Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera
Oil portrait of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (unknown artist, Museo Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá)
Born	1496 (or 1506 or 1509) Córdoba, Spain
Died	16 February 1579 (aged ~70-85) Suesca, Colombia
Cause of death	Leprosy
Nationality	Castilian
Other names	Gonzalo Jiménez de Quezada Gonzalo Ximénez de Quesada
Occupation	Conquistador, Explorer
Years active	1536-1572
Employer	Spanish Crown
Known for	Spanish conquest of the Muisca Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations Founder of Bogotá First mayor of Bogotá Quest for El Dorado
Notable work	Memoria de los descubridores, que entraron conmigo a descubrir y conquistar el Reino de Granada (1576)
Parents	Luis Ximenez de Quesada (father) Isabel de Rivera Quesada (mother)
Relatives	Hernán Pérez de Quesada (brother) Francisco Jiménez de Quesada (brother) Melchor de Quesada (brother) Catalina Magdalena de Quesada (sister) Andrea Ximénez de Quesada (sister) Isabel de Quesada (half-sister)
Mayor of Bogotá
In office 1538–1539
Preceded by	position established; zipa Sagipa)
Succeeded by	Jerónimo de Lainza

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as De Quezada and Ximénez, (1496 -other sources state 1506 or 1509 – Suesca, 16 February 1579) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the northern part of South America. As a well-educated lawyer he was one of the few intellectuals of the Spanish conquest. He was an effective organizer and leader, designed the first legislation for the government of the area, and was its historian. After 1569 he undertook explorations toward the east, searching for the elusive El Dorado, but returned to New Granada in 1573. He has been suggested as a possible model for Cervantes' Don Quixote.

His father, Luis Jiménez de Quesada, was a hidalgo relative of Gonzalo Francisco de Cordoba, and he had two well-known distant cousins, the conquistadores of Mexico and Peru respectively: Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was born in Cordova, or in Granada, Spain, into a Marrano family which had converted to Catholicism before he was born. He had three younger brothers; Hernán and Francisco, who also were conquistadors, and Melchor, and a sister, Andrea.

De Quesada was an Andalusian lawyer, trained in Granada. He was appointed chief magistrate in 1535 and second in command for an expedition to present-day Colombia, because in that period he wasn’t in good standing with the people at home because he had just lost an important court case in which his mother’s family was economically involved. The commander of the expedition, Pedro Fernández de Lugo (governor of the Canary Islands), had bought the governorship of Colombia and had equipped a fleet and assembled over a thousand men. And so they set sail to Colombia, thinking they would find a very rich land, full of gold and pearls. But when, after two month of navigation, they reached the small coastal settlement of Santa Marta, all they found was a conglomeration of hovels and filthy, disease-ridden colonists who went about dressed in skins or roughly woven and padded cotton clothes made by the Indians. Soon food became scarce and tropical fevers began to smite down the strongest.