One of the least accessible, not to mention explored, areas of the world is the Territorio Amazonas in Venezuela. The Amazon River flows through part of the territory through the Rio Negro (see here and here for posts on Humboldt’s adventures on or near the Río Negro).

The length of the Río Grande (Great River, now known as the Amazon River) was first sailed, most improbably, by Captain Francisco de Orellana. 

Orellana was a friend (some say a cousin) of Francisco Pizarro and helped the latter in the conquest of Peru in 1535.  For his services, Pizarro named Orellana governor of Guayaquil in what is today Ecuador. Concurrently, Pizarro named Gonzalo Pizarro, his half-brother, to lead an expedition into the South American interior to find the “Land of Cinnamon” and he also appointed Orellana as his second in command. The expedition met in Quito and Gonzalo Pizarro sent Orellana back to Guayaquil to recruit troops and also commission horses for the mission. Pizarro felt he could not wait for Orellana’s return and proceeded to leave Quito in February, 1541. 

Orellana arrived in Quito with the men and horses and, finding Pizarro gone, immediately commenced the pursuit of the main expeditionary force, making contact in March. By that time, over 3,000 Indians and over 100 Spanish had died or deserted, “melting away into the jungle.”

They did reach an area of Cinnamon trees and built a small settlement there, named Canelos (“Cinnamon”), a parish still in existence today. By then, they had been set upon by head hunters, disease, and hunger which had taken a dreadful toll. Not far from the settlement they came upon a huge serpentine yellow-waterred river called the Napo. Where did this river lead to? These men immediately began to build a brigantine on its banks and Pizarro ordered Orellana to sail downriver to find food and return once he’d found such.

However, once the craft went out it was drafted by the strong current at 4 to 5 knots. Orellana left Pizarro and his ragged, half starved men on the banks of the Napo. The craft came to the mouth of the river onto the vast Amazon. Efforts to return to Pizarro came to naught and he and the men with him sailed down the entire length of the monstrous Amazon River. 

Accompanying Orellana on this momentous odyssey was the missionary friar, Gaspar de Carvajal, who eventually published his Relación del nuevo descubrimiento del famoso río Grande que descubrió por muy gran ventura el capitán Francisco de Orellana (“Account of the recent discovery of the famous Grand river which was discovered by great good fortune by Captain Francisco de Orellana”). 

For centuries his work was considered too fantastic to be taken seriously for he talked about large settlements and towns along the river’s banks as well as paths and roads and other constructions. He also talked about Amazons. However, his Relación has been taken more seriously in recent years, including by the great 19th century English botanist explorer, Richard Spruce.

But for our purpose today, let us see what Carvajal had to say about the encounter at the mouth of the Trompetas River in the eastern Amazon River, where, after sailing down, down, down, and coming to the Trompetas, they had to battle with the fiercest of Indians they had come against to that moment:

“I want it to be known what the reason was why these Indians defended themselves in this manner, It must be explained that they are the subjects of and tributaries to the Amazons; and when our coming was known to them, they went to them to ask help, and there came as many as ten or twelve of them, for we ourselves saw these women captains who were there fighting in front of all the Indians as women captains, and these fought so courageously that the Indian men did not dare to turn their backs and anyone who did turn his back they killed with clubs right there before us…. These women are very white and tall and have hair very long and braided and wound about the head…they are very robust and go naked save that their privy parts are covered; with their bows and arrows in their hands doing as much fighting as ten Indian men….”

Carvajal wrote that after few days after the fight with the Amazons he “came to a pleasant country where there were Evergreen-oaks and Cork Trees.” That would be near today’s Santarem, about 500 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River. A bishop in the Antilles, upon hearing this tale, asked, “Did these Amazons cut off their right breasts so as to use the bow more easily?” This was believed by some Greeks who fought female warriors repeatedly, according to Greek histories and legends. Orellana did not know such stories. He and Carvajal merely reported what they had seen and experienced. 

