Hutten, PHILIP VON

Hutten, PHILIP VON, a German adventurer, and a cousin of Ulrich von Hutten, was born at Birkenfeld about the end of the 15th century, and was educated at the court of Henry of Nassau. In 1528 the Emperor Charles V. made a grant of the province of Venezuela to the Welsers, a firm of rich Augsburg merchants; and Hutten sailed with one of the companies they sent out. He accompanied the viceroy, Georg Hohemut, in a long journey (1536-38), in which they reached the headwaters of the Rio Japura, near the equator. In 1541 he set out in search of the Golden City. After several years of wandering, harassed by the natives and weakened by hunger and fever, he and his followers came on a large city, the capital of the Omaguas, in the country north of the Amazons; and attacking this place, they were routed by the Indians, and Hutten himself severely wounded. He led those of his followers who survived back to Coro in 1546, where Juan de Carvajal had in the meantime usurped the office of viceroy; and by him Hutten and his lieutenant, Bartel Welser, were seized and beheaded. Eight years later the Welsers' grant was taken from them, and the rule of the Germans in Venezuela came to an end. Hutten left a narrative of his journeyings, which was published under the title Zeitung aus Indien (1765). See also Von Langege, El Dorado (Leip. 1888).