Background
He may have been a relative of Francisco Pizarro, the Trujillo-born conquistador of Peru (cousin, according to some historians). He traveled to the Indies when he was seventeen (1527). He served in Nicaragua until joining Pizarro's army in Peru in 1533. He supported Pizarro in his conflict with Diego de Almagro (1538). After the victory over Almagro's men, he was appointed governor of La Culata and re-established the town of Guayaquil, which had been previously destroyed twice by the Indians.First exploration of the Amazon River
He was one of Gonzalo Pizarro's lieutenants during his 1541 expedition east of Quito into the South American interior in search of El Dorado and the Country of the Cinnamon. Gonzalo Pizarro ordered him to explore the Coca River and return when the river ended. When they arrived to the confluence to the Napo River, his men menaced to mutiny if they did not continue. On December 26, 1541, he accepted to be elected chief of the new expedition and to conquest new lands in name of the king. The 49 men began to build a bigger ship for riverine navigation. During their navigation on Napo River they were threatened constantly by the Omaguas. They reached Negro River on June 3, 1542 and finally arrived to the Amazon River, that was so named because they were attacked by fierce female warriors like the mythological Amazons. The icamiabas indians dominated the area closed to the Amazon river, rich in gold. When Orellana went down the river in search of gold, descends Andes (in 1541), the river was still called Grande Rio, Mar Dulce or Rio da Canela (Cinnamon), because of the great trees of cinnamon located there. The belligerent victory of the icamiabas against the Spanish invaders was such that the fact was narrated to the king Charles V, whom, inspired by the greek amazons, baptized the river as Amazon.In one of the most improbably successful voyages in known history, Orellana managed to sail the length of the Amazon, arriving at the river's mouth on 24 August, 1542. They sailed through the Atlantic coast until reaching Cubagua Island, near the coast of Venezuela.
Second voyage and its preparation
After this exploration, Orellana returned to Spain to obtain from the Crown the government over the discovered lands, that he named New Andalusia. After a difficult navigation, he touched first the shores of Portugal. The king received him friendly and offered him to go back to the Amazon under Portuguese flag. The Orellana's exploration produced an international issue. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas, the majority of the Amazon River should belong to Spain, but the mouth should be ruled by Portugal. Orellana refused the Portuguese offer and went to Valladolid. After nine months of negotiations, Charles V appointed him governor of the New Andalusia on February 18, 1544. The charter established that he shall explore and settle the Amazonian lands with less than 300 men, 100 horses and found two cities, one in the mouth and another in the interior of the basin. Orellana married Ana de Ayala, who accompanied him in the voyage.
The four vessels of the expedition set sail on May 11, 1545 but only one succeeded to reach the Amazon mouth just before 1545 Christmas. Then, they built a river boat and explored 500 km of the Amazon delta. Only 44 of the 300 men survived when they were rescued by another Spanish ship. Orellana was one of the casualties: he died in November 1546.
Places named after Orellana
- Puerto Francisco de Orellana, Ecuador
- Orellana Province, Ecuador
- Francisco de Orellana, Maynas, Loreto, Peru
Orellana in popular culture
Orellana's role in the search for Akator (El Dorado) forms part of the plot of the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Bibliography
Gaspar de Carvajal, the chaplain of the first expedition, wrote a chronicle of the voyage (Relación del nuevo descubrimiento del famoso río Grande que descubrió por muy gran ventura el capitán Francisco de Orellana), which was partly reproduced in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's Historia general y natural de las Indias (1542), who included in addition statements by Orellana and some of his men. The Carvajal's work was published in 1894 by the Chilean historian José Toribio Medina, as part of his book Descubrimiento del Río de las Amazonas (Seville: Imprenta de E. Rasco, 1894)
More bibliography:
- Dalby, A., "Christopher Columbus, Gonzalo Pizarro, and the search for cinnamon" in Gastronomica (Spring 2001).
- Smith, A. (1994). Explorers of the Amazon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226763374
External links
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Last updated on Saturday July 19, 2008 at 05:53:45 PDT (GMT -0700)
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