Ambrosius Ehinger (1500-31 May 1533) was a German conquistador who founded the colony of Klein-Venedig in present-day Venezuela and the city of Maracaibo in 1529.
Biography[]
Ambrosius Ehinger was born in Ulm, Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire in 1500, and, in 1529, the Welser banking family appointed him to head a colonial expedition to South America. They arrived in Coro, Venezuela in 1529, and Ehinger and 281 colonists founded the colony of Klein-Venedig. In August 1529, Ehinger launched his first expedition to Lake Maracaibo, where he was bitterly opposed by the local Native Americans. On 8 September 1529, he founded the city of Maracaibo, which he named for the slain Native chief Mara. He fell ill from malaria and traveled to Hispaniola in 1530 to recuperate. On his return, he took command of 40 horsemen and 130 soldiers at Coro on 1 September 1531, hoping to discover gold in western Venezuela. However, most of the expedition's Indian allies died in the cold while travelling through the mountains, and the soldiers were forced to eat their horses and dogs. On 27 May 1533, the Chitareros attacked the German expedition, and Ehinger was struck in the neck by a poisoned arrow and died of his wounds four days later.