Introduction My sophmore year in college I took a class entitled European Imerialism: 1500-1800.  I actually enjoyed the class and really liked the professor.  While other students were comparing and contrasting religions and clothing I wrote papers on Piracy and El Dorado.  Below is my paper on El Dorado.  I received a B- on it for "grammatical errors", which in my college means the professor has a different version of the English Language than the campus Writing Center who approved the entire thing. Other than that, and I agree with what he said, I left information as "given" regarding mercantilism and the economic situations of the time. He said El Dorado should then become my prime example of the economic motivation of the era, thinking of the wider historical implications.  Below is the paper as I turned it in, with some of the "grammatical" changes.  It should provide some background about the search for the Lost City of Gold Please do not steal my paper from me, but give proper credit. Parker, Shannon. The Myth and Curse of the City of Gold: El Dorado.  Washington College. European Imperialism 1500-1800. September 29, 1997.  https://www.angelfire.com/scifi/brennalin/eldorado.htm

The Myth and Curse of the City of Gold: El Dorado When Europeans came to the New World in the sixteenth century, they weren't interested in "exploration" purposes.  Greed was a major factor in their interest in the New World.  This was a place where the countries of the world could expand their population, cultures, and religion.  It was also a place where they believed wealth in the form of precious metals and gems might be found.  Many of the first settlements perished.  The mirage of gleaming stones destroyed these settlers' minds to the point that they couldn't even think about their own survival.  Food was no longer a necessity - gold was. For many who watched these early settlements fail and disappear, their focus changed to the search for wealth instead.  It is not surprising that most early explorations into the interior of South America were in search of gold, more specific - in search of El Dorado.  If it hadn't been for the myth, settlements and exploration would have stayed close to the coast.  It is also not a surprise that the relentless pursuit of wealth would cause many explorers to perish, never to see the blinding City of Gold. It is believed the Spanish first heard the stories of what they named El Dorado around the year 1540 (Penrose 113).  The fabulous and detailed legend grew and changed over the years.  It was enough to haunt the minds and dreams of thousands of Europeans.  The Empire of Guiana was supposed to have a capital city called Manoa, surrounded by mountains on the edge of a salt lake called Parima.  Allegedly, precious stones covered the mountains and sparkled so brightly in the sunlight they could be seen from very far away.  The streets themselves were lined with gold. The location of Manoa and its fabled kingdom changed over the years.  At first Bogota was the site of the wealth, then it moved to the jungles of the Orinoco.  Later it was believed to lie near the borders of Venezuela and Guiana. According to legend, the king of this golden realm had wealth beyond the fantasies of any European.  He would cover himself with gold dust from head to toe.  This was why he was sometimes referred to as the "Golded Man," i.e., El Dorado (Penrose 113).  All his possessions were formed from gold and silver.  Lifesize gold sculputres of all creatures abounded throughout the city.  Vast gardens existed in the kingdom with eveything in them fashioned in the form of nature, but gleaming of gold. Actually, there was some element of truth to the legen before the Europeans exaggerated it and changed it to fit their own visions.  About the fabled lake of Parima, the upper watershed flooded the Guiana rivers in the rainy season.  The legend of the Gilded Man told by the South American natives was of "a religious rite practiced at the sacred lake of Guatavita near Bogota.  The rite had ceased with the conquest of the Guatavita region by another tribe about 1480, but the legend lived on, transmuted strangely to a distant region far to the east of the Andes".  The religious rite consisted of the chief on an appointed day rolling in gold dust and canoeing to the center of the lake.  He would then give offering and bathe before returning to this people for a festival (Penrose 113). Obviously, the legend changed when told by the Europeans.  As areas were explored and Manoa was never reached, the location of the city changed.  The description of the city also changed.  Sir Walter Raleigh wrote about the golden gardens of these peoples.  The renaissance may have had an effect on Raleigh's vision of the gardens.  "The Italian renaissance taste for improving on nature with costly artificial contrivances had already reached England, and to an elegant courtier such as Raleigh no greater luxury could be imagined than to sit in a garden looking at gold and silver trees and flowers instead of real ones" (Carrington 282).  The renaissance was full of new discoveries, many of them originating in the New World.  It also gave birth to a new type of personality, the adventurer or explorer.  Many of these went deep in the jungles in pursuit of El Dorado.  Many would die; all would fail.  One of the first expeditions was led in 1531 by a German named Ambrose Alfinger.  He explored parts of Venezuela and crossed the mountains into Colombia as far as the Magdalena River.  Alfinger "left a trail of devastation in his wake" (Penrose 113).  On his return journey he and most of his men were murdered by the Indians who had heard of his cruelty.  