El Dorado, sueño y pesadilla - Ep.6 (La conquista de América)

Habían oído hablar de un rincón de las Indias recién descubiertas donde el oro abundaba como en ningún otro lugar, un paraíso con tal cantidad de metales preciosos que en él todo desprendía brillos dorados. Encontrarlo se convirtió en una obsesión por la que los conquistadores de mediados del siglo XVI estuvieron dispuestos a adentrarse en tierras desconocidas, aunque las duras condiciones del viaje llevaran a algunos de ellos incluso hasta la muerte. Cristóbal Colón esperaba que su expedición descubriera riquezas en forma de metales preciosos (en su diario de a bordo menciona 139 veces la palabra oro, por las 51 que cita a Dios). Sin embargo, sería unos años después, entiempos de las expediciones de Pizarro, cuando los españoles comenzaron a escuchar los primeros rumores sobre un mítico lugar cargado de oro. Lo llamaban El Dorado, y la posibilidad de encontrarlo desató las inquietudes aventureras de decenas de exploradores. Muchos llegaron a arruinarse para poder embarcar en ese viaje. Por eso, la recompensa no podía ser otra que conseguir una gran fortuna. O, al menos, intentarlo. Escucha la historia completa en el podcast. Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a [e-mail] Comparte nuestro podcast en tus redes sociales, puedes realizar una valoración de 5 estrellas en Apple Podcast o Spotify. Texto: Beatriz González Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego Contacto de publicidad en podcast: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
They had heard of a corner ofthe newly discovered Indies, where gold abounded,
like nowhere else, a paradise withsuch a quantity of precious metals that
in it everything sparkled gold to findit became an obsession by which the conquerors
of the mid- 16th century werewilling to enter unknown lands, even though

(00:23):
the harsh conditions of the journey ledsome of them even to death. Great
reports of very history presents the conquestof America Lights and shadows. Chapter six.

(00:59):
The golden dream and nightmare, atext by Beatriz González. Christopher Columbus
expected his expedition to discover riches inthe form of precious metals. In his
diary on board he mentions a hundredand thirty- nine times the word gold

(01:22):
for the fifty- one that quotesGod. However, it would be a
few years later, at the timeof the blackboard expeditions, when the Spaniards
began to hear the first rumors abouta mythical place loaded with gold, they
called it the gold and the possibilityof finding it unleashed the adventurous concerns of

(01:42):
dozens of explorers. Many came toruin themselves so that they could embark on
that journey. That' s whythe reward couldn' t be other than
getting a big fortune or at leasttrying. They knew that they were waiting
for them dangerous in the form ofdiseases, attacks by indigenous people and hunger

(02:04):
in case the crossing was prolonged,but the adventurers, known to be waiting
for precious treasures, weighed in thebalance and chose the dream, as well
as the thirteen of the fame thataccompanied Pijarro when he gave them the choice
between being poor in Panama or richin Peru. Conquistadors who pursued the fantasy
of gold always opted for the possibilityof wealth. Through it they crossed jungles

(02:29):
and crossed rivers and swamps in searchof the treasure, but the gold was
always beyond. The first official chroniclerof the Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo,
took one thousand and five hundred forty- eight of a legend that spoke
of a golden- covered monarch whoresided somewhere loaded with riches. And Juan

(02:53):
Rodríguez Fraile in a thousand six hundredand thirty- six, thus described the
myth that had run like ra dust, among those who dreamed of changing their
fate naked the heir and smeared himwith a sticky league and sprinkled it with
powdered gold, so that it wasall covered with this metal. They put
him on the raft on which hewas standing and around him they laid a

(03:16):
great heap of gold and emeralds tooffer to his god. But the obsession
with the golden city had begun afew years earlier, already in 1,
500 thirty- nine, the militarySebastián de Belalcázar, after founding the city
of Quito, decided to undertake thesearch for the place of which he had

(03:36):
heard an Indian speak in the Tacunga, in Ecuador. I assure him that
he came from a land not faraway called Cundinamarca, and that there was
so much gold in it that hisking used to cover his body with him.
In his offerings to the gods hewas not the only legend that spoke

(03:58):
of golden villas in the New Continent. At that time the history of the
seven cities also spread. A storythat was clouded by dozens of explorers.
It was said that, after theMuslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, seven
bishops had fled from it, crossingthe Ocean and reaching a kingdom where they
founded seven reica cities among them andthere was the mythical cybola that rumors placed

(04:23):
in northern Mexico and southwest of theUnited States. They said that there were
tribes and Indians living there and thatthe only ones who had arrived there were
four shipwrecks from the failed expedition ofPanfilo de Narváez A Floreda. One of
themÁlvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca describedhis journey in the wrecks and claimed to

(04:46):
have news of a city bathed inGold that was in a region they called
Cibola. So real seemed that fantasticstory that Viceroy Antonio of Mendoza organized an
expedition, although before he sent theFranciscan or Arcos Sea of Nice to verify
that what was said was true.After a long journey, the friar reached
the valley of Cibola, which hedescribed as a city of gold, but

(05:10):
had been deceived by the sun.The golden facades he thought he saw were
actually adobe houses. That dream wasleft in a great disappointment that almost cost
the religious life. Among other similarmyths, there is also the legend of
the city of Caesars, which enthralleddreamers looking for a future of abundance.

