Lope de Aguirre

Lope de Aguirre (8 November 1510 – 27 October 1561) was a Basque Spanish conquistador who was active in South America. Nicknamed El Loco ("the Madman"), he styled himself "Wrath of God." Aguirre is best known for his final expedition down the Amazon River in search of the mythical golden kingdom of El Dorado and Omagua.

In 1561, Aguirre led a mutiny against the expedition's commander, Pedro de Ursúa, and declared his intent to return to Peru and overthrow Spain's colonial government. He drafted a letter that defied the Castilian monarch, King Philip II, by renouncing his Spanish vassalage and declared war upon the Habsburg monarch. Aguirre's expedition ended with his death by his own men upon confronting Royalist forces in present-day Venezuela. In the years since then he has been treated by historians as a symbol of cruelty and treachery in the early history of colonial Spanish America, and has become an antihero in literature, cinema and other arts.