SOURCE: Hemming, John. “Chapter 9.” In The Search for El Dorado, pp. 151-61. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978.

In the following essay, Hemming describes expeditions by Antonio de Berrío and Domingo de Vera in the last two decades of the sixteenth century to find the elusive El Dorado.

Gonzalo Jiménez died without any immediate family but with great estates of tribute-paying Muisca. He remained obsessed by El Dorado and determined that his heirs should conquer the kingdom that had eluded him. He chose as his heir his niece María, who was married to an old soldier called Antonio de Berrío, veteran of many Spanish campaigns in Italy, Flanders and against the Moors. In his will Jiménez de Quesada wrote: ‘Item: I declare as my successor in … the governorship [of El Dorado], Captain Antonio de Berrío, husband of my niece doña María...