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The Men of Nikolaus Federmann: Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada

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Abstract

The New Kingdom of Granada, now Colombia, was discovered and settled by three unrelated expeditions organized for different purposes. Two of them were led by Spaniards and one by a German. The first was placed under the leadership of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada by the governor of Santa Marta, and ordered to go south in search of a passage to Peru. Another was led from the south and out of Peru by Sebastián de Benalcázar in search of one Dorado or golden man, who was supposed to reign in the Indian area of Cundirumarca , while the third was organized by Nikolaus Federmann in the province of Venezuela, with the aim of reaching the Xerira land of riches, the existence of which was known from the Indians encountered in early explorations. He was to proceed under the auspices of the German House of Welser, concessionary at the time of the exploration and exploitation of the province of Venezuela.

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... El reino de Granada fue descubierto por tres expediciones, dos españolas y una alemana. Nikolaus Federmann formó parte de esta última que fue sufragada por la empresa de la Casa de los Welser -un grupo de banqueros alemanes atraídos por el Nuevo Mundo y la leyenda del Dorado (Otte 1988: 153-154;Wagner 1967: 7;Avellaneda 1987: 385)-, que lo envía a esta provincia de Venezuela donde se convierte en gobernador, además de explorador así como en fundador de varias ciudades. El libro comprende el primer viaje de Federmann a América. ...
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The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of hispanic voices in the German authors Nikolaus Federmann and Hans Staden. In our research we have set two objectives: firstly, to collect and display the indigenous words that appear in the texts of these authors, and secondly to study and evaluate the strategies used to introduce these lexical indigenisms in their texts to create different communicative situations. Finally, we compare these results with the Spanish chronical texts between 1525 and 1575 according to the Spanish Diachronic Corpus (CORDE).
Chapter
Colombia’s historical development stands in contrast to the experience of its neighbors. Despite shared Spanish cultural influences, the way colonial institutions infiltrated society helped to create a unique political economy. Colombia has long maintained two related and persistent themes that define it: a surprisingly long tradition of civic political engagement and a deep inclination toward violence. The fact that both themes have coexisted for so long gives context to the present realities of a lawless narco-state embedded in a modern liberal democracy. This chapter provides a brief case study of the political development of Colombia to demonstrate that despite the historical differences, the Democratic Purgatory frames one of the oldest democracies in Latin America.