Francisco de Orellana's Voyage down the Amazon (1541-1542)

Francisco de Orellana’s voyage down the Amazon in 1541–1542 was the first known journey by Europeans along the length of the world’s largest river. Setting out from the forests east of the Andes in present-day Ecuador, Orellana and about 57 Spaniards drifted, rowed and fought their way some 4,000 kilometres or more to the Atlantic in eight months. The account of their chronicler, Friar Gaspar de Carvajal, gave the river its name and offers a rare glimpse of the populous societies that then lived along its banks.

Background: the search for cinnamon and gold

Orellana, born in Trujillo in Extremadura around 1511, had served in Peru alongside his relatives the Pizarros and founded the city of Guayaquil. In 1541 Gonzalo Pizarro, governor of Quito and brother of Francisco Pizarro, organised an expedition east of the Andes to find the “Land of Cinnamon” (La Canela) and the rumoured golden kingdom later called El Dorado.

Gonzalo left Quito early in 1541 with roughly 200 to 220 Spaniards, about 4,000 Indigenous porters, horses, dogs and pigs. Orellana followed with a smaller group and joined him on the way. The cinnamon trees proved scattered and worthless, and the expedition sank into hunger in the rainforest. Many of the porters died.

Separation on the Coca River

On the Coca River the Spaniards built a small brigantine, the San Pedro, to carry the sick and supplies. Starving, they heard of a well-fed region downstream. On 26 December 1541 Orellana left with the brigantine, some canoes and about 57 men to find food and bring it back.

The current carried them quickly down the Coca and into the Napo. After days without food they reached friendly villages, but returning upstream against the flow proved impossible. In early 1542 Orellana decided to continue downstream. His men signed a petition asking him not to turn back, which he later used in his defence. Gonzalo Pizarro, abandoned, struggled back to Quito with about 80 survivors in mid-1542 and denounced Orellana as a traitor.

The descent of the Amazon

In February 1542 the party reached the main Amazon, near the mouth of the Napo. At the village of Aparia they rested and built a second, larger brigantine, the Victoria. From then on the voyage was a long passage through densely settled territory, where they sometimes traded and sometimes seized food by force. On 3 June 1542 they passed the mouth of a great dark river, which they named the Río Negro.

Carvajal described large chiefdoms along the banks, with roads leading inland, well-made pottery and towns stretching for many leagues. In one province, ruled by a lord named Machiparo, the Spaniards were attacked by fleets of canoes. Carvajal himself lost an eye to an arrow in a later fight.

The battle with the “Amazons”

On 24 June 1542, near the mouth of a river probably to be identified with the Nhamundá, the Spaniards fought warriors who, according to Carvajal, were led by about ten or twelve tall women fighting at the front. A captive later told Orellana of a land of women living without men. These details echoed the Amazons of Greek legend, and the river soon became known as the Río de las Amazonas. Others called it the Río de Orellana, and the name Marañón was also used for its upper course.

Reaching the sea

Near the mouth the Spaniards repaired their boats and made rigging from vines and sails from blankets. On 26 August 1542 they passed into the Atlantic. The two vessels became separated but both followed the coast north, reaching the Spanish pearl-fishing island of Cubagua, off Venezuela, in September 1542. Remarkably, only a small number of the men had died on the descent, most of them in fighting.

Key people

• Francisco de Orellana (c. 1511–1546), leader of the descent.
• Gonzalo Pizarro, commander of the original expedition, who returned to Quito.
• Gaspar de Carvajal, Dominican friar and chronicler of the voyage.

Orellana himself had a talent for languages and could communicate in some Indigenous tongues, which helped him obtain food peacefully at several points. Carvajal’s narrative, written soon after the voyage, is the main source for the journey. It is vivid and detailed but also partly a defence of Orellana against the charge of desertion, so historians read it alongside the petition signed by his men and later testimony.

Aftermath

Orellana went to Spain, where in 1544 the Crown named him governor of a new province, New Andalusia, along the river. His return expedition of 1545 was poorly funded and plagued by shipwreck, disease and desertion. Orellana died near the Amazon delta around November 1546, and the colony was abandoned. Gonzalo Pizarro returned to find his brother Francisco murdered, as told in our article on the assassination of Francisco Pizarro, and later led a revolt against the New Laws.

Myths and facts

For centuries scholars dismissed Carvajal’s descriptions of crowded riverbanks as exaggeration, because later travellers found the Amazon thinly populated. Archaeological work since the late 20th century, including studies of fertile “dark earth” soils, large earthworks and complex pottery traditions, has shown that parts of Amazonia did support large, organised populations before European contact. Epidemic diseases introduced after 1500 probably caused a drastic decline.

The “warrior women” episode remains uncertain. Carvajal may have exaggerated, misunderstood what he saw or been influenced by classical stories. Nor was Orellana the first European at the river: Vicente Yáñez Pinzón had entered its mouth in 1500, as told in our article on Pinzón and the Amazon.

Legacy

Orellana’s descent showed that the Amazon could be travelled from the Andes to the sea, but it did not lead to quick Spanish settlement. Later Spanish attempts, such as the disastrous expedition of Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre in 1560–1561, also failed. Much of the lower river eventually came under Portuguese control, especially after Pedro Teixeira led an expedition upstream from Belém to Quito and back in 1637–1639.

In Ecuador the voyage became part of national identity, because it began on rivers that now lie within the country. Ecuador marks 12 February, the traditional date of the arrival at the Amazon in 1542, as the day of the river’s discovery, and the province of Orellana and the city of Puerto Francisco de Orellana, also known as Coca, carry the explorer’s name. Peru and Brazil, through which most of the route passed, also claim parts of the story.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1541, early: Gonzalo Pizarro’s expedition leaves Quito; Orellana joins it.
• 1541, 26 December: Orellana leaves Pizarro’s camp on the Coca River.
• 1542, February: The party reaches the Amazon at the mouth of the Napo.
• 1542, 3 June: The Spaniards pass and name the Río Negro.
• 1542, 24 June: Battle with warriors Carvajal describes as led by women.
• 1542, 26 August: The boats reach the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1542, September: Arrival at Cubagua, off Venezuela.
• 1546, c. November: Orellana dies during a second expedition.

Why it matters

Orellana’s voyage revealed the enormous scale of South America’s interior and its river system to Europeans. Carvajal’s account remains a key source for Indigenous Amazonian societies before their collapse, and it gave the river the name it still carries.