Walter Raleigh‘s 1595 journey with Antonio de Berrio had aimed to reach Lake Parime in the highlands of Guyana (the supposed location of El Dorado at the time). He was encouraged by the account of Juan Martinez, believed to be Juan Martin de Albujar, who had taken part in Pedro de Silva’s expedition of the area in 1570, only to fall into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower Orinoco. Martinez claimed that he was taken to the golden city in blindfold, was entertained by the natives, and then left the city and couldn’t remember how to return.^[3] Raleigh had set many goals for his expedition, and believed he had a genuine chance at finding the so-called city of gold. First, he wanted to find the mythical city of El Dorado, which he suspected to be an actual Indian city named Manõa. Second, he hoped to establish an English presence in the Southern Hemisphere that could compete with that of the Spanish. His third goal was to create an English settlement in the land called Guyana, and to try to reduce commerce between the natives and Spaniards.

In 1596 Raleigh sent his lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, back to Guyana in the area of the Orinoco River, to gather more information about the lake and the golden city.^[4] During his exploration of the coast between the Amazon and the Orinoco, Kemys mapped the location of Amerindian tribes and prepared geographical, geological and botanical reports of the country. Kemys described the coast of Guiana in detail in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596)^[5] and wrote that indigenous people of Guiana traveled inland by canoe and land passages towards a large body of water on the shores of which he supposed was located Manoa, Golden City of El Dorado.

Though Raleigh never found El Dorado, he was convinced that there was some fantastic city whose riches could be discovered. Finding gold on the riverbanks and in villages only strengthened his resolve.^[6] In 1617, he returned to the New World on a second expedition, this time with Kemys and his son, Watt Raleigh, to continue his quest for El Dorado. However, Raleigh, by now an old man, stayed behind in a camp on the island of Trinidad. Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards and Kemys subsequently committed suicide.^[5] Upon Raleigh’s return to England, King James ordered him to be beheaded for disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish.^[7] He was executed in 1618.

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

1. Bell, Robert (1837). Lives of the British Admirals: Robert Devereux. Sir Walter Raleigh Volume 4. Longman. pp. 330–35.
2. ^ Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana, Hakluyt Society, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006. ISBN 0904180875
3. ^ Dotson, Eliane. “Lake Parime and the Golden City” (PDF). Wash Map Society. p. 4. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
4. ^ “Raleigh’s Second Expedition to Guiana”. Guyana. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b Laughton, John Knox (1885–1900). “Kemys, Lawrence (DNB00)”. Dictionary of National Biography. 30.
6. ^ “Sir Walter Raleigh”. Learn NC. UNC School of Education. Archived from the original on 6 February 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
7. ^ Drye, Willie. “El Dorado Legend Snared Sir Walter Raleigh”. National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 18 November 2010. Retrieved 15 February 2019.

In early 1611 Sir Thomas Roe, on a mission to the West Indies for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, sailed his 200-ton ship, the Lion’s Claw, some 320 kilometres (200 mi) up the Amazon,^[3] then took a party of canoes up the Waipoco (probably the Oyapock River) in search of Lake Parime, negotiating thirty-two rapids and traveling about 160 km (100 mi) before they ran out of food and had to turn back.^[4][5][6][7]

In 1627 North and Harcourt, obtained letters patent under the great seal from Charles I, authorising them to form a company for “the Plantation of Guiana”, North being named as deputy governor of the settlement. Short of funds, this expedition was fitted out, a plantation established in 1627, and trade opened by North’s endeavours.^[2]

In 1637-38, two monks, Acana and Fritz, undertook several journeys to the lands of the Manoas, indigenous peoples living in western Guyana and what is now Roraima in northeastern Brazil. Although they found no evidence of El Dorado, their published accounts were intended to inspire further exploration.^[8]

In November 1739, Nicholas Horstman, a German surgeon commissioned by the Dutch Governor of Guiana, traveled up the Essequibo River accompanied by two Dutch soldiers and four Indian guides. In April 1741 one of the Indian guides returned reporting that in 1740 Horstman had crossed over to the Rio Branco and descended it to its confluence with the Rio Negro. Horstman discovered Lake Amucu on the North Rupununi but found neither gold nor any evidence of a city.^[9]

In 1740, Don Manuel Centurion, Governor of Santo Tomé de Guayana de Angostura del Orinoco in Venezuela, hearing a report from an Indian about Lake Parima, embarked on a journey up the Caura River and the Paragua River, causing the deaths of several hundred persons. His survey of the local geography, however, provided the basis for other expeditions starting in 1775.^[1]

From 1775 to 1780, Nicholas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos, two entrepreneurs employed by the Spanish Governors, set out on foot and Santos, proceeding by the Caroní River, the Paragua River, and the Pacaraima Mountains, reached the Uraricoera River and Rio Branco, but found nothing.^[10]

Between 1799 and 1804, Alexander von Humboldt conducted an extensive and scientific survey of the Guyana river basins and lakes, concluding that a seasonally-flooded confluence of rivers may be what inspired the notion of a mythical Lake Parime, and of the supposed golden city on the shore, nothing was found.^[1] Further exploration by Charles Waterton (1812)^[11] and Robert Schomburgk (1840)^[12] confirmed Humboldt’s findings.

