An article in the Sunday Guardian of May 8 titled Story of Trinidad unveiled, being the review of a book of the same name by Michelle Loubon, is worth a rambling comment, as the extract from the book discussing the origin of the myth of El Dorado differs from that given in the History of Trinidad under the Spanish Government by Pierre-Gustave Louis Borde, which deals with the same period that The Story of Trinidad, authored by Douglas Archibald, being the first volume of four relating the history of Trinidad from 1498 to 1900.
The reviewer did not give the date of publication, which is always important in a book review, as well as the publisher. The history by Borde was published in Pans in 1876, and the English translation published by Gerard Besson in 1982. According to Borde, the legend originated when Don Diego de Ordaz, one of the companions of Cortez, was granted the lands from the promontory of Paria in the north to the Amazon river in the south, and sailing from Spain, landed at the mouth of that river where he obtained from the Indians a quantity of emeralds, and was told a mountain of the same stones lay inland.
Ascending the Amazon, he searched in vain for the mountain, but the rumours spread, and evolved, so that the location of the fabulous country was soon believed to be on the Rio Meta, a tributary of the Orinoco. The location shifted when an Indian told the Governor of Popayan, Sebastian de Belalcezar, of a great kingdom on the plateau of Cundinamarca, and three expeditions set out, one being from the German station of Welzer in Venezuela led by Nicolas Federmann, and the other two from Popayan and Bogota. All this took place between 1532 and 1540.
About 1580, the location of El Dorado changed again, when a Spaniard called Albujar claimed that he had been held captive for several months in the city of La Monoa, the capital of a great empire. This caused another metamorphosis of the myth, and set off a new series of expeditions to find La Manoa. Trinidad had become the jump off point for some of these expeditions, and the enchantment with the legend continued well into the 1600's, exerting a maddening influence on the minds of adventurers for more than a century Borde was the keeper of the Lapeyrouse cemetery, and was also that very rare item, a natural scholar.
His research was extensive, and in the preface he complains that the old archives of the Cabildo were destroyed by worms shortly after the conquest by the British. His researcher in London was HH Dobree, and he had obtained permission from the Spanish government to consult and copy items in the famous library of Seville. He mentions two works that he could not locate, and I will mention them here, the first being De Missionibus Insulae Trinitatis, simul cum gestis et agonibus sevorum Dei Stephani as.
Felice, Raymundi de Figuerola ac Marci de Vique Capuccinorum by Fr Matheo de Aguiano, published in Madrid in 1702, and Relacion de lo sucedido en la isla de la Trinidad siendo gobernado de estas provincias y del Dorado Don Diego Lopez de Escobar ou Ficobar, published in 1637, in folio, without name of author or date of publication. Maybe the valiant scholars of today might locate the same. It is certain that the library of the Vatican in Rome holds material relevant to our history.
The history is written in two volumes, and enhanced by notes on each chapter, which are regrettably, mainly in French and Spanish, and volume two contains a splendid appendix. He laments the fact that the cape that is today called Galeota was originally named Galera by Columbus, and blames the geographers for this 'unpardonable error'. The cape is used by geographers as the starting point for the Longitude of South America.
Regarding Governor Chacon, he includes an extract in the notes of volume two from the History of Trinidad by EL Joseph The written defense of Don Chacon, by General Cagigal, which, together with all the proceedings of the court, are now before me, is a beautiful composition. Loubon mentions that the foreword to Archibald's work was written by Olga Mavrogordato. She also wrote the preface to the English edition of Borde's history, and the publisher dedicated it to her 'with gratitude and much affection'. It appears that she was an important figure in the rather scant literary aspect of our society.
A Bookman