Balboa, Vasco Núñez de

Balboa, Vasco Núñez de (bălbō`ə, Span. vä`skō n`nyāth dā bälbō`ä), c.1475–1519, Spanish conquistador, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. After sailing with Bastidas in 1501, Balboa probably went to Hispaniola. In 1510, fleeing from creditors, he hid on the vessel that took Enciso to Panama. After reaching Darién, Balboa took command, deposed the incompetent Enciso, and sent him to Spain as a prisoner. Balboa showed only rarely the rapacity and cruelty characteristic of the conquistador. He won the friendship of the indigenous people, who accompanied him on his epic march across the isthmus. Toward the end of Sept., 1513, he discovered the Pacific and claimed it and all shores washed by it for the Spanish crown. His discovery came too late to offset Enciso's complaints at the court of Spain. Balboa was replaced by Pedro Arias de Ávila, and while preparing an expedition to Peru, he was summarily seized, accused of treason, and beheaded.

Bibliography

See C. L. G. Anderson, Life and Letters of Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1941, repr. 1971).

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Balboa, Vasco Núñez de

(born 1475, Badajoz, Extremadura province, Castile—died Jan. 12, 1519, Acla, near Darién, Pan.) Spanish conquistador and explorer. In 1500 he explored the coast of modern Colombia, then settled in Hispaniola. Forced to flee creditors, he joined an expedition to assist a colony in Colombia. He persuaded the settlers to move across the Gulf of Urabá to Darién, where in 1511 they founded the first stable settlement on the South American continent. In 1513 he became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean and took possession of the Mar del Sur (South Sea) and adjacent lands for Spain. He became governor of the Mar del Sur and of the provinces of Panamá and Coiba but remained subject to a rival, Pedro Arias Dávila, or Pedrarias (1440?–1531). Fearing Balboa's influence, Pedrarias had him seized and charged with rebellion, treason, and other misdeeds. After a farcical trial, Balboa was beheaded.