The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hutten, Philip von

HUTTEN, hoot'tĕn, Philip von, German adventurer; cousin of Ulrich von Hutten (q.v.): b. Birkenfeld, about 1490; d. Venezuela, 1546. In 1528 the Emperor Charles V made a grant of the province of Venezuela to the Welsers, a firm of Augsburg merchants; and Hutten sailed with one of the companies sent out by them. He accompanied the viceroy, Georg Hohemut, in a 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, where 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 Caravajal 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 German rule in Venezuela was concluded. Hutten left an account of his journeyings, which was published under the title ‘Zeitung aus Indien’ (1765). Consult Von Langegg, ‘El Dorado’ (1888).