Sebastián de Belalcázar

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Sebastián de Belalcázar

Sebastián de Belalcázar (often also: Benalcázar and Belaicázar; actual family name: Moyano; * around 1479 or 1495 in Belalcázar near Córdoba , Andalusia ; † 1551 in Cartagena , Colombia) was a Spanish conquistador . In some cases, he played a decisive role in conquering the territories of today's Nicaragua , Ecuador and southwestern Colombia .

Life

youth

Sebastián Moyano was probably a farmer's son. The main tradition says that he was born around 1479. Accordingly, Sebastián fled from his parents' house to Seville before his brother . From there he took part in the third trip of Christopher Columbus to America (1498-1500). He is said to have fought in Santo Domingo in 1507 .

According to another tradition of Juan de Castellanos , he fled in 1507 because his father's donkey had sunk in the mud. Out of impatience he is said to have hit the donkey so hard that it died, whereupon he fled for fear of his father's anger. According to this tradition, he was born around 1495 and arrived in the New World in 1519 with the troops of Pedro Arias Dávila .

Central America

Travels of Sebastián de Belalcázar in America

In any case, he got to Darién ( Panama ) and from there with Francisco Hernández de Córdoba to the west, where he held an important position in the 1524 conquest of today's Nicaragua. Among other things, he attended the founding of the city of León in what is now Nicaragua, and he is considered the legendary first mayor ( alcalde ) of this city. He was probably a captain ( capitán ) and commander in the region. During this time he got to know Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro .

South America

Around 1532 he sold his goods in Nicaragua, equipped two ships and joined the conquista of the Inca Empire . After they captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa in the battle of Cajamarca , Pizarro sent him to his base in San Miguel (possibly today's Piura in northern Peru ) as governor .

In February 1534 he advanced north with an army of 150 Spanish soldiers and numerous Indian auxiliaries. In Cañar he met the troops of Rumiñahuis , an army leader of Atahualpas who, after his death, ruled the northern Inca empire and its capital Quito . Belalcázar's troops emerged victorious from the battle. On his retreat to the north, Rumiñahui destroyed the main cities of his dominion. Belalcázar followed him and founded the cities of Santiago and San Francisco near today's Riobamba, the latter of which was relocated to the ruins of the destroyed old Quito on December 6, 1534 and the former, after repeated relocations, forms today's Guayaquil on the Pacific coast. Belalcázar initially resided in Quito, organized the reconstruction, rule and persecution of Rumiñahui, who was eventually captured in an inaccessible Andean region. Spent to Quito, Belalcázar tried in vain to get Rumiñahui to investigate the whereabouts of the gold of the ruling house. Rumiñahui was executed.

Shortly after taking Quito, Belalcázar received a visit from Pedro de Alvarado , Cortés ' right-hand man in the Mexico campaign and conqueror of Guatemala and El Salvador . He had come with an army of almost 1,000 warriors, including over 200 cavalrymen, with the intention of conquering and looting. He had already set up a settlement in Ecuador and was now making demands. A civil war between the two Spanish conquistadors was briefly in the air, but Belalcázar showed negotiating skills and bought most of his army, including some of the eight ships, from Alvarado.

Belalcázar statue, Cali

After 1536, Belalcázar pushed further north into what is now southwestern Colombia . According to tradition, rumors circulating in Quito about a legendary gold country ( Eldorado ) in the north are said to have prompted him to do so. In 1537 he founded the city of Popayán and organized rule over the surrounding area. The cities of Cali , Neiva and Ampudia are considered to be the foundations of Belalcázar from this time.

In 1539 he met Nikolaus Federmann and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada , all of whom claimed rule over the former Chibcha empire and the area of Bogotá , a re-establishment of Jiménez de Quesada. Jiménez de Quesada convinced them to let the dispute settle in Spain, where Charles V made Belalcázar governor of Popayán and the Equinocial Provinces ( Provincias Equinocciales ), which comprised part of present-day Colombia and a large part of present-day Ecuador, in 1540 , was appointed. As such, he was repeatedly involved in arguments with other conquistadors. Among other things, he supported the viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela in suppressing the uprising of Gonzalo Pizarro (since 1544).

After he had Jorge Robledo executed in 1546 , whose territory (the governorship of Antioquia ) he regarded as an insurgent splinter of his own, his enemies achieved that he was sentenced to death and his property confiscated. Belalcázar was unable to appeal to the Spanish king, however, because he died seriously ill in 1551 in the port city of Cartagena , from where he wanted to embark for Spain.

literature

  • Bibiano Torres Ramírez: Conquistadores andaluces . Ediciones Cultura Hispánica del Centro Iberoamericano de Cooperación, Madrid 1978.
  • Asselbergs, Florine GL (2004). Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, a Nahua vision of the conquest of Guatemala. CNWS publications series. Leiden, Netherlands: Research School CNWS. ISBN 978-90-5789-097-0 . OCLC 491630572.

Web links

Commons : Sebastián de Belalcázar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Asselbergs, Florine GL (2004). Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, a Nahua vision of the conquest of Guatemala. CNWS publications series. Leiden, Netherlands: Research School CNWS. ISBN 978-90-5789-097-0 . OCLC 491630572.