(05:33):
In this case, the town ofDorada was sought by both Spaniards and Incas.
Gold and silver, hiding in thismythical place that occupied some corner of
Patagonia, promised to solve all thehardships. Different versions of the story were
disseminated, but the first that spreadwas the one that arose with the expedition
of Captain Francisco César in a thousandfive hundred twenty- eight, when they

(05:58):
were looking for the Sierra de laPlata. Shipwrecks from earlier expeditions confirmed the
stories they had heard from the Indiansabout a place rich in precious metals and
little by little the certainty grew thatthere was a city full of fortune,
known as the city of the CaesarsHowever, neither conquerors nor natives ever found
it. A few thousand kilometers fromthat place would be found another so-

(06:29):
called treasure, the one hiding inthe mines of Tisingal. The first conquerors
believed that this opulent paradise was locatedbetween the valley of the Star and the
Talamanca mountain range, in Costa Rica, a country that they baptized with that
name because when Columbus reached its shoresin 1, 500 two, he assured
that there was infinity in those landsor not. In addition, he revived

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the dream of those who sought fortuneby writing in his newspapers that in two
days he had witnessed a greater signof gold than in the Spanish, in
four years of the legend of preciousmines in the Talamanca mountains, would be
revived later in the 19th century,when he organized a dozen expeditions to go

(07:15):
out in his search. However,like gold, the place was always elsewhere.
A little beyond all those fantastic legendsabout places full of gold, the
golden one was the one that reapedthe most followers and for it the expeditions

(07:36):
were succeeded. One of the first, in 1, 500 twenty- nine
was the German Vonhalfinger. It waswhat led Sebastián de Belalcázar to leave Quito
in demand of a land that issaid to be the golden and very passive.
The treasurer Gonzalo de la Peña declaredin 1, 500 thirty- nine.

(07:56):
His goal was to conquer those landsand embark directly Russian to Spain so
as not to cross with blackboard,so that the honors were only dreams.
He reached the savannah of Bogotá,where he met with a surprise the expeditions
of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, sentfrom Pizarro, and Nicolás Federman, who

(08:18):
had already arrived there. That iswhy the law over those territories remained in
dispute for years. After Belalcázar's disloyalty, Pizarro appointed his brother Gonzalo,
governor of Quito and also captain ofan expedition in search of the so
- called Cinnamon Country. During thetrip, stocks were exhausted and in view

(08:39):
of the possibility of starving, Franciscode Orellana offered to continue with a brig
in search of food with sixty men. It continued along the Coca River until
then known as Rio Grande, whichwould be called the Amazon or Orellana.
In fact, Orellana never planned toreturn with food, but to go in
search of her own rza, havingheard that nearby was a place full of

(09:03):
precious metals. It was in hissearch until the expedition was attacked by Indian
warriors of similar appearance to that ofthe mythological Amazonian women, by whom they
would finally baptize the region. Orellanadid not find the promised riches, but
after leaving the attack safely and arrivingin the Atlantic, he was able to

(09:24):
make his way to Spain to benamed conqueror of the Amazon country. His
discovery caused the Council of Indies torelativize the betrayal of Gonzalo Pizarro. However,
he did not enjoy his conquest becausehe died shortly afterwards, a victim
of fevers on his second trip.Another famous expedition that was in search of

(09:48):
gold was Hernán Pérez de Quesada,brother of the envoy of Pizarro, who
would go out with three hundred Spaniards, 1, 500 Indians and hundreds of
horses to conquer the city of Honra. The dreams of all those who took
part in that journey were becoming anightmare. After three years of searching in
which hunger, desertions and internal strugglesabounded. Finally, Hernán Pérez de Quesada

(10:13):
gave up his illusions, returning withempty pockets and less than half of the
men accompanying him when he left.Years later, it would be his political
nephew, Antonio de Berrío, whoparticipated in three expeditions in search of gold,
the three plagued with deaths and calamidessix. The obsession with gold continued

(10:33):
with his son, Fernando de Berrío, who also sought the mythical place.
Another explorer who believed in legend wasPhilip von Hooten, who reached the mighty
Guaviaide River. There they assured himthat he was very close to a kingdom
of riches, but warned him ofthe danger of going further, because in

