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The Men of Nikolaus Federmann: Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Jose Ignacio Avellaneda
Jose Ignacio Avellaneda*
Affiliation:
Gainesville, Florida
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Extract

The New Kingdom of Granada, now Colombia, was discovered and settled by three unrelated expeditions organized for different purposes. Two of them were led by Spaniards and one by a German. The first was placed under the leadership of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada by the governor of Santa Marta, and ordered to go south in search of a passage to Peru. Another was led from the south and out of Peru by Sebastián de Benalcázar in search of one Dorado or golden man, who was supposed to reign in the Indian area of Cundirumarca, while the third was organized by Nikolaus Federmann in the province of Venezuela, with the aim of reaching the Xerira land of riches, the existence of which was known from the Indians encountered in early explorations. He was to proceed under the auspices of the German House of Welser, concessionary at the time of the exploration and exploitation of the province of Venezuela.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , April 1987 , pp. 385 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1987

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References

1 The best study on Quesada’s men is Rivas, Raimundo, Los fundadores de Bogotá (Bogotá 1923)Google Scholar and De la Rosa, Moises, “Los conquistadores de los Chibchas,” Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, 22:249–250, (Apr.-May 1935), 225–253.Google Scholar Partial lists of Quesada’s, Federmann’s and Benalcázar’s men are found in De Ocariz, Juan Flórez, Genealogías del Nuevo Reino de Granada, 3 vols. (Bogotá 1943–1955), I 166–180.Google Scholar Freyle, Juan Rodríguez, El carnero, (Bogotá 1977), pp. 77–89.Google Scholar Pedro, Fray Simón, Noticias historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales, 7 vols. (Bogotá, 1981), III 354–357.Google Scholar De Piedrahita, Lucas Fernández, Noticia historial de las conquistas del Nuevo Reino de Granada, 2 vols. (Bogotá, 1973), I, 200–203 and 305–311.Google Scholar Acosta, Joaquín, Compendio histórico del descubrimiento y colonización de la Nueva Granada en el siglo décimo sexto, (Paris, 1848), pp. 420–427.Google Scholar A partial list of Benalcázar’s men is given in Giraldo, Diego Garcés, Sebastián de Benalcázar fundador de ciudades, 1490–1551, (Cali 1986), pp. 548–556.Google Scholar

2 The research was carried out in archives of Colombia and Spain. In Colombia: one, the Archivo Nacional in Bogotá, under the titles Historia Civil, Caciques e Indios, Encomiendas, Tierras, Visitas, Misceláneas, Reales Audiencias and Genealogías, plus the books of the First and Second Notaries of Bogotá; two, the Archivo Regional de Boyacá in Tunja, under the titles Colonia and Notarías; three, the Archivo Central del Cauca using its well-ordered subject index; four, the Notaría Primera in Vélez and the Notaria Unica of Villa de Leyva. The bulk of the investigation in Spain was done in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, (abbreviated hereafter as AGI), in the following classifications: Patronato, Justicia, Juicios de Residencia, and Audiencias de Santa Fe, Santo Domingo and Panamá. Indiferente General was revised until the year of 1585. The result of those investigations will be published soon in a book titled Los Compañeros de Féderman, Cofundadores de Santa Fe de Bogotá.

3 AGI Patronato 162, probanza of De Murcia, Francisco, and Friede, Juan, Documentos inéditos para la historia de Colombia 1509 a 1550, 10 vols. (Bogotá 1955–1960), V. 203.Google Scholar

4 AGI Justicia 1096, testimony of Honorato Vicente Bernal.

5 Friede, Juan, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela, (Caracas 1961), p. 342.Google Scholar This authoritative book contains the best analysis to date, of the German participation in the conquest of Venezuela.

6 Góngora, Mario, Los grupos de conquistadores de Tierra Firme (1509–1530) (Santiago de Chile 1962).Google Scholar

7 Ojeda, Tomás Thayer, Formación de la sociedad Chilena. Censo de población de Chile en los años de 1540 a 1563, 3 vols. (Santiago de Chile, 1939–1941).Google Scholar

8 Lockhart, James, The Men of Cajamarca, (Austin, 1972).Google Scholar

9 Friede, , Documentos inéditos, and Fuentes documentales para la historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada, 8 vols. (Bogotá 1975–1976).Google Scholar Both series contain accurate transcriptions of documents found in AGI.

10 Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca, pp. 34–35,Google Scholar and Hirschberg, Julia, “Social experiment in New Spain: a prosopographical study of the early settlement at Puebla de Los Angeles”, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 59:1 (Feb. 1979), 29–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 The most complete genealogical information is found in the first edition of De Ocariz, Flórez, Genealogías, 2 vols. (Madrid 1674–1676)Google Scholar, which contain genealogical trees not found in the Bogotá edition previously mentioned.