The southern Caribbean coast had become unattractive…
1533 CE
The southern Caribbean coast had become unattractive to colonizers after the failed effort to find Antigua del Darién in 1506 by Alonso de Ojeda and the subsequent unsuccessful founding of San Sebastián de Urabá in 1517 by Diego de Nicuesa.
They prefer the better-known Hispaniola and Cuba.
Though the Casa de Contratación had given permission to Rodrigo de Bastidas (1460–1527) to again conduct an expedition as adelantado to this area, Bastidas had explored the coast and discovered the Magdalena River Delta in his first journey from Guajira to the south in 1527, a trip that had ended in the Gulf of Urabá, the location of the failed first settlements.
De Nicuesa and De Ojeda noted the existence of a big bay on the way from Santo Domingo to Urabá and the Panama isthmus, and that siting had encouraged Bastidas to investigate.
Pedro de Heredia, after spending Christmas Day in Santo Domingo, had sailed across the Caribbean Sea to the mainland of South America, where he cruised off the coast into Santa Marta Bay and then past the mouth of the Magdalena River.
He had passed several villages of the Mokaná Indians, until on January 14, 1533 he reaches Calamari, the largest of them, standing on the sandy inner shore of Cartagena Bay.
After fierce combat with the natives of the territory of Turbaco, Heredia founds a city, now Cartagena de Indias, naming it after Cartagena, Spain, because it has a similar bay, but he calls it "Cartagena de Poniente" to distinguish it from that city.
The exact date of the founding of Cartagena de Indias remains a topic of controversy.
Some argue that it was on January 20 or 21 in 1533, although the Colombian Academy of History has fixed the date as June 1, 1533.
The settlement begins with two hundred people.
Heredia signs friendship pacts with the chiefs of the nearby islands.
With the help of Catalina acting as interpreter, Heredia conquers and rules the area around Cartagena, including Turbaco and the Magdalena River.
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