Upon his return to Spain, the king’s court disbelieved him, even though other Spanish expeditionaries had heard persistent reports about Amazons, though never had seen them. Spruce writes:

“The voyagers heard rumors of the Amazons’ existence long before reaching them. An Indian chief on the Napo called the Amazons Coniapuyara, the masterful women, the old Indian went into some detail about them, but Orellana lacked a good understanding of the language and let the matter go by until their brigantine reached the río Trombetas, about 600 miles from the mouth of the river…. There they were attacked by Indians led by women. The Amazons were tall, fair, robust, naked except for skins about their loins. The bow and arrow in their hands they wielded with deadly accuracy.”

Orellana and Carvajal reported what they saw. It was not that Orellana mistook long-haired Indian men for women: he had lived two years among the Indians of the Upper Amazon — Jivaros, Zaparos, Huambizas — where all the males wore their hair waist-long and were attired in knee-length skirts. 

Most interestingly, the 50 men who followed Orellana on that extraordinary voyage appeared at court in the presence of the king (Carlos V). Although all of them were not favorably disposed to Orellana, they nevertheless affirmed that they were indeed attacked by Indians led by Amazons. 

As Spruce put it: “It is incredible that fifty persons, and among them a religious priest, should agree in guaranteeing the truth of a lie, especially when nothing was to be gained by it.”

He also saw that all the famous authorities on the Americas — including Humboldt — agreed that the Amazons tradition had been based on fact. Most of the missionaries of the 18th century testified to the same tradition. It was not uncommon for Indians, in confession, to admit having visited periodically the “women living alone.” And, with respect to Orellana’s expedition having fought the Amazons, no Indian tribe doubted it.

Where did these light-skinned women warriors come from? Some researchers posit that after the Trojan Wars they scattered across the globe, with some coming to the shores of South America. Others believe they came during the time of the Phoenecians (1200 BC) who were known to sail the world. We really do not know. 

What happened to them?

An old Indian with whom Spruce spoke told him that his forefathers said that after the Spaniards and Portuguese began to settle in larger numbers, the Amazons retired from their villages near the Trombetas and migrated to somewhere on the Río Negro. He also told Spruce that many an Indian, long from home, confessed the he had spent several months among the warrior women. The Amazons would meet the invited Indian at a place agreed upon, then dismiss him with presents of gold and green stones. He carried back the male children who had reached the age of three.

Green stones? These were known for a long time as Amazon stones. The great 18th century French explorer, La Condamine, had found them worn by Indians in Santarem and these Indians affirmed they had received such from the Amazons. And Sir Walter Raleigh (1591-1618) spoke of Indians on the Orinoco having “chiefly a kinde of greene stones… commonly every king or Casique hath one….”

Possibly, the Amazons migrated to the portion of the Río Negro that flows through the Amazonas State in what is now Venezuela. It is fitting that it be so, as the Río Negro’s name was given by the same Francisco de Orellana who fought the Amazons on the “Grand River”.

The name originally given to the Grand River was Río Orellana. But that was changed to Río Amazonas based on his own comments describing it as “the river of the Amazons”. The great territory in Venezuela was also named accordingly: Territorio Amazonas, which became a state in the 90s.

Gonzalo Pizarro made it back to Quito two years later, very ill and with very few men who had survived with him. He went on to rule Peru after his brother’s death, but this had not been sanctioned by the king and he was defeated in battle, tried, found guilty of treason, and beheaded in Peru in 1548.

Gaspar de Carvajal returned to Peru in 1545, three years after his eventful partnership with Orellana. He lived a long, fruitful life, dying there in 1584.

Francisco Orellana’s astonishing expedition took place in 1542. He returned to the Amazon in 1545, but that journey was far more grim than the first and he died, according to his wife “of grief”; according to other sources, he drowned in the river he once had called “the river of the Amazons.”