Hernán Pérez de Quesada

Biography Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was Hernán's elder brother and commander of the conquest of the New Kingdom of Granada.

Early life Hernán Pérez de Quesada was born around the year 1512 in the Andalusian city of Granada. His family was Catholic, but descended from marranos (Sephardi Jews). His elder brother was conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez and he had four other siblings; brother Melchor, Francisco, who also was conquistador in Peru, and sisters Magdalena de Quesada and Andrea Ximénez de Quesada. In 1535, arriving early 1536, the brothers Gonzalo, Francisco and Hernán sailed from Spain to Santa Marta, one of the first cities founded in modern-day Colombia, by Rodrigo de Bastidas in 1525.

Conquest in Colombia

1536: the harsh route towards Muisca territory

The first indigenous group that was submitted to the Spanish Crown were the Tairona, who inhabit the area around Santa Marta, presently living on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and in Tayrona Park. On April 6, 1536, triggered by the stories of the mythical "City of Gold" El Dorado, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada organised two groups of conquistadors towards the inner highlands of the Colombian Andes, as first European explorers. The land army was led by Gonzalo with Hernán second in command.

The troops led by the De Quesadas passed through among other settlements Tamalameque, Barrancabermeja and Chipatá where the Spanish for the first time learnt to drink chicha, the fermented alcoholic beverage of the Muisca. The almost-naked conquistadors who suffered from the difficult expedition through the jungles received cotton mantles from the Muisca people in Chipatá. The expedition passed through halted in Chía where they spent the Holy Week. After that week in April 1537, he ordered his men towards Funza, the site of the domain of the zipa. Although the army of the brothers De Quesada was reduced to 170 men, the hundreds of guecha warriors couldn't resist their superior arms and were defeated. In the meantime, zipa Tisquesusa sent messengers to the caciques in the Muisca Confederation to inform them of the arrival of the light-skinned heavily armed men. The caciques considered the invaders sacred and didn't dare to attack them. Of the more than 900 soldiers who left Santa Marta a year earlier, only 162 survived the harsh expedition.

First conquest by Hernán Pérez de Quesada

Foundation of Bogotá

One and a half year after the victory of the conquistadors on Tisquesusa, in the area of Teusaquillo, the modern capital of Colombia was founded. Although some historians set the date at April 27, 1539, the common and celebrated date of foundation is August 6, 1538. The foundation was performed by the construction of 12 houses of reed, referring to the Twelve Apostles, and the construction of a preliminary church, also of reed. Father Juan de las Casas held his first mass in the improvised church. The city was named Santafé de Bogotá, a combination of the Spanish city of Santa Fe and the Chibcha name of the southern Muisca capital Bacatá, meaning "Enclosure outside of the farmfields". The newly established country, part of the Spanish Empire was called New Kingdom of Granada, after the place of birth of the brothers De Quesada in Andalusia; Kingdom of Granada. After the destruction and looting of the Sun Temple in Sogamoso in September 1537, Hernán Pérez thought there was an even bigger place where the indigenous people hid their gold, called "La Casa del Sol". In his quest, starting from Sogamoso along the right banks of the Chicamocha River, he approached with a hundred men the terrain of the Lache and entered Jericó, at that time called Cheva, where he and his troops gathered the food of the original inhabitants who promptly fled to Chita.

The city of Tunja, in the times of the Muisca called Hunza, was founded on 1541 by Gonzalo Suárez Rendón in an expedition ordered by Hernán de Quesada.

Later in 1541, Hernán Pérez de Quesada went northward towards the later department of Norte de Santander, where he crossed Panqueba, Guacamayas, El Cocuy and Chita, and reached Chinácota but had to return soon after that. Soldiers of his army submitted the U'wa living in El Cocuy.

On his southern expedition in the same year, Hernán Pérez de Quesada was the first European to reach the southeastern Colombian departments of Caquetá and Putumayo. One of his soldiers, Lázaro Fonte, the lover of Zoratama, died due to the natural dangers of the jungle.

Second conquest by Hernán Pérez de Quesada

Reunion with his brother Francisco and death De Quesada reached Peru with an army of 500 men having failed to find the mythical El Dorado. The brothers returned to Bogotá, where Hernán was tried and imprisoned by Luis Alonso de Lugo, the new governor of the capital, for his mistreatment of the indigenous peoples and the murders of Saymoso, Quiminza, Tisquesusa and Sagipa. In 1544 Hernán and Francisco embarked on a ship from Santo Domingo to Cartagena. Lightning struck the ship off the coast of Cabo de la Vela; both brothers died along with several other conquistadors and the Bishop of Santa Marta, friar Martín de Calatayud.