Editing Amazon River (section)

=== Exploration ===
[[File: The Marañon or Amazon River with the Mission of the Society of Jesus WDL1137.png|thumb|[[Samuel Fritz]]'s 1707 map showing the Amazon and the Orinoco]]

[[Gonzalo Pizarro]] set off in 1541 to explore east of [[Quito]] into the South American interior in search of ''[[El Dorado]]'', the "city of gold" and [[La Canela]], the "valley of [[cinnamon]]".<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/431769/Francisco-de-Orellana Francisco de Orellana Francisco de Orellana (Spanish explorer and soldier)] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503155124/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/431769/Francisco-de-Orellana |date=3 May 2009 }}. Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> He was accompanied by his second-in-command [[Francisco de Orellana]]. After {{cvt|170.|km|sp=us}}, the [[Coca River]] joined the [[Napo River]] (at a point now known as [[Puerto Francisco de Orellana]]); the party stopped for a few weeks to build a boat just upriver from this confluence. They continued downriver through an uninhabited area, where they could not find food. Orellana offered and was ordered to follow the Napo River, then known as ''Río de la Canela'' ("Cinnamon River"), and return with food for the party. Based on intelligence received from a captive native chief named Delicola, they expected to find food within a few days downriver by ascending another river to the north.

De Orellana took about 57 men, the boat, and some canoes and left Pizarro's troops on 26 December 1541. However, De Orellana missed the confluence (probably with the [[Aguarico River|Aguarico]]) where he was searching supplies for his men. By the time he and his men reached another village, many of them were sick from hunger and eating "noxious plants", and near death. Seven men died in that village. His men threatened to mutiny if the expedition turned back to attempt to rejoin Pizarro, the party being over 100 leagues downstream at this point. He accepted to change the purpose of the expedition to discover new lands in the name of the king of Spain, and the men built a larger boat in which to navigate downstream. After a journey of {{cvt|600|km|sp=us}} down the Napo River, they reached a further major confluence, at a point near modern [[Iquitos]], and then followed the upper Amazon, now known as the Solimões, for a further {{cvt|1200.|km|sp=us}} to its confluence with the Rio Negro (near modern [[Manaus]]), which they reached on 3 June 1542.

Regarding the initial mission of finding cinnamon, Pizarro reported to the king that they had found cinnamon trees, but that they could not be profitably harvested. True cinnamon (''Cinnamomum Verum'') is not native to South America. Other related cinnamon-containing plants (of the family ''Lauraceae'') are fairly common in that part of the Amazon and Pizarro probably saw some of these. The expedition reached the mouth of the Amazon on 24 August 1542, demonstrating the practical navigability of the Great River.

[[File: Naturalist on the River Amazons figure 38.png|thumb|Masked-dance, and wedding-feast of [[Ticuna|Ticuna Indians]], engravings for Bates's 1863 ''[[The Naturalist on the River Amazons]]'']]

In 1560, another Spanish [[conquistador]], [[Lope de Aguirre]], may have made the second descent of the Amazon. Historians are uncertain whether the river he descended was the Amazon or the [[Orinoco River]], which runs more or less parallel to the Amazon further north.

Portuguese explorer [[Pedro Teixeira]] was the first European to travel up the entire river. He arrived in Quito in 1637, and returned via the same route.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.projectamazonas.org/brief-history-amazon-exploration |title=A Brief History of Amazon Exploration |last=Graham |first=Devon |publisher=Project Amazonas |access-date=18 July 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140725230550/http://www.projectamazonas.org/brief-history-amazon-exploration |archive-date=25 July 2014}}</ref>

From 1648 to 1652, Portuguese Brazilian ''[[bandeirante]]'' [[António Raposo Tavares]] led an expedition from [[São Paulo]] overland to the mouth of the Amazon, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Rio Negro, and covering a distance of over {{cvt|10000|km|sp=us}}.

In what is currently in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, several [[colonization|colonial]] and religious settlements were established along the banks of primary rivers and tributaries for trade, slaving{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} , and [[Evangelism|evangelization]] among the indigenous peoples of the vast rainforest, such as the [[Urarina]]. In the late 1600s, Czech Jesuit Father [[Samuel Fritz]], an apostle of the Omagus established some forty mission villages. Fritz proposed that the [[Marañón River]] must be the source of the Amazon, noting on his 1707 map that the Marañón "has its source on the southern shore of a lake that is called [[Lawriqucha|Lauricocha]], near [[Huánuco]]." Fritz reasoned that the Marañón is the largest river branch one encounters when journeying upstream, and lies farther to the west than any other tributary of the Amazon. For most of the 18th–19th centuries and into the 20th century, the Marañón was generally considered the source of the Amazon.<ref name = "Dias">{{Cite web |url=http://redebrasilis.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Camila-L.-Dias-Jesuit-Maps-and-Political-Discourse-muse.pdf |title=Camila Loureiro Dias, "Maps and Political Discourse: The Amazon River of Father Samuel Fritz," ''The Americas,'' Volume 69, Number 1, July 2012, pp. 95–116. |access-date=15 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001180423/http://redebrasilis.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Camila-L.-Dias-Jesuit-Maps-and-Political-Discourse-muse.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File: Naturalist on the River Amazons figure 32.png|thumb|upright|[[Henry Walter Bates]] was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon (1848–1859).]]