Francisco de Orellana He was born in Trujillo de Extremadura in 1511. His parents were Isabel Chávez and Diego García de Orellana. When he died in 1526, the young Francisco sat down as a soldier and went to the Indies, participating in the conquest of Nicaragua and Castilla de Oro . he arrived in Peru in 1536 , integrating the host that departed from Puerto Viejo in aid of the conqueror Francisco Pizarro, who in Lima faced the siege of the Inca troops commanded by General Titu Yupanqui, lieutenant of Manco Inca. Once the Indians were defeated, Orellana continued fighting until their withdrawal to Vilcabamba. Given that Diego de Almagro, taking advantage of the situation, had taken over Cuzco, Francisco Pizarro decided to send a strong army to help his brother Hernando, naming Orellana lieutenant general and putting him at the head of 700 men, who fought in Las Salinas on June 26, 1538 .
Achieved pacification, Orellana returned to the north and, in reward for his loyalty, Pizarro commissioned him to refound a city of which he would be the lieutenant governor. Orellana chose the mouth of the Guayas to found Santiago de Guayaquil. At the end of 1540, Gonzalo Pizarro arrived from Cuzco to take charge of the government of Quito and with the desire to reach the "cinnamon country", also called "El Dorado". Orellana showed interest in the enterprise and agreed with Gonzalo to contribute men and money, but when he arrived in Quito he was surprised to find that Gonzalo had already left. He reached it at the height of the Sierra de Motin in February 1541, and together they continued to cross the province of Quijos and the Sierra de Zumaco.
Discovery of the Amazon River
As they entered the jungle, the inclement weather began to undermine the health of the expeditionaries, many of them dying, both soldiers of the army and auxiliary Indians. Food became scarce and they were even forced to eat the horses. They then decided to build a boat and meanwhile send Orellana in search of provisions. After many days of sailing, he and his men found a village on the Napo River and satisfied his hunger. They wanted to return but the torrent of the river prevented them from returning and they were forced to continue their course, until they entered the bed of the Amazon River -called Paraguanassu by the Indians- on February 2, 1542 . For reasons that until now are the subject of discussion among historians, Orellana at this point decides not to meet again with Pizarro and, rather, continue the tour of the great discovered river. After four months, during which the Extremaduran and his men covered approximately 1,700 leagues, they reached the Atlantic Ocean on August 26. They skirted the coast until they reached Trinidad Island and then continued to Santo Domingo, where they arrived three months later. Gonzalo Pizarro and his men, meanwhile, without provisions, set out on their way back to Quito, once again crossing the immense jungle and the icy Andes mountain range.
Back to Spain
Orellana immediately traveled to Spain to inform the Crown of his discovery. He was received by the court in the city of Valladolid and managed to get a capitulation by naming him governor of Nueva Andalucía, two hundred leagues from the left bank of the Amazon River. With his own money he prepared an army, recruited people and sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on May 13, 1545. Attacked by a serious illness he died in November 1546 when he had crossed the mouth of the river. Years later, Gonzalo Pizarro would accuse him of being a traitor, not only for having abandoned him in the middle of the jungle, but also for having stolen his most precious secret:“the way out of the other sea”. There are different versions that try to explain the name of the Amazon River:the most widespread is that Orellana had to face, with his expedition, the Amazons, a group of brave women - tall, white-skinned and with long hair, according to reports the chronicles - in the riparian zones of the great river. It has also been said that the name is a combination of the indigenous words ama (to break) and zona (canoe), that is to say “river breaks canoes”.