can profit
from it. The venture was risky but promised huge rewards through large investment. Though it was
to be German-run, the colony itself was to remain Spanish, in general foreigners were permitted to
colonize, and besides leadership only 50 expert German miners were allowed to acquire precious
metals. Besides gold and other valuables, the Welsers expected to make money by enslaving
the natives. Abuse of indigenous Americans was so widespread that Spain had tried to curb it.
There was a royal requirement that the natives could not be enslaved if they accepted Charles
as their King. But in practice nearly all the native tribes could be dubbed rebellious
and enslaved at the Conquistadors' whims. As with most Spanish Colonial Ventures any wealth
extracted was owed in part to the crown, at first a tenth and within 10 years, the full Royal fifth.
Ambrosius Ehinger, an agent for the banking family in Madrid was chosen as the first governor
and made Captain General of Klein Venedig. A fleet was sent in 1528, and Ehinger himself left
Seville on October 7th, he arrived in February of 1529 with 281 colonists after stopping in Santo
Domingo. One of his first acts was to rename Santa Ana de Coro new Augsburg. The Spanish success
looting the Aztec empire had fed European hunger for more gold and more rich New World Empires
that could easily be conquered. Francisco Pizarro would reach the Inca only a few years later for
the fire in the minds of gold hungry explorers. Rumors of yet greater wealth encouraged
the Spanish and others to continue exploring. Several Conquistadors wrote of
a king who covered himself in gold dust, either as part of a ritual or because “to powder
oneself with gold, is an extraordinary thing.” The Conquistador Diego de Ordaz heard rumors
of Meta, the City of Gold somewhere near the Orinoco River which flowed to Klein Venedig.
The legend of El Dorado was rationed in 1529, but everyone was sure that great wealth remained
to be conquered somewhere in South America. The search for such a kingdom became the driving
force behind all of the Welser’s efforts in Venezuela. In 1529 Ehinger launched his first
expedition into the interior, Ehinger had explored the coastline and found the mouth of a large lake
now known as Lake Maracaibo. He hoped to explore the lake and find a water passage to the South
Sea and the Pacific and he left with 180 men, the Royal notary, 37 horses and 150 natives that
carried supplies. By Spanish law the Royal notary was required to read the requisitions in Spanish
to native people which essentially demanded that they convert to Catholicism and accept Charles
as King or face conquest. The first expedition was a taste of the difficulties that the Germans
would face throughout the rule. Local tribes, already antagonized by Spanish slave traders along
the coast, resisted the Germans in a series of battles. Ehinger was able to found a small town
on the Northern shore of Lake Maracaibo which he christened New Nuremberg. The name Maracaibo was
given to the lake, according to legend, after a brave native Chief named Mara who was killed
in the fighting. Ehinger continued to explore without much success after 14 months, and with
60 of his men and even more of his native baggage train dead, Ehinger limped back to New Augsburg,
sick with malaria. After a year without contact the Welsers had decided Ehinger was dead and sent
a replacement. The replacement, Johann Seisenhofer died within weeks of arriving in Venezuela
so Ehinger was accepted as Governor again. Ehinger left for Center Domingo to recover and
left the colony under the command of Nicolaus Federmann, a young Welser agent. Although
Federmann had been ordered to remain at New Augsburg, he soon set off on his own expedition
saying, “He found himself with a number of men who were unoccupied.” He was determined to undertake
a campaign into the interior towards the south of the Southern Sea in the hope of finding something
profitable. On September 12 1530, with a hundred soldiers, two monks, 16 horses and numerous
natives carrying his supplies he found little, but returned in March of 1531 with around half
of his men dead. Ehinger was there to meet him, recovered and furious, he banished Federmann from
the territory and Federmann returned to Germany. Ehinger set off in June on another expedition with
around 130 men, 40 horses, along with a train of native porters. Porters were enslaved men who were
chained together by the necks; if one became ill or injured they were simply decapitated so that
the roped columns could continue without slowing. Ehinger moved south from Lake Maracaibo,
soon crossing out of Klein Venedig and into the neighboring Santa Marta territory. He
was chasing rumors of a kingdom rich with gold somewhere further south but his methods were
brutal. According to a contemporary chronicler, “Ehinger dealt with the natives without
compassion, a great deal more cruelty than any of the other tyrants which we have spoken
before. Ehinger was more unnatural and fierce than raging tigers, or wolves or ramping lions.
The German laid desolate and destroyed more than 400 leagues of most fertile land there,
enough provinces exceeding and wonderful. Indigenous people who came in friendship
were cut to pieces. Leaders were enslaved and captives were burned alive in their huts.
For his horrors he collected 600 pounds of gold, precious stones and a large number of slaves.”
After four months of marching Ehinger reached the Zapatista in March where he set up a camp. He sent
35 men under a Spanish captain back towards New Augsburg with the treasure with orders to bring
back reinforcements. The captain chose to avoid retracing their steps through hostile territory
but was soon lost. The native porters escaped and instead of carrying the gold themselves they
buried it under a tree, never be found again. The party disintegrated in the wilderness and most
of the men were hunted down by natives or starved. Only one, Francisco Martin survived, and he was
captured and made a life with a local tribe. Ehinger waited for a few months before
deciding that he had been abandoned, instead of going home empty-handed he sent scouts
South into the mountains, the towering Andes. Scouts brought back encouraging news of heavily
populated Highlands right for the picking. The mountains brought relief from mosquitoes but
more and more men died from the cold and altitude. Starving, the party ate their dogs and horses
and faced constant skirmishes with local tribes. Ehinger failed to find a way over the
mountains and finally turned back. The party was attacked on May 27 1533 by a
particularly fierce group of locals. Ehinger and another man fled into a low ravine
where they were pinned down by archers. Ehinger was hit in the neck with a
poison arrow; he died a few days later. Despite dwindling numbers, the survivors
continued to loot and pillage, and finally the few haggard survivors reached New Augsburg
in November 1533 after 26 months of travel. After Ehinger's death Federmann lobbied for the
government of Venezuela, and he was appointed and served briefly but Spanish authorities soon
had him demoted. instead Georg von Speyer, a 33 year old Welser agent was appointed.
