Born c. 1501, Córdoba or Granada, Spain
Died c. 1579, Bogotá, Colombia

Between 1518 and 1521, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) subdued the Aztecs in Mexico. The territories and treasures (including precious metals and finely crafted objects and jewelry) of the advanced Indian civilization became the possessions of Spain. During the 1530s Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475–1541) similarly subdued the Incas of Peru, also claiming their extended realm and fabulous wealth for Spain. Convinced that more rich kingdoms existed in South America, other conquistadors followed, traveling through the continent’s densest jungles and most remote mountains to find them. While they did not discover empires equal in grandeur to those of the Aztecs or the Incas, these men essentially opened up all of South America to European colonization. Gonzalo Jiménez de...