Only a few of his men survived to tell the tale. At the same time, Spaniard Diego do Ordaz was looking for El Dorado from the east, the Amazon.  He covered a thousand miles of unknown country, stopped by the "cararact of Atures" (Penrose 114).  One of Ordaz's men tried again a few years later.  He was killed by a poisoned arrow from a Venezuelan tribe while on search for the City of Gold. Gonzolo Pizarro, another one of the more recognizable explorers from childhood history classes, also went in search of El Dorado.  In 1541, "Gonzolo took with him 200 Spaniards, 4,000 indians, 5,000 pigs, more than 1,000 hounds, and a herd of llamas; with them he marched right through the Andes from Quito to their extreme eastern foot" (Leithauser 185).  About half of Pizrro's men returned with nothing but swords and most of the indians he took with him perished.. Another tragic story in the search for wealth began around 1548.  Pedro de Ursua and his men ran into the Musos Indian tribe who battled with the white men until they returned.  Ursua tried again from Peru to find the Lost City.  On the second expedition he took with him a young widow (his mistress) and a man by the name of Lope de Aguirre, "one of the most blood-thirsty and homicidal maniacs in all human annals" (Penrose 116).  They crossed the Andes and while at camp on New Year's Day, Aguirre murdered Ursua and his mistress.  Ursua's succesor also fell victim to Aguirre.  "Aguirre....renounced his allegiance to Philip of Spain and slew all of the expedition who refused to do likewise.  From then on, the journey was a holocaust of murder among the Spaniards themselves and of every sort of outrage and atrocity among the unfortunate Indians" (Penrose 116).  Aguirre conquered the island of Margarita and entered Venezuela. His intention was to conquer Venezuela and Colombia.  He was stopped when the royal governor had him killed. Three journeys were attempted by Antonia de Berrio, who was at the age of retirement and had fought in Italy and North Africa.  Berrio took his family to the New World and in 1584 set out on his first journey.  He began in Colombia and was halted by swamps and fever.  The second expedition also began in Colombia and took about three years.  He returned home empty handed with the intention of building ships but mutiny erupted.  Berrio's third journy in 1590 let him cross the Andes and make it to the Atlantic, but only Berrio and a few of his men survived.  The others perished from fever or at the hands of unfriendly natives. Berrio's successor, Domingo de Vera, set out for El Dorado in 1593.  He returned to Trinidad exhausted, but still believing that the lost city lay "just around the bend."  Vera's account of his journey was intercepted by Englishman Sir Walther Raleigh and peaked his interest, or his greed. Raleigh went to Trinidad and received first hand information from Vera before setting out.  Raleigh sailed up the Orinoco and was blocked like many others before him by a waterfall.  The expedition was abandoned during the river's flooding.  The second expedition in 1596 also failed.  They returned with only a few trinkets from some of the Indian tribes.  Further exploration of the Essequibo made Raleigh and his believe it was the outlet of Parima they had reached. Raleigh's accounts of his adventures and search for El Dorado were magnificent.  Raleigh more than anyone else, is responsible for changing the original legend of El Dorado.  His journey had failed; he had not found El Dorado so he focused (and exaggerated) many parts of his book on the scenery and nature. Of all the expeditions in search of El Dorado, Raleigh's was one of the most obsessive.  His obsession to go on through the jungles in spite of the hardships and his coercion of his men became contagious.  "In their enthusiasm they dragged Raleigh, who hated walking, miles across country to the magnificent falls of the Kern..." (Carrington 284).  Later, around 1617, Raleigh was executed in England. "Such was the pathetic ending of the quest for El Dorado" (Penrose 119). The legend of El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold, is a beautifu and fantastic one.  Unfortunately, analysis of its history makes some of the flaws of human nature more apparent.  Humans tend to exaggerate and change what they know, much of the time straying (on a distant tangent) from the original source.  This can be seen with the myth of El Dorado as it changed after Europeans learned of it. It also sadly shows the extent of human desire for wealth.  These explorers or adventurers did not want to simply behold the vision of the city; they had every intention of slaying the people there and conquering the kingdom.  This drove many to the point of obsession that pushed them farther than they ever would. Who would say the jungles of the Amazon and its tributaries would have been explored at all?  Without the myth pushing them on, the Europeans might have been more lazy and stayed toward the coast.  Tey also may not have battled and destroyed the native tribes they encountered.  The Europeans paid with their lives for the ambition.  Most leaders of these journeys perished during the expedition.  Also, most of the men they took with them died, either to harships of the land, or their unwanted presence by the natives.  None of them reached the original destination.  They never found their "pot of gold." Bibliography Carrington, Dorothy. The Traveller's Eye.  Pilot Press, New York:1947. Penrose, Boies. Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1693. Leithauser, Joachim G.  Worlds Beyond the Horizon.  Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 1955.

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