The Muisca Confederation and the Legend of El Dorado
The Chibcha-speaking Muisca people built a confederation of rulers on the high plains of the Colombian Andes, with a salt and gold trade economy and a coronation ritual at Lake Guatavita that gave rise to the legend of El Dorado. The Spanish conquest of 1537-1540 absorbed the confederation into the New Granada colony and made its capital, Bacata, the site of modern Bogota.
Events
Settlement of the Bogota Savanna
Chibcha-speaking agricultural communities established themselves on the fertile high plains of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes, around 2,600 meters (8,500 feet) above sea level. Farming maize, potatoes, and quinoa and trading in salt, gold, emeralds, and cotton, the population grew into one of the densest in pre-Columbian South America.
Location: Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia
The Confederation of Rulers
Muisca political organization took shape as a loose confederation rather than a single state: the zipa ruled the south from Bacata (near modern Bogota), the zaque ruled the north from Hunza (modern Tunja), the iraca presided over the sacred City of the Sun at Sugamuxi, and other rulers such as the Tundama held separate territories. The zipa and zaque were frequently rivals, a division that later shaped the course of the Spanish conquest.
Location: Bacata and Hunza
The Salt and Gold Economy
The zipa's monopoly on the salt works at Zipaquira and the confederation's gold-working, emerald, and cotton textile production supported trade networks reaching to the Llanos and the Magdalena valley. Gold was worked into ornaments of tumbaga alloy for ritual and elite use rather than serving as currency, and the Muisca exchanged these goods with neighboring peoples.
Location: Zipaquira and the Bogota savanna
The Coronation Ritual at Lake Guatavita
A new zipa was invested with a ritual at the crater lake of Guatavita: covered in gold dust and borne on a raft, he made offerings of gold and emeralds into the sacred lake. Spanish accounts of this ceremony, elaborated in retelling into a city of gold, became the legend of El Dorado and drew successive expeditions across South America for decades.
Location: Lake Guatavita, Colombia
Quesada's Expedition Reaches the Savanna
The expedition of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, sent from the Caribbean port of Santa Marta up the Magdalena River in search of a route to Peru, climbed into the Andes and reached the Bogota savanna in April 1537. Months of jungle travel had killed most of the roughly 900 men who had set out; the survivors found a densely settled agricultural landscape organized around Bacata.
Location: Bogota savanna, Colombia
The Defeat of Tisquesusa and the Fall of Bacata
The zipa Tisquesusa was defeated near Funza and killed by Spanish soldiers who did not recognize him in the fighting. His nephew Sagipa succeeded him and initially allied with Quesada against the Panche, a rival people to the west, before being seized by the Spanish and dying under torture. The zaque of the north, Quemuenchatocha, was captured in Hunza and held for ransom.
Location: Funza, Colombia
The Burning of the City of the Sun
Soldiers of the expedition, entering the sacred city of Sugamuxi during a religious festival, accidentally set fire to its temple, one of the principal shrines of Muisca religion. The loss of the temple, together with the capture or killing of the principal rulers, dismantled the religious and political structure of the confederation within a single year.
Location: Sugamuxi, Colombia
The Founding of Bogota and the End of the Zaques
Quesada refounded Bacata as Santafe de Bogota, the seat of the new Spanish colony of New Granada, on the site of the zipa's capital. The following year the last independent zaque, Aquiminzaque, was executed by the Spanish commander Hernan Perez de Quesada after a ceremony in Hunza, ending the confederation's independent political line.
Location: Bacata (Santafe de Bogota)
The Muisca Under Colonial Rule
The encomienda system placed the Muisca population in forced labor for Spanish grantees, and epidemic disease together with the disruption of the conquest reduced the population drastically over the following century. The Muisca language, Muysccubun, was displaced by Spanish in most communities, though the Muisca people survived and remain a recognized people of Colombia; their language and the Muisca raft, found in 1969 and depicting the Guatavita coronation, are the focus of modern revival efforts and national symbols.
Location: New Granada