Pedro de Ursúa (1526 – 1561) 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 ...
from
Baztan in
Navarre
Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...
.
He is best known for his final trip with
Lope de Aguirre
Lope de Aguirre (; 8 November 1510 – 27 October 1561) was a Basque Spanish conquistador who was active in South America. Nicknamed ''El Loco'' ("the Madman"), he styled himself "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom." Aguirre is best known for his ...
in search for
El Dorado, where he found death in a plot.
He was born in
Arizkun, Baztan, to a Beaumont family who supported the Spanish occupation of Navarre, benefiting directly from the Navarrese loyalist defeat at
Amaiur in July 1522.
In Panama, Ursúa subdued a
Cimarron (ex-slave) revolt by tricking Cimarron leader
Bayano
Bayano, also known as Ballano or Vaino, was an African enslaved by Spaniards who led the biggest slave revolts of 16th century Panama. Captured from the Yoruba community in West Africa, it has been argued that his name means ''idol''. Different ...
into coming unprepared to negotiate a truce. He then captured Bayano and sent him back to King
Philip II of Spain. Together with
Ortún Velázquez de Velasco
Ortún Velázquez de Velasco (, Cuéllar, Castile – 4November 1584, Pamplona, New Kingdom of Granada) was a Spanish conquistador. He is known as the co-founder and first governor of Pamplona in the Norte de Santander department of Colombia ...
, Pedro de Ursúa founded the city of
Pamplona
Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region.
Lying at near above ...
,
New Kingdom of Granada
The New Kingdom of Granada ( es, Nuevo Reino de Granada), or Kingdom of the New Granada, was the name given to a group of 16th-century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Royal Audience of Santa ...
, on November 1, 1549.
[Official website Pamplona]
/ref>
Ursúa later searched the Amazon region for '' El Dorado'' with Lope de Aguirre
Lope de Aguirre (; 8 November 1510 – 27 October 1561) was a Basque Spanish conquistador who was active in South America. Nicknamed ''El Loco'' ("the Madman"), he styled himself "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom." Aguirre is best known for his ...
. When Ursúa would not allow Aguirre's mistress on the expedition, Aguirre conspired with another officer, Fernando de Guzman, to use this rejection as a pretext to start a riot in which they assassinated Ursúa and seized power.Descendants of Juan de Ursúa
/ref>
Pedro de Ursúa in fiction
A fictional version of Ursúa and Aguirre's story is depicted in the Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...
film, '' Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes'' and in the Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés (born 4 January 1932) is a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. Along with Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be one of Spain’s most renowned filmmakers. He has a long and prolific career t ...
film '' El Dorado''.
The novel ''Ursúa'' by William Ospina
William Ospina (born 2 March 1954) is a Colombian poet, essayist and novelist. He was born in Herveo, Tolima. He won the Romulo Gallegos Prize for his novel , part of a trilogy about the invasion and conquest of South America.
Life
William Os ...
has become one of the main references concerning Pedro de Ursúa. The book provides details about the life of Ursúa and makes a general account of the events happening in the New World during the mid 16th century.
Gallery
See also
*List of conquistadors in Colombia
This is a list of conquistadors who were active in the conquest of terrains that presently belong to Colombia. The nationalities listed refer to the state the conquistador was born into; Granada and Castile are currently part of Spain, but were s ...
*'' El Dorado''
*Muzo
Muzo () is a town and municipality in the Western Boyacá Province, part of the department of Boyacá, Colombia. It is widely known as the world capital of emeralds for the mines containing the world's highest quality gems of this type. Muzo ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Translation of Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Basque Country article on Lope de Aguirre
- contains large segment on Ursúa's Dorado expedition
*
* ttp://www.editorialbitacora.com/bitacora/mas_alla/aguirre/aguirre.htm El Asesinato de Pedro de Ursua*
1526 births
1561 deaths
Spanish conquistadors
Explorers of Amazonia
People from Baztán (comarca)
History of Colombia
16th-century people from the Kingdom of Navarre
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