In the same year Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by Juan de la Cosa, from whose maps we learn much of the discoveries of the 16th century navigators, and by a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci, touched the coast of South America somewhere near Surinam, following the shore as far as the Gulf of Maracaibo.
In 1508 Alonso de Ojeda obtained the government of the coast of South America from Cabo de la Vela to the Gulf of Darien; Ojeda landed at Cartagena in 1510, and sustained a defeat from the natives, in which his lieutenant, Juan de la Cosa, was killed.
In 1899 the Bolivian government established a custom-house at Puerto Alonso, on the Acre river, for the collection of export duties on rubber, which precipitated a conflict with the Brazilian settlers and finally brought about a boundary dispute between the two republics.
Various disorders followed until Brazil decided to occupy Puerto Alonso with a military force.
Maracaibo was founded in 1571 by Alonso Pacheco, who gave it the name Nueva Zamora.
