Spanish conquest of New Granada: A Visual History

The Spanish conquest of New Granada (1525-1540) brought the territory of modern Colombia under Spanish rule. After coastal footholds at Santa Marta (1525) and Cartagena (1533), Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada led 800 men up the Magdalena in 1536; fewer than 200 reached the highlands, where they conquered the Muisca confederation of the zipa of Bogota and the zaque of Tunja in 1537-1538, seizing gold and emeralds. Sebastian de Belalcazar from Quito and the German Nikolaus Federmann from Venezuela arrived in 1539, and the three leaders founded Bogota and sailed to Spain to argue their claims. Disease and forced labour then reduced the Muisca population by over 80 percent.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Spanish conquest of New Granada. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Muisca population

Timeline of the Spanish conquest of New Granada

1. 1525
   Santa Marta founded
2. 1533
   Cartagena founded
3. 1536
   Quesada's expedition sets out
4. 1537
   Muisca conquered; Tisquesusa killed
5. 1538
   Bogota founded
6. 1539
   Belalcazar and Federmann arrive
7. 1540
   Conquest consolidated

The coast

Rodrigo de Bastidas founded Santa Marta in 1525 and Pedro de Heredia Cartagena in 1533, bases for slave raids and gold hunting among the Tairona and Sinu. Rumours of a rich land inland and of a chief covered in gold dust who bathed in a lake, El Dorado, drew expeditions.

Quesada and the Muisca

Jimenez de Quesada, a lawyer, left Santa Marta in April 1536 with 800 men and a river flotilla; jungle, hunger and jaguars killed most. In March 1537 the survivors climbed to the cool Muisca plateau, dense with villages, salt mines and emerald trade. Quesada defeated the zipa Tisquesusa, who was killed fleeing Bogota, took Tunja's treasure and had the last zipa Sagipa tortured for gold. He founded Santa Fe de Bogota on 6 August 1538.

Three conquistadors

In 1539 Belalcazar arrived from Peru via Popayan and Federmann, for the Welser bankers of Venezuela, over the Andes from the llanos, each claiming the land. Rather than fight, the three sailed to Spain; Quesada was cheated of the governorship, Federmann died in a lawsuit and Belalcazar got Popayan. The New Kingdom of Granada was organised under an audiencia in 1550. The Guatavita lake, source of the El Dorado legend, was partly drained in 1580 and again in 1898 in vain.

Muisca resistance ended in the 1540s; the encomienda system, epidemics and the mita drained the population, though Muisca descendants remain and their goldwork fills Bogota's Gold Museum.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Inca Empire (1438 to 1533)
• Holy Roman Empire (800 to 1806)
• First Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)

Wars of the same era and region

• Spanish conquest of Mexico (1519 to 1521)
• Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (1532 to 1572)
• Colombian War of Independence (1810 to 1825)

8 surprising things about the Spanish conquest of New Granada

1. The El Dorado legend arose from the Muisca ritual at Lake Guatavita, where a new ruler covered in gold dust threw offerings into the water.
2. The Muisca golden raft, found in 1969, depicts the ceremony and is the centrepiece of Bogota's Gold Museum.
3. Of Quesada's 800 men, about 170 reached the Muisca highlands.
4. Quesada may have been the model for Don Quixote; Cervantes knew of him and he spent his fortune on a fruitless El Dorado expedition in his sixties.
5. Federmann's expedition was financed by the Welser banking house of Augsburg, which had a lease on Venezuela.
6. The Muisca had no stone architecture or writing but were among the finest goldsmiths of the Americas.
7. Colombia's emerald mines at Muzo, taken from the Muisca, still produce the world's finest emeralds.
8. Bogota's founding date, 6 August 1538, is disputed; the city was formally founded later that year.

Sources

• Spanish conquest of the Muisca Wikipedia
• Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Muisca Civilization World History Encyclopedia
• John Hemming, The Search for El Dorado (1978) Michael Joseph

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