Alonso de Ojeda in the context of "List of explorers"

The first arrival of European explorers to the territory of present-day Brazil is often credited to Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral, who sighted the land later named Island of Vera Cruz, near Monte Pascoal, on 22 April 1500 while leading an expedition to India. Cabral's voyage is part of the so-called Portuguese discoveries.

Although used almost exclusively in relation to Pedro Álvares Cabral's voyage, the term "discovery of Brazil" can also refer to the arrival in late 1499 of part of the expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda, in which Amerigo Vespucci took part, and also to the expedition led by Spanish navigator and explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. He reached the Cape of Santo Agostinho [pt], a promontory located in the current state of Pernambuco, on 26 January 1500. This is the oldest confirmed European landing in Brazilian territory.

Conquistadors (/kɒnˈk(w)ɪstədɔːrz/, US also /-ˈkiːs-, kɒŋˈ-/) or conquistadores (Spanish: [koŋkistaˈðoɾes]; Portuguese: [kõkiʃtɐˈðoɾɨʃ, kõkistɐˈdoɾis]; lit. 'conquerors') were Spanish and Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and conquered parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania during the Age of Discovery. Sailing beyond the Iberian Peninsula, they established numerous colonies and trade routes, and brought much of the New World under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.

After Christopher Columbus's arrival in the West Indies in 1492, the Spanish, usually led by hidalgos from the west and south of Spain, began building a colonial empire in the Caribbean using colonies such as Santo Domingo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico as their main bases. From 1519 to 1521, Hernán Cortés led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, ruled by Moctezuma II. From the territories of the Aztec Empire, conquistadors expanded Spanish rule to northern Central America and parts of what is now the southern and western United States, and from Mexico sailing the Pacific Ocean to the Spanish East Indies. Other Spanish conquistadors took over the Inca Empire after crossing the Isthmus of Panama and sailing the Pacific to northern Peru. From 1532 to 1572, Francisco Pizarro succeeded in subduing this empire in a manner similar to Cortés. Subsequently, Spanish conquistadores used Peru as a base for conquering much of Ecuador and Chile. Central Colombia, home of the Muisca, was conquered by licentiate Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, and its northern regions were explored by Rodrigo de Bastidas, Alonso de Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa, Pedro de Heredia and others. For southwestern Colombia, Bolivia, and Argentina, Spanish conquistadores from Peru combined parties with other conquistadors arriving more directly from the Caribbean and Río de la Plata-Paraguay respectively. These conquests founded the basis for modern Hispanic America and the Hispanosphere.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbasko ˈnuɲeθ ðe βalˈβo.a]; c. 1475 – around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish explorer, governor, conquistador, and a pirate. He is best known for being the first European to discover the Pacific Ocean while crossing the Isthmus of Panama in 1513.

He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola. He founded the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in present-day Colombia in 1510, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas (a settlement by Alonso de Ojeda the previous year at San Sebastián de Urabá had already been abandoned).

The Essequibo River (Spanish: Río Esequibo; originally called by Alonso de Ojeda; Río Dulce) is the largest river in Guyana, and the largest river between the Orinoco and Amazon. Rising in the Acarai Mountains near the Brazil–Guyana border, the Essequibo flows to the north for 1,014 km (630 mi) through forest and savanna into the Atlantic Ocean. It has a total drainage basin of 156,828 km (60,552 sq mi) and an average discharge of 154 to 178 km³/year.

Territory near the river is argued over by Venezuela and Guyana. The river is administered by Guyana after being previously colonized by the British. Historically, Venezuela has claimed the Essequibo River as their most eastern border, though in practice it was under Dutch control.

The Spanish conquest of New Granada refers to the conquest between 1525 and 1540 by the Spanish monarchy of the Chibchan-speaking nations of modern-day Colombia and Panama, mainly the Muisca and Tairona that inhabited present-day Colombia, beginning the Spanish colonization of the Americas. It is estimated that around 5.25 million people died as a result of Spanish Conquest, either by disease or direct conflict. This represents 87.5% of the Pre-Columbian population of Colombia.

La Guajira (Spanish pronunciation: [la ɣwaˈxiɾa]) is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, on the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela, at the northernmost tip of South America. The capital city of the department is Riohacha.

Various indigenous tribes have populated the arid plains of the region long before the Spanish expeditions reached the Americas. In 1498, Alonso de Ojeda sailed around the peninsula of La Guajira, but the first European to set foot in what is known today as La Guajira was the Spanish explorer Juan de la Cosa in 1499. During the colonial era, the territory of La Guajira was disputed by the governors of Santa Marta and Venezuela, owing to deposits of pearls. English pirates, Frenchmen, and Germans also fought for control of the territory.