Chapter 15 & 16 The River Yuyaparí & The Kingdom of Venezuela Summary and Analysis

The river Yuyaparí runs through the province of Paria and extends upstream for more than two hundred leagues. It was discovered in 1529 where a commander and four hundred of his men sailed up the river quickly and quietly ransacking and demolishing towns along the way.

During this time it had become customary to write false reports about the New World to Spain. In 1526, a series of misleading reports led the Spanish Crown to give power of Venezuela to German merchants to control the slave trade there. The Germans were even more savage than the Spaniards and were labeled "devils in human form" both by natives and the missionaries. They devastated more than four hundred leagues of fertile land and drove out over four or five million people...