GOLD STRIKES AND THE EXTRACTIVE WEALTH OF THE RAINFOREST

By the mid-1570s, the Spanish silver strike at Potosí in Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) was producing unprecedented real wealth.^{[citation needed]}

In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died, bringing to an end the era of Elizabethan adventurism. A bit later, in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the great inspirer, was beheaded for insubordination and treason.^{[citation needed]}

In 1695, bandeirantes in the south struck gold along a tributary of the São Francisco River in the highlands of State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The prospect of real gold overshadowed the illusory promise of “gold men” and “lost cities” in the vast interior of the north.^{[citation needed]}

The gold mine at El Callao (Venezuela), started in 1871, a few miles at south of Orinoco River, was for a time one of the richest in the world, and the goldfields as a whole saw over a million ounces exported between 1860 and 1883.^{[citation needed]} The immigrants who emigrated to the gold mines of Venezuela were mostly from the British Isles and the British West Indies.^{[citation needed]}

The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA),^[13] officially created on February 24, 2016 as the Arco Mining Orinoco National Strategic Development Zone, is an area rich in mineral resources that the Republic of Venezuela has been operating since 2017;^[14][15] occupies mostly the north of the Bolivar state and to a lesser extent the northeast of the Amazonas state and part of the Delta Amacuro state. It has 7,000 tons of reserves of gold, copper, diamond, coltan, iron, bauxite and other minerals.^{[citation needed]}

It appears today that the Muisca obtained their gold in trade, and while they possessed large quantities of it over time, no great store of the metal was ever accumulated.^{[citation needed]}

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

1. Humboldt, Alexander von, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, (chapter 25). Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853.
2. From Robert Harcourt (explorer): Goodwin, Gordon (1890). “Harcourt, Robert” . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. Cardoso, Alírio (2011). “A conquista do Maranhão e as disputas atlânticas na geopolítica da União Ibérica (1596-1626)”. Revista Brasileira de História. 31 (61): 317–338. doi:10.1590/S0102-01882011000100016.
4. ^ Dean, James Seay (2013). Tropics Bound: Elizabeth’s Seadogs on the Spanish Main. The History Press. ISBN 978-0752496689.
5. ^ Williamson, James Alexander (1923). English colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, 1604-1668. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 54.
6. ^ Lane-Poole, Stanley (1885–1900). “Roe, Thomas (DNB00)”. Dictionary of National Biography. 49.
7. ^ Brown, Michael J. (13 January 2015). Rowse, A. L. (ed.). Itinerant Ambassador: The Life of Sir Thomas Roe. University Press of Kentucky. p. 15. ISBN 978-0813162270. JSTOR j.ctt130j7sv.
8. ^ Durivage, Francis Alexander (1847). A popular cyclopedia of history: ancient and modern, forming a copious historical dictionary of celebrated institutions, persons, places and things … Case, Tiffany and Burnham. p. 717.
9. ^ Harris, C. A.; Abraham, John; De Villiers, Jacob (1911). Storm Van’s Gravesande: The Rise of British Guiana, Compiled from his Works. Hakluyt Society.
10. ^ Pierce, Edward M. (1867). The Cottage Cyclopedia of History and Biography: A Copious Dictionary of Memorable Persons, Events, Places and Things, with Notices of the Present State of the Principal Countries and Nations of the Known World, and a Chronological View of American History,. Case, Lockwood. pp. 1004.
11. ^ Waterton, Charles (1891). Moore, Norman (ed.). Wanderings in South America. London, Paris & Melbourne: Cassell & Co, Ltd. p. 192 – via gutenberg.org.
12. ^ Rivière, Peter (2006). The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk, 1835-1844: Explorations on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, 1835-1839. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 274. ISBN 0904180867.
13. ^ http://historico.tsj.gob.ve/gaceta/febrero/2422016/2422016-4514.pdf Decreto N° 2.248, mediante el cual se crea la Zona de Desarrollo Estratégico Nacional “Arco Minero del Orinoco”.
14. ^ Egaña, Carlos, 2016. El Arco Minero del Orinoco: ambiente, rentismo y violencia al sur de Venezuela
15. ^ Cano Franquiz, María Laura. “Arco Minero del Orinoco vulnera fuentes vitales y diversidad cultural en Venezuela”. La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 July 2017.