Spanish Conquest of the Muisca (1536-1540): Jiménez de Quesada

The Spanish conquest of the Muisca was the campaign of 1536-1540 in which a Spanish expedition led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada subdued the Muisca peoples of the high plateaus of central Colombia. It led to the founding of Bogotá in 1538 and the creation of the New Kingdom of Granada. The Muisca’s gold-offering rituals also gave rise to the enduring European legend of El Dorado.

Background: the Muisca

The Muisca lived on the cool, fertile plateaus of the Eastern Andes, around modern Bogotá and Tunja. They grew maize and potatoes, mined salt and emeralds, wove cotton cloth and were among the finest goldsmiths of the Americas. Estimates of their population at contact vary greatly, from several hundred thousand to over a million.

They were not a single empire. Historians often speak of a “Muisca confederation”, but in practice there were several rival chiefdoms. The two most powerful were ruled by the zipa of Bacatá in the south, Tisquesusa at the time of the conquest, and the zaque of Hunza (Tunja) in the north, Quemuenchatocha. Other powerful chiefdoms included Sogamoso, a major religious centre, and Tundama.

The expedition up the Magdalena

On 5 April 1536 Jiménez de Quesada, a lawyer raised in Granada serving the governor of Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast, set out to find the source of the Magdalena River and, it was hoped, a route to Peru. His force numbered roughly 700 to 800 Spaniards, some marching overland and others in boats on the river.

The journey through swamps and forest was terrible. Hunger, disease, snakes and attacks by local peoples killed most of the men. When the expedition reached the Muisca highlands in March 1537, only around 170 Spaniards remained. Signs of trade in salt and cotton cloth had drawn them up from the river valley into the mountains.

Conquest of the chiefdoms

The highlands impressed the exhausted Spaniards with their dense population, well-kept fields and abundant gold. Quesada’s men fought the zipa’s warriors, whose wooden weapons and cotton armour were no match for steel and horses, and plundered settlements for gold and emeralds.

The Spaniards were especially struck by the emeralds. The Muisca controlled important emerald deposits, and the mines of the region, including Muzo and Chivor, later made Colombia the world’s leading source of emeralds, a position it still holds.

In August 1537 the Spanish seized Hunza and captured the zaque Quemuenchatocha, taking a large treasure. In September 1537 they reached the sun temple at Sogamoso, which caught fire during the looting and burned down. Tisquesusa was killed in 1537 by a soldier who reportedly did not know who he was. His successor, Sagipa, at first allied with the Spanish against rival peoples but was later imprisoned and tortured to reveal hidden treasure, and died in captivity around 1539.

Quesada founded Santa Fe de Bogotá in August 1538, traditionally on 6 August, near the settlement of Bacatá. He named the region the New Kingdom of Granada after his home.

Three conquistadors meet

In early 1539 two other expeditions arrived on the plateau: Nikolaus Federmann, a German leading men for the Welser banking family from Venezuela, and Sebastián de Belalcázar, coming north from Quito after the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Instead of fighting, the three leaders agreed to refer their rival claims to the Crown and sailed to Spain together in 1539.

Quesada’s brother Hernán Pérez de Quesada stayed in command, and Tunja was founded as a Spanish town by Gonzalo Suárez Rendón on 6 August 1539. Over the following years, Muisca lands and people were divided among Spaniards under the encomienda system of forced tribute and labour. Quesada did not become governor, but he returned to the region in 1550 and later led a long, failed search for El Dorado.

The origins of El Dorado

The legend of El Dorado, “the gilded one”, grew from reports of a Muisca ceremony at Lake Guatavita. According to later accounts, notably Juan Rodríguez Freyle’s chronicle of 1636, a new chief of Guatavita was covered in gold dust and taken out on a raft to the middle of the lake, where he and his attendants offered gold and emeralds to the waters.

The ceremony may already have fallen out of use by the time the Spanish arrived. But the idea of a golden ruler grew into the myth of a land or city of gold, which drew expeditions across South America for a century. Attempts to drain Lake Guatavita, in the 1580s and again in the early 1900s, recovered only modest finds.

Timeline

• 1536, 5 April: Jiménez de Quesada leaves Santa Marta.
• 1537, March: The surviving Spaniards reach the Muisca highlands.
• 1537, August: The Spanish seize Hunza and capture the zaque.
• 1537, September: The sun temple at Sogamoso is burned.
• 1538, August: Santa Fe de Bogotá is founded.
• 1539, early: Federmann and Belalcázar reach the plateau.
• 1539, 6 August: Tunja is founded.
• 1539-1540: The three leaders go to Spain; the encomienda system takes hold.

Why it matters

The conquest of the Muisca created the core of colonial Colombia, with Bogotá as its capital. It added a rich, densely settled highland to Spain’s empire and introduced the El Dorado legend, which shaped European exploration of South America. The Muisca’s goldwork, now in Bogotá’s Gold Museum, remains one of the great artistic legacies of the pre-Columbian world.