(10:54):
that place they lived fierce warriors makingdeaf ears, van Hooter continued and p
o s s s ns was wounded. His men doubted what to do until
they heard sound, drums, andwings coming from the underworld of the jungle,
and decided to return home. Theyleft convinced that they had seen the
surroundings of El Dorado. More storiesof conquerors who sought the city of Oro

(11:26):
is, for example, that ofthe trip of Usua and to war had
already passed almost two decades since thelast great expedition in search of the Dorado,
when the viceroy of Peru, Hurtadode Mendoza, decided to make a
new attempt, put in command Pedrode Ursua, who departed in September of
1, 500 sixty with three hundredSpaniards and half a thousand Indians. The

(11:48):
requirements for recruitment were to demonstrate experiencein similar campaigns and to have value.
Both were considered more important than moralityand respect for order, which did not
appear among the claims, a circumstancethat would definitively mark the course of the
expedition. As the members of theexpedition were called by the marañón tributary of

(12:13):
the Amazon, they began to getrestless. After three months of travel,
there was no trace of gold.Despair caused the conspiracies to take command to
arrive soon. In January of 1, 500 sixty- one a mutiny broke
out in which Pedro de Ursua wasstabbed to death after the rebellion. He

(12:37):
was known as aguirre lope, whoalready had a long history of uprisings,
but the chain of violence and sabotagehad only just begun. Soon afterwards Fernando
de Guzmán, successor of Ursua,and the lover of the latter inés de
atienza, would be killed. Inaddition, they caused havoc among the native

(12:58):
populations that Francisco Vázquez almost told thecandor in his portrait of Lope de Aguirre
in relation to everything that happened onthe day of Amagua and Dorado. He
did not want the soldiers very prayerful, but, if necessary, to play
with the devil the soul of thedice, those soldiers and their captains,
and he was in March of 1, 500 sixty- one to sign a

(13:22):
declaration of war to the Spanish Empirein which he proclaimed himself prince of Peru,
Tierra Firme and Chile. However,those same soldiers would turn against him
a few months later, when hewas killed in Barquisimeto. In present-
day Venezuela. They say that hisbody was quartered, leaving his head exposed
in a cage in the tocuyo,while his mutilated hands were taken to Trujillo

(13:46):
and Valencia. In a post-mortem trial he was found guilty of the
crime against Majesty. The golden expeditioninspired film directors, novelists and playwrights,
who were struck by the legend thatdrove crazy adventurers and conquerors caught up in
a chimera like this. Gonzalo TorrenteBallester would write in the early 1940s,

(14:16):
Lope de Aguirre, a dramatic chronicleof American history in three days, a
text in which he portrays Lope deAguirre as a character who debates between his
ambition for power and the doubt thattorments his conscience. Two decades later,
Ramón Sender would publish his own versionof this rocky expedition on Lope de Aguirre

(14:37):
' s equal adventure. This novelimpacted both the German director Werner Herzog,
who decided to use it as areference for filming Aguirre, God' s
anger of nineteen hundred and seventy-two, a film that was shot in
the Peruvian Amazon jungle, not withoutdifficulty, since the team had to climb
mountains, cut trees to open routesin the jungle and use rafts with the

(15:01):
nostrils by natives to cross the rapidsof the river. An adventure almost as
extreme as the one told by theSpaniard Carlos Saura also made his cinematographic version
entitled El dorado, on the datewhen it premiered in nineteen hundred and eighty
- eight. It was famous forbeing the most expensive film in the history

(15:24):
of Spanish cinema until that moment.His budget of almost fifty million euros did
not recover in Box office. Itwas a stumbling block that earned Carlos Saura
himself some comparisons in the sense thathis ambition had been similar to that of
Lope de Aguilrey. The last Spanishfilm about this gold adventure was directed by

(15:48):
Agustín Díaz Llanes in two thousand seventeen, starring Raúl Arévalo, Barbara Lenni,
José Coronado and Oscar Jaenada, andwas based on an unpublished story by Arturo
Pérez Reverte. But what was thereal gold of America. It was metal

(16:11):
or symbolology, although the amount ofgold and precious stones was not as much
as the Spaniards who were looking forgold imagined. The truth is that the
different cultures that inhabited the surroundings ofGuatavita, the lake that gave origin to
the Myth. They did have abundantprecious metals, the same ones the conquerors
coveted. In two thousand and fourteen, the British Museum of London gathered at

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an exhibition three hundred objects discovered atthe beginning of the 20th century. In
those places there were pieces made ofgold and others with an alloy of gold
and copper that the Spaniards called lying, which was worked with a sophisticated goldsmithing
technique. The pieces belonged to along historical period between the year one thousand

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six hundred before Christ I and IOno, seven hundred of our age,
in which the cultures Muiskakin, Vaya, Calima, Tairona, Tolima and Zenu
flourished. All of them had incommon rituals that used these metals, not
because of their economic value, butsymbolic. They are believed to be associated

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with the energy of the sun andto be used to communicate with it beyond.
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