Sebastián Moyano de Belalcázar

 - Spanish Conquistador -

( 1479 - 1551 )
 


* List of the stories and drawings he appears in :
- D 96066 : "The Last Lord of Eldorado", from 1997, by Don Rosa ;
- FC PM 318D : "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #3" (an illustration for "The Last Lord of Eldorado"), from 1998, by Don Rosa.

 

* His biography :
     Sebastián Moyano de Belalcázar (also spelt Benalcázar) was born in the province of Córdoba, Spain, around 1479.
   After accompanying Columbus on his third voyage, in 1498, he served in Darién and Nicaragua. In 1932, he joined Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. Setting out from Piura, he forestalled Pedro de Alvarado in support of Diego de Almagro, the elder, and entered the native stronghold of Quito in 1933. He was a typical conquistador : a rough, illiterate soldier of low birth.
   In 1535, he founded a permanent settlement at present-day, Guayaquil, and marched into Colombia in search of El Dorado, the legendary city of gold and riches. In Colombia, he founded Pasto and Cali. From 1936 to 1939, he made an expedition at the Cundinamarca, in Colombia, where he met Gonzalo Jimenéz de Quesada, already settled. Nikolaus Federmann arrives later. The three adventurers ddecide to share the riches. In 1539, he tried unsuccessfully to ally himself with Federmann against Jiménez de Quesada. Journeying to Spain with them to settle accounts, Benalcázar returned in 1541 as governor of Popayán.
   Between 1541 and 1548 he aided Vaca de Castro against Diego de Almagro, the younger, and then helped Nuñez Vela and Pedro de la Gasca against Gonzalo Pizarro.
   In 1550, for killing the Spanish leader of a neighboring province that he claimed as his, Benalcázar was pronounced guilty of this murder and was imprisoned for his crime.
   On his way to appeal to the Council of the Indies, in 1551, he died of fever in prison in Cartagena.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
      In "The Last Lord of Eldorado", after the Ducks discovered the property title of El Dorado, signed by Jiménez de Quesada,Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar, they look in the Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook and find about the meeting of the three men, about the fact that we don't exactly know which bargain has been striked between them and that they went back to Europe. Later, they also discover that the three men established a Welser bank, with the treasure of El Dorado. Quesada acted as the lawyer, and wrote the legal document, Federmann created the bank, and Belalcazar ordered the soldiers to drive the Chibcha Indians and their King, the Gilded Man (this explains why, in Barks' "The Gilded Man", the actual Gilded Man lives in Guyana instead of Omagua). drive the Chibcha Indians and their King, the Gilded Man.
   His face also appears in "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #3", by Don Rosa which illustrates the story above.
 

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