A party of Spanish explorers led by Francisco de Orellana became in 1541 the first Europeans to travel the length of the Amazon River. The journey followed a meeting in Peru between Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro, half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conqueror. Gonzalo Pizarro, who was governor of Quito, was about to lead an expedition into the unexplored eastern region. Ore llano was appointed his lieutenant and sent ahead of the main party by boat with 50 men to search for food. When he reached the junction of the Napo and Maranon rivers, his desire to explore on his own account led him to desert Pizarro’s expedition. He pressed on with his party and followed the huge river system down to the Atlantic Ocean, which he reached on August 26, 1542.
It is said that he named the river after a tribe of fighting women whom he encountered near the mouth of the tributary Trombetas and who reminded him of the battling Amazons of Greek mythology.
The Amazon is the greatest river in South America, flowing from its source in the glacier-fed lakes of central Peru for 4,000 miles across Peru and Brazil to enter the Atlantic at the equator.