Francisco de Orellana
Birthplace	Trujillo, Extremadura, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	Conquistador
Known for	First known navigation through the length of the Amazon River

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Orellana, Francisco de

Born 1505 or 1511 in Trujillo, Spain; died 1546 or 1550 in Brazil. Spanish conquistador.

In 1537, Orellana reestablished Fort Guayaquil, which had been destroyed by the Indians. In 1541 he left Guayaquil and crossed the Andes. He traveled along the Napo River and then down the Amazon, which crossed the “land of the Amazons”; he reached the Atlantic Ocean in August 1542. Orellana traversed South America at its widest part and traced the entire middle and lower Amazon.

REFERENCE

Otkrytie velikoi reki Amazonok. Moscow, 1963. (Translated from Spanish.)

Mentioned in

Amazon & Galapagos Day

References in periodicals archive

El rio Amazonas fue descubierto en gran parte de su curso por Francisco de Orellana en 1542, y lo hizo como integrante de la expedicion de Gonzalo Pizarro, que salio de Quito en 1539 y cuyos pormenores no interesan en este momento.

Geografia, cartografia y etnologia en el Alto Amazonas. Contrastes entre los siglos XVII y XXI

La novela de William Ospina El pais de la canela (2008), confeccionada con un historicismo hipertextual--que emula una tendencia que desde hace rato sirve como lienzo para la produccion latinoamericana--narra la historia de un mestizo que a temprana edad se inmiscuye en una de las mas atractivas empresas nacidas en el Nuevo Mundo para buscar del pais del oro y la canela, la aventura comandada por Francisco de Orellana y Gonzalo Pizarro en 1540.

El mito como expresion del desentendimiento cultural en El pais de la canela de William Ospina

De Bruhl provides a lively introduction to the river's history, from the 16th-century exploration of the river by Francisco de Orellana, through the scientific expeditions of Alfred Russell Wallace and others during the 19th century, up to current efforts to conserve the Amazon basin's biodiversity.

The river sea; the Amazon in history, myth, and legend

Address: Francisco de Orellana #236; Tel: (5934) 600-9200; Web.

Ecuador--top hotels in Quito and Guayaquil

Both the indigenous inhabitants of the region and the first Spaniard to navigate the length of the river, Francisco de Orellana, could have helped to guide the maranones to safety.

Death in El Dorado: the anthropophagous jungle in one account of Lope de Aguirre's revolt