page_title: El Dorado
section_title: Antonio de Berrio's expeditions
hierarchical_section_title: El Dorado / The search for El Dorado / Antonio de Berrio's expeditions
caption_attribution_description: English: Trinidad and Tobago stamp featuring the ‘Discovery of Lake Asphalt by Raleigh, 1595’.
context_page_description: El Dorado, originally El Hombre Dorado or El Rey Dorado, was the term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief of the Muisca people, an indigenous people of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire.
  A second location for El Dorado was inferred from rumors, which inspired several unsuccessful expeditions in the late 1500s in search of a city called Manõa on the shores of Lake Parime. Two of the most famous of these expeditions were led by Sir Walter Raleigh. In pursuit of the legend, Spanish conquistadors and numerous others searched what is today Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Guyana and northern Brazil, for the city and its fabulous king. In the course of these explorations, much of northern South America, including the Amazon River, was mapped. By the beginning of the 19th century, most people dismissed the existence of the city as a myth.
context_section_description: The Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio (nephew of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada), made three failed expeditions to look for El Dorado. Between 1583 and 1589 he carried out his first two expeditions, going through the wild regions of the Colombian plains and the Upper Orinoco. In 1590 he began his third expedition, ascending the Orinoco to reach the Caroní River with his own expeditionaries and another 470 men under command of Domingo de Vera. In March 1591, while he was waiting for supplies on Margarita Island, his entire force was taken captive by Walter Raleigh, who proceeded up the Orinoco in search of El Dorado, with Berrio as a guide. Berrio took them to the territories he had previously explored by himself years before. After several months Raleigh's expedition returned to Trinidad, and he released Berrio at the end of June 1595 on the coast of Cumaná in exchange for some English prisoners. His son Fernando de Berrío y Oruña (1577–1622) also made numerous expeditions in search of El Dorado.
caption: Trinidad and Tobago stamp featuring the 'Discovery of Lake Asphalt by Raleigh, 1595'
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