Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
to a man, later to a city, and then to an entire country—all legendary. The legend arose from a custom of
the Muysca tribe, living on the high flatlands near Bogotá, of anointing each new chief with a resinous
gum and then covering him with gold dust. The chief would then plunge into a sacred lake and wash off
the gold while his people threw in offerings of emeralds and gold.
The empire of Guiana is directly east from Peru towards the sea, and lieth under the equinoctial
line, and it hath more abundance of gold than any part of Peru, and as many or more great cities
than ever Peru had when it flourished most: I have been assured by such of the Spaniards as have
seen Manoa, the capital city of the Guiana, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, that for the great-
ness, for the riches for the excellent seat, it far exceedeth any of the world. . . . How all these rivers
cross and encounter, how the country lieth and is bordered mine own discovery, and the way that I
entered, with all the rest, your lordship shall receive in a large chart or map, which I have not yet
finished, and which I shall most humbly pray your lordship to secrete and not suffer it to pass your
hands; for by a draught thereof all may be prevented by other nations; for I know it is this very year
sought by the French.
The custom had ended long before the Spanish arrived, but the legend survived and grew to mythic
stature. When the first Spanish explorers heard of this tale, they named this chieftain El Dorado, “the
Golden One.” The Spanish explorers eagerly perpetuated the myth of El Dorado because it provided such
a simple rationale for continued exploration. They even identified El Dorado as the city of Manoa, sup-
posedly in southeastern Guiana. Much of the Spanish exploration and conquest of South America was a
direct result of the legend of El Dorado and the searches it inspired.
Even while El Dorado's allure attracted the Spanish and then Englishmen like Raleigh, a second legend
sprung up, perhaps the practical joke of vengeful natives who wanted the white men to go away and en-
joyed the sport of seeing their white conquerors go wandering all over the country in search of a fantasy.
An even greater fortune awaited the man who could find Cíbola, with its Seven Cities of Gold, which were
supposed to exist in the southwest area of North America. The legend attracted Spanish explorers, most
notably Francisco Coronado (1510-1554), who took three hundred Spanish cavalrymen and a thousand
Indians on a long trek in 1540 through much of the Southwest. What they eventually discovered as Cíbola
was a collection of Zuñi pueblos, although the expedition also found the Grand Canyon.
Is America One Continent or Two?
If a continent is a large unbroken land mass completely surrounded by water, why call North and South
America different continents? They are clearly connected to each other. Central America—which com-
prises the seven independent republics of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ni-
caragua, and Panama—creates a land bridge between North and South America. And even though this thin
strip was often flooded in the past, logically speaking, the two continents are one. But political and histor-
ical considerations—especially the fact that the history of Canada and the United States was dominated by
the British, while Spain retained its control of Mexico and almost everything south of it save Brazil—often
override geographical facts. And no one ever said that geography is a perfectly logical science anyway!
Americans may be poor on the facts about Canada and Mexico, their nearest neighbors, but they are
utterly desperate when it comes to South America. For instance, most Americans would be surprised to
learn that virtually the whole continent of South America lies east of Savannah, Georgia. With an area of
