Paschal of Andagoya

Pascual de Andagoya (Andagoya, 1495-Cuzco, September 18, 1548) was a soldier, explorer, and Spanish discoverer who participated in the conquests of what are now the republics of Panama, Colombia and Peru, and that he was named adelantado and governor of San Juan.

Biography

Pascual de Andagoya was born in 1495 in the village of Andagoya, located in the Cuartango Valley, which since 1468 had become part of the Brotherhood of Álava, which in turn was part of the Castilian Crown.

Usually at the time he left very young, at the age of 19, as an expeditionary to the New World on April 11, 1514, under the command of General Pedro Arias de Ávila, with whom he arrived. The convoy was made up of an army of 2,000 men and 22 ships with the aim of colonizing Central America.

Route of the conquerors:
Alonso de Ojeda (1499-1501)
Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1513)
Pedro Arias Dávila (1513-1519)
Pascual de AndagoyaDiego de Almagro and Francisco Pizarro (1515-1529)
Pedro de Heredia y sus lugartenientes (1532-1538)
Sebastian de Belalcázar (1533-1539)
Sebastian de Belalcázar (1533-1539)
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1536-1538)
Nicolás Federmann (1537-1539)

Andagoya, who crossed the ocean for the first time accompanying Pedrarias Dávila, lived as an encomendero in the city called Santa María de la Antigua de Darién. He participated in several conquest expeditions led by Balboa and Pedrarias, and in August 1519 he took part in the founding of the city of Panama -located further east of present-day Panama-, serving as alderman of said city.

In 1522, Governor Pedrarias appointed Andagoya responsible for visiting the Indians who lived in the province of Castilla de Oro, and he undertook the expedition to the south -in the documents of the time the parts located towards the southern Panama were described as the Levante-. The tour began in Panama and headed south along the Colombian coast, as far as the San Juan River, where he proclaimed himself nominal governor.

When he was in the province of Chochama, he learned that the natives did not want to go fishing on a full moon for fear of the warlike Indians who would come to attack them from the south and that these were the people who lived in the province of Chochama. land called Birú, located further south of Cape Garachine. Andagoya, at the request of the natives of Chochama, who asked him for protection against the invasion of the Birú Indians, and with great anxiety to explore the still undiscovered lands that lay ahead, decided to request the governor of Panama to send relief..

When relief arrived, Andagoya marched with his people and the Chochama Indians for six or seven days along the coast, toward the land called Birú. Later, they went up the Rio Grande for twenty leagues, and there they faced many lords and Indians, and they conquered them. It was then that the existence of the Inca Empire came to their knowledge, in a distant territory called Birú or Piru. Andagoya descended some fifty leagues to the south with the king of Birú, directing two small ships and some canoes, and reached the San Juan River. However, the canoe in which Andagoya was riding capsized amid strong cold winds, and the captain was thrown into the sea. Although Andagoya was saved from drowning, when his health worsened, he returned to Panama and was forced to abandon the company, ending the expedition in a resounding failure. He made his discoveries known, in particular the existence of a territory with enormous wealth in gold and silver, Peru.

Pedrarias, who heard a lot of interesting information from him, granted permission to travel south in 1524 to Francisco Pizarro and two other settlers, the soldier Diego de Almagro and the religious Hernando de Luque, who joined forces to conquer it. The responsibilities of the expedition were divided: Pizarro would command, Almagro would be in charge of military supplies and food, and Luque would be in charge of finances and the provision of aid.

Map of the first nominal region of the Kingdom of Tierra Firme showing the province of the Rio de San Juan (from 1539), Popayán and other governorates.

South American part of the governance of Tierra Firme that separated in 1539 to form the incipient rule of Río San Juan, of the advance Pascual de Andagoya, who annexed in 1540 the province of Popayán and conquered in 1541 the territory of Antioquia (by Juan de Velasco in 1789.

There is news of a fourth associate, Mr. Espinosa, who did not want to appear officially and who would have been the main financier of the expeditions to Peru.

Andagoya was rewarded in 1539 by Carlos I with the position of visitor of Indians, which he applied with rigorous zeal and also with the title of advance of San Juan.

In 1540 he arrived with his wife Mayor Mejía (d. Buenaventura, 1541) and his son Juan de Andagoya, who was named his lieutenant governor, and also had himself proclaimed governor of Popayán.

Governor Andagoya ordered Captain Jorge Robledo to conquer and settle new territories, and in November 1541 he founded a new city called Antioquia for the governorship of San Juan, located in the Ebéjico valley (south of the current town of Little). But when traveling to the Caribbean Sea to embark for Spain, he was captured in Cartagena de Indias by its governor Pedro de Heredia, since that city was founded in a territory considered within his jurisdiction.

At the beginning of 1542, Captain Sebastián de Belalcázar, the new adelantado and legitimate governor of Popayán, overthrew him from his post and imprisoned him but ratified the new city, although within the jurisdiction of his province, ordering Captain Juan Cabrera to He moved it —near present-day Frontino— on Thursday, September 7 of the same year.

The Adelantado Belalcázar appointed Gaspar de Rodas as lieutenant governor of Antioquia on October 7, 1546. The latter moved the city of Antioquia in 1550 to the place of the town of Santa Fe, merging them with the name of Santa Fe de Antioquia.

Pascual de Andagoya died in Cuzco, Viceroyalty of Peru, on September 18, 1548.

Works

• Andagoya, Pascual de, NARRATIVE OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF PEDRARIAS DAVILA IN THE PROVINCES OF TIERRA FIRME OF CASTILLA DEL ORO (eng) — 1540: author of Letter of the Passover Advance of Andagoya addressed to the Emperor Carlos V [...]1540. By Hermann Trimborn, Hamburg, 1954.