Amazonia The Land, the Wildlife, the River, the People

Chapter One: History Amazonia -- a legendary land The earliest inhabitants of Amazonia probably arrived some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, following the great migration across the Bering Strait that first peopled the Americas. At that time, towards the end of the most recent Ice Age, the sea level was perhaps 100 feet (30 m) lower than it is today because so much of the world's water was locked up in ice. This exposed a very broad land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, and nomadic hunters from central Asia trailed their prey as mastadons, hairy mammoths and other species made their way across. These first American immigrants then spread throughout the entire New World, and became the ancestors of all native peoples from the Inuit and Aleut of the Arctic to the Tehuelche of Patagonia. Until the closing years of the 15th century the Americas were theirs alone. When Christopher Columbus dropped anchor off the coast of San Salvador in October 1492 it marked the end of America's isolation from the rest of the world, and the beginning of what is known as the European age -- the time when European nations expanded their power and influence all around the globe. The first glimpse Amazonia had of the turbulent time ahead came in 1541. By then, Spanish conquistadors led by the redoubtable Francisco Pizarro had destroyed the mighty Inca empire in Peru and Ecuador, and Pizarro's younger brother Gonzalo Pizarro mounted an expedition from Quito in Ecuador to explore the South American interior. After crossing the Andes, the expedition got bogged down on the banks of the Upper Napo. With supplies nearly exhausted, Pizarro decided that salvation lay in searching further inland for food. A boat was built and about 60 of the original 280 conquistadors set off downstream, under the command of Francisco Orellana. They never returned, leaving Pizarro and the others to struggle back to Quito. Meanwhile, Orellana and his men survived a number of brushes with hostile natives as they successfully navigated the entire length of the Amazon river system, sailing out into the Atlantic 16 months later. To the earliest European explorers Amazonia was a land of legendary female warriors and fabulous treasure. Orellana's epic journey through what he dismissed as a "green hell" failed to dispel one persistent legend about Amazonia and planted another. The expedition had not been undertaken simply for the sake of adventure but to locate El Dorado, the "Gilded Man," a tribal chieftain of such fabled wealth that he was anointed with gold dust every day. El Dorado proved as elusive in 1541 as he and the fabled land that bears his name have been ever since. Orellana did, however, claim to have come across a race of awesome female warriors. They too have eluded all subsequent search parties, but have gained immortality through the name the Spanish gave them, and eventually the river and the entire region. It was inspired by the Greek myth of female archers who cut off their right breasts to improve their shooting technique: the legendary Amazons. The Portuguese stake their claim While it was the Spanish who made the first descent of the Amazon to its mouth, it was the Portuguese who eventually claimed the lion's share of Amazonia. This was largely fortuitous, a result of a famous papal bull promulgated by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 and, with modifications, enshrined in the Treaty of Tordesillas the following year. The pope grandly apportioned the whole of the unexplored regions of the world between the two Catholic powers, Spain and Portugal. An arbitrary line was drawn through the Atlantic from pole to pole. Everything to the east belonged to Portugal (giving it Africa, whose west coast the Portuguese had been busily exploring), everything to the west was Spain's (the Genoese-born Columbus had sailed in the service of Spain). The unintended effect of this was to give the eastern bulge of South AmerCapelas, Alfonso is the author of 'Amazonia The Land, the Wildlife, the River, the People' with ISBN 9781552975893 and ISBN 1552975894.