Juan de Carvajal was a Spanish

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...

and one of the first governors of Venezuela Province. Carvajal was born in Spain in 1509. He was in Venezuela in the 1540s, a time when territory there had been assigned to the

Welser family Welser was a German banking and merchant family, originally a patrician family based in Augsburg and Nuremberg, that rose to great prominence in international high finance in the 16th century as bankers to the Habsburgs and financiers of Ch ...

by the Emperor

Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infan ...

. When

Philipp von Hutten Philipp von Hutten (18 December 1505 – 17 May 1546) was a German adventurer and an early European explorer and conquistador of Venezuela. He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedig (1528 - 1546), the concession of Venezuela Prov ...

and

Bartholomeus VI. Welser Bartholomeus VI. Welser (''the younger'', 26 October 1512 – c. 17 May 1546) was a member of the Welser banking family, which had acquired the colonial rights to Venezuela Province in 1528 and created Klein-Venedig. He was the son of Bartholom ...

were on a expedition to find the mythical

El Dorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...

, Carvajal tried to take control, and in 1545 he founded the settlement of

El Tocuyo El Tocuyo is a fertile valley and city in west-central Venezuela at elevation. It is located in south-central Lara State about 60 km southwest of Barquisimeto. The town of El Tocuyo was founded by Juan de Carvajal in 1545 on the banks of the T ...

which became the colonists' administrative capital. Von Hutten and Welser returned from the failed expedition in 1546, a dispute broke out and Carvajal had them killed. The Spanish authorities sentenced Carvajal to death and also withdrew the Welser family's colonial rights, which ended

Klein-Venedig (Little Venice) or Welserland (pronunciation �vɛl.zɐ.lant was the most significant territory of the German colonization of the Americas, from 1528 to 1546, in which the Welser banking and patrician family of the Free Imperial Cities of Pr ...

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Santa Ana de Coro

References

Carvaj Spanish conquistadors Royal Governors of Venezuela 1509 births 1546 deaths {{Spain-hist-stub