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Georg von Speyer | |
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| Born | 1500 |
| Died | 11 June 1540(1540-06-11) (aged 39–40) |
Georg von Speyer (1500,Speyer,Holy Roman Empire – 11 June 1540,Coro,Klein-Venedig) was a German conquistador inNew Granada andVenezuela. His birth name wasGeorg Hohermuth but he chose to call himself after his place of birth. He is sometimes referred to asJorge de Espira, his name in Spanish. He is a significant figure in the history ofKlein-Venedig (1528 - 1546), the concession ofVenezuela Province to theWelser banking family byCharles I of Spain.
As a boy, he entered the banking house of Anton andBartholomeus V. Welser ofAugsburg, and worked his way up as their confidential agent, accompanying in the latter capacity the fleet that was armed by the Welsers in 1528, and sent underAmbrosius Ehinger to conquer New Granada. Returning toEurope after Ehinger's death, Speyer was among the young fortune seekers solicited by the Welsers tocolonizeNew Granada in 1534. Speyer obtained fromCharles V the appointment of governor of New Granada, despite the claims ofNikolaus Federmann, who had been Ehinger's lieutenant. He armed a new expedition inSpain and theCanary Islands, and on 22 February 1534, landed atCoro.
Between 1535 and 1538 he searched in southwestern Venezuela and northern Colombia for “El Dorado,” in the company ofNikolaus Federmann and then withPhilipp von Hutten. Against advice, Speyer had appointed Federmann his lieutenant. Accompanied by 450 regular troops and 1,500 friendly Indians, they set out on a journey of exploration to the interior. Leaving from the town of Rio Hacha, they followed the eastern flank of the cordilla following the existing salt trade route where it crossed the Andes and entered the lands of theChibcha. The Chibcha were an advance culture whose realm had already been partially conquered byJiménez de Quesada out ofSanta Marta, nowColombia, under orders fromPedro Fernández de Lugo.
After marching together for about 200 miles, Speyer and Federmann divided into two parties, agreeing to meet afterward. Speyer experienced great hardships from hostile Indians, and the soldiers, unaccustomed to march under a burning sun, mutinied several times. When at last they reached the appointed place of meeting without finding any trace of Federmann, the soldiers were discouraged.
But Speyer animated them with the hope of discovering the riches of the El Dorado, of which the survivors of Ehinger's expedition, Federmann among them, had brought the first reports. They continued the march to the south, but, when the rainy season set in, the overflow of the rivers impeded progress, and the consequent fevers decimated their ranks. Speyer persevered for a long time in his search for the El Dorado, until at last his progress was arrested by a mighty river, probably theOrinoco, or its confluent, theApure, and early in 1539 he returned to Coro empty handed with only 80 ragged and sickly men out of the host he had led forth more than four years before.
Because of ill health he resigned as governor in 1539. He set out immediately forEurope to lay his complaint against Federmann before the Welsers, but heard inSanto Domingo of the former's return to Spain, and was persuaded by theReal Audiencia to return to his government, where he died soon afterward. Speyer's narrative to Charles V, which he sent from Santo Domingo, is said to have been published, but no copy of it is known to exist. In 1900, it was hoped that the manuscript might be among the papers in the archives atSimancas which the Spanish government was then publishing.
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