Tupinambá migrants reach Chachapoyas

Spanish chroniclers report that a band of Indigenous people from the Brazilian coast reached Chachapoyas in the Peruvian Andes around 1549 after years travelling up the Amazon, with tales of the rich Omagua downriver.

1549 CE · -6.23, -77.87 · status: account

The account

Their stories helped launch Pedro de Ursúa's 1560 expedition to 'Omagua and El Dorado'. Historians connect the migration to Tupí movements in search of a 'land without evil'.

The sceptical view

The episode rests mainly on later Spanish chronicles such as Francisco Vázquez's account of the Ursúa expedition; details of the route are not independently documented.

Connections in the atlas

• Lope de Aguirre, 'the Wrath of God'
• Philipp von Hutten and the Omagua

Sources

1. Cambridge: The Expedition of Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre (Hakluyt Society)