Francisco de Orellana - Second Voyage and Its Preparation

Second Voyage and Its Preparation

From Cubagua Orellana decided to return to Spain to obtain from the Crown the governorship over the discovered lands, which he named New Andalusia. After a difficult navigation, he touched first the shores of Portugal. The king received him in a friendly way and made him an offer to go back to the Amazon under a Portuguese flag. Orellana's exploration produced an international issue. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas, the majority of the Amazon River should belong to Spain, but the mouth should be ruled by Portugal. Orellana refused the Portuguese offer and went to Valladolid. After nine months of negotiations, Charles I appointed him governor of New Andalusia on February 18, 1544. The charter established that he should explore and settle the Amazonian lands with less than 300 men and 100 horses, and found two cities, one in the mouth and another in the interior of the basin.

After captivating the Spanish court with tales and exaggerations of his voyage down the Amazon, Orellana, after nine months deliberation, obtained a commission to conquer the regions he had discovered. It permitted him to explore and settle Nueva Andalucia, with no fewer than 200 infantrymen, 100 horsemen and the material to construct two river-going ships. On his arrival at the Amazon he was to build two towns, one just inside the mouth of the river. The commission was accepted on 18 February 1544, but preparations for the voyage were frustrated by unpaid debts, Portuguese spies and internal wranglings. Sufficient funds were raised through the efforts of Cosmo de Chaves, Orellana's stepfather, but the problems were compounded by Orellana's decision to marry a very young and poor girl, Ana de Ayala, whom he intended to take with him (along with her sisters). It was only on the arrival of a Portuguese spy fleet at Seville that Orellana's creditors relented and allowed him to sail. On reaching Sanlucar he was detained again, the authorities having discovered a shortfall in his complement of men and horses, and the fact that large numbers of his crew were not Spanish. On 11 May 1545 Orellana (in hiding on one of his vessels) surreptitiously sailed out of Sanlucar with four ships and disappeared from view.

He sailed first for the Canary Islands, where he wasted three months trying to re-supply his ships. He then wasted another two months at the Cape Verde Islands, by which time one ship had been lost, 98 men had died of sickness and 50 had deserted. A further ship was lost in mid-Atlantic, carrying with it 77 crew, 11 horses and a boat to be used on the Amazon. Orellana arrived off the Brazilian coast shortly before Christmas 1545 and proceeded 100 leagues into the Amazon delta.

A river-going vessel was constructed but 57 men died from hunger and the remaining sea-going vessel was driven ashore. The marooned men found refuge among friendly Indians on an island in the delta, while Orellana and a boat party set off to find food and locate the principal arm of the Amazon. On returning to the shipwreck camp they found it deserted, the men having constructed a second boat in which they had set out to find Orellana. The second boat eventually gave up the search and made its way along the coast to the island of Margarita. Orellana and his boat crew, who had set out again to locate the principal channel, were subsequently attacked by Indians. 17 were killed by poisoned arrows, while Orellana himself died of illness and grief, sometime in November 1546.

The second boat crew, on arriving at Margarita, found 25 of their companions, including Ana de Ayala, who had arrived there on a ship of the original fleet. The total of 44 survivors (of an estimated 300) were eventually rescued by a Spanish ship. Many of them settled in Central America, Peru and Chile, while Ana de Ayala befriended another survivor, Juan de Penalosa, with whom she lived with for the rest of her days in Panama. She is last heard of in 1572.