With a fresh supply of Spanish troops he arrived in Klein Venedig in 1534 to take over
from Federmann who became his second in command. Speyer then heard rumors of Meta and on May 13
1535 left with the force of several hundred, but without Federmann who was ordered to defend
a valley between Klein Venedig and Santa Marta. Europeans struggled through the wilderness,
sick with malaria and hounded by jaguars. By February 1536 he met a friendly tribe which
told him of a gold rich culture to the west on a plateau among the mountains. He spent a year
seeking a pass across the mountains before finally calling off the expedition in August of 1537.
He reached New Augsburg in May of 1538 after more than three years of exploration. Speyer
retired as governor in 1539 and died in 1540, possibly fighting against an attempted coup
d'etat by Spanish forces in the territory. While he was gone Federmann had taken off on his
own expedition, if he actually went to the valley he'd been ordered to he stayed there only briefly.
With 400 Men he headed south after Speyer in the spring of 1536. He seems to have deliberately
avoided beating Speyer moving further west across plains that stretch out like a sea, rivers
innumerable cut them in all directions, and marshes intersect them. Federmann stayed apprised
of Speyer by speaking to the locals and carefully avoided beating Speyer on his return trip in 1538.
Like Speyer, Federmann and his men searched the mountains for a pass; by 1538 half of his men were
gone and their clothes had literally rotted away. After climbing the mountains and failing
to find a pass for nearly a year in 1539 he finally came across one. The pass, 13,000 feet
high and so difficult it's rarely used today, was its own challenge, but after struggling
through it Federmann finally reached the plateau, and he thought, El Dorado. Federmann set
a scout out and was shocked to learn that the scout had promptly run into a camp, not of
natives, but of Spaniards. While the Germans had been struggling east of the mountains, a Spanish
Expedition from Santa Marta had beat them there. The people of the plateau were at least
potentially a source of the enduring legends the Conquistadors had heard mostly second hand
throughout the region. It was a Muisca religious right apparently extinct by the time the Spanish
arrived that may have led to the El Dorado legend where a chief would be coded in sticky resin,
rolled in gold dust before jumping in a lake. The Muisca however were not miners, they mostly
grew potatoes but had become wealthy by trading salt and emeralds. Protected by the mountains
they persevered against hostile tribes and growed relatively powerful, but their Confederation
was not under the Inca or Aztec empire. While Federmann was still struggling to find a way
to the plateau, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada had finally reached the Muisca from the north and
conquered the whole Confederation killing their leaders including the psihipqua Bogota, for whom
Quesada named his settlement, today the capital of Colombia. Before Federmann could arrive, a second
group of Spaniards under another Conquistador arrived from Quito in the South. There were
apparently no hard feelings and all three left Bogota to Cardena and from there to Europe to
report to Emperor Charles. Federmann found his employers furious. Not only had he not found El
Dorado, he had essentially abandoned the colony. The bishop of Santo Domingo managed the colony
briefly and found the colony in disarray, but in typical Spanish fashion he immediately decided
that the solution was to find El Dorado and he put Philip von Hutten, a Welser relation who had been
with Speyer on his ill-fated expedition in charge. Hutten left in July 1541 with around 200 men,
along with Bartholomeus Welser, son of the banking family's leader. While on the expeditions they
suffered against nature and survived for a time on cornmeal and ants. Hutten was left enamored of
the dream of El Dorado, resisted following every rumor and after several months he broke off with
a contingent of about 40 men following more solid rumors about a wealthy civilization to the South.
Hutten reached a group of Kambeebs called the Omagua, or Flatheads, at the Omega Capital Hutten
was seriously wounded when an enormous, reportedly fifteen thousand strong army attacked his small
party. They escaped with no casualties but several serious injuries. Hutten survived his wounds
but was too weak to lead the party back to New Augsburg and supported Welser for leader instead.
A fight broke out and several of the Spanish men broke from the group to find their own way home,
and by the time they began limping home in 1543 they had begun two years. New Augsburg had gone
through a series of leaders, the last of which Juan de Carvajal left new Augsburg to found his
own city. In 1546 he intercepted Hutten and Welser and tried to capture them when they escaped. He
offered them safe passage but instead seized them a few days later and then had them beheaded.
Thus ended the experiment of Klein Venedig. Carvajal himself was beheaded in punishment
later in 1546, but the assassinations of Welser and Hutten put an end to the Welser control of
Venezuela. The Germans had simply proven that they were not competent to run a colony, and the
Spanish weren't going to let them try again. After a series of claims and counterclaims, and judicial
actions the Emperor revoked the Welser claim. German after German had come to the new Province
only to abandon all their responsibilities and run off in search of gold that they never
found. And the consequences were horrendous because of brutality, and disease, and
warfare entire cultures were laid waste, entire areas were depopulated. Of course the
German colonization of the New World turned out to be an utter failure, but Professor Giovanna
Montenegro of Binghamton University argued in the 2018 edition of the journal Transit that, “The
Welser story was rediscovered and romanticized in literature in Germany after unification,
and thus became a primary driver for German imperialism in the 1880s and 1890s and of the
expansionist attitude of Hitler's Third Reich.” I hope you enjoyed watching this episode of the
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