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Meet Lope De Aguirre, The 16th Century conquistador who stabbed His own daughter to death while searching for El Dorado
Meet Lope De Aguirre, The 16th Century conquistador who stabbed His own daughter to death while searching for El Dorado
In the 16th century, a Spanish conquistador named Lope De Aguirre joined a group searching for the mythical city of El Dorado. But during the journey, Aguirre became a "madman" who killed his commander and declared himself the "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom, King of Tierra Firma." After rebelling against Spain, he tried to create his own empire in South America — and paid for it with his life.
Read his tumultuous, bizarre story by clicking the link in our profile.
Lope de Aguirre called himself the "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom, King of Tierra Firme." But his fellow explorers just called him a madman.
In a wild quest for the legendary El Dorado, Lope de Aguirre murdered his commander, declared himself the enemy of Spain, and sought to build his own empire deep in the heart of South America.
Instead, he became infamous as one of the most bloodthirsty and eccentric conquistadors in the history of the Spanish Empire.
Lope De Aguirre Goes To America
On November 8, 1510, Lope de Aguirre was born to an impoverished noble family in Spain’s Basque Country soon after its conquest by the Kingdom of Castile. Decades of warfare between competing territories, ethnicities, and religions had left the region violent and full of young men accustomed to fighting.
When he heard tales of the riches and fame acquired by the conquerors of the Inca Empire, Aguirre decided that he would make his fortune on another continent.
Arriving in Peru in the 1530s, Aguirre was too late to share in the enormous wealth gained by the veterans of Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca Empire.
These soldiers were rewarded with the encomienda system, a form of feudal slavery that permanently granted them large estates and control of entire populations of enslaved natives, mostly women and children. But Aguirre made a living breaking horses and working as a mercenary for warring rival factions in the new colony of Nuevo Toledo.
The Maddening Search For El Dorado
Even for the bloody-minded Europeans of the 16th century, the abuses endemic to this system were too much.
When King Charles V sent Blasco Núñez Vela as his new viceroy to enforce laws to end the encomiendas, Aguirre took his side against the wealthy encomenderos. Over the following decade, control of the colony passed back and forth between the rebels and the royalists.
When the royalists finally won in 1559, viceroy Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza had hundreds of bloodthirsty and desperate warriors on his hands with no war to fight.
He soon struck upon the idea of sending these unwanted soldiers to search for El Dorado, which translated to “the Golden One.” This legend had stuck in Spanish minds for decades, growing from a story about a chieftain who covered himself in gold dust to a mythical empire built entirely from gold in the Amazon jungle.
Hurtado appointed a favored officer, 34-year-old Pedro de Ursúa, to lead 300 Spaniards and hundreds of Peruvian slaves into the interior. Ursúa was, in reality, simply emptying Peru of the most violent and dangerous members of the Spanish population, including Lope de Aguirre, accompanied by his young daughter, Elvira.
In his late 50s and just as empty-handed as he’d been when he left Spain, Aguirre was a bitter and broke old man when he signed on for the most fateful journey of his life.
Aguirre Rebels
Ursúa’s expedition was troubled from the start, and he’d been warned against trusting many of his men, including Aguirre, who was resentful of his low rank and being denied the right to bring his mistress on the trip.
Aguirre Rebels
Ursúa’s expedition was troubled from the start, and he’d been warned against trusting many of his men, including Aguirre, who was resentful of his low rank and being denied the right to bring his mistress on the trip.
The expedition traveled hundreds of miles up the Marañón River in canoes stolen from local tribespeople, finding no golden cities. Aguirre began quietly arguing that they should turn back to Peru and seize the riches they knew were there rather than carry on looking for a fantasy.
By the time they reached the territory of the Machiparo tribe, Aguirre had gathered a small band of mutineers together to overthrow Ursúa and replace him with the easily-controlled Don Fernando de Guzmán. On Jan. 1, 1561, the conspirators, who’d taken to calling themselves Marañones after the river they traveled upon, stormed into Ursúa’s tent and stabbed him to death.
Guzman had a document drawn up justifying their actions to royal authorities, but Aguirre, now second-in-command of the expedition, signed it “Lope de Aguirre, the Traitor.” To his shocked companions, he explained:
Guzman, whom Aguirre had proclaimed “Prince of Peru and Chile,” argued that they should continue the search for El Dorado. While Aguirre wanted to return to Peru, he had no intention of returning the way they’d come, with the anger of the various tribes they’d encountered fresh in his mind.
Instead, they would travel on to the Atlantic, sail north, walk across Panama, and sail south to Lima. When Guzman objected, Aguirre had him killed.
Murdering anyone who got in his way, including priests and Inés de Atienza, Ursúa’s mistress, Aguirre eventually purged the expedition of anyone with noble blood and even left the remaining native Peruvians to die in the jungle.
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