Baltasar Maldonado
Maldonado took part in a quest for El Dorado led by Hernán Pérez de Quesada in the southern regions of present-day Colombia.
After this failed expedition, Maldonado went to Popayán and Cali and traveled back to Santafé de Bogotá, the capital of the New Kingdom of Granada where he died in 1552.
The army of the new governor, Pedro Fernández de Lugo, arrived on January 2, 1536, and punitive expeditions against the rebel natives of the area were conducted.
The northernmost territories of Suamox were still controlled by the Cacique (or 'King') Tundama, whose bohío was built on an island in the lake of the settlement with the same name, today known as Duitama.
[8] Tundama, other than the earlier caciques of the Muisca resisted heavily against the European invaders and punished one of his people who suggested to surrender by cutting off their ears and left hand.
[8] The mythical city of gold El Dorado was a common legend in the early days of the conquest of what later would become Colombia; the troops of Gonzalo de Quesada were drawn from the relative safety of the Caribbean coast in Santa Marta towards the heart of the Andes, while around the same time the southern expedition led by De Belalcázar heard similar stories in Quito.
Hernán organised an expedition to search for the mythical lands of gold towards the southeast of the Cundiboyacense; the vast flatlands of the Llanos Orientales.
The troops left Bogotá in September 1540 and passed through Pasca, that had been founded by fellow conquistador Juan de Céspedes three years earlier.
The soldiers reached La Fragua, a settlement populated by the Choque in the present-day department of Caquetá, where Hernán Pérez de Quesada decided to stay for a while to rest.
