Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Vasco Núñez de Balboa was born at Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain in 1475. In 1501 he set out to explore the New World with fellow Spaniard Rodrigo de Bastidas, who had been inspired by Christopher Columbus to believe that pearls could be found on the northern coast of Venezuela.
Bastidas and Balboa were able to trade their European goods for a large quantity of pearls and gold, after which they sailed west, but their ship began to leak and they were forced to abandon it on the island of Hispaniola, where they had their possessions were confiscated by the governor of the island. Balboa was left penniless.
Balboa tried to make a living as a farmer, but failed, soon he was deep in debt, and decided to escape by stowing away on board a supply ship sailing to Panama in 1510. Legend has it that he, and his dog, hid inside a barrel!
Once in Panama, Balboa travelled to Coiba where he became friends with a local chief eventually marrying his daughter. Balboa was instrumental in arranging an alliance between the Spaniards and Comogre, another powerful native chief. It is not recorded what happened to the dog!
Comogre offered to lead the Spaniards to the other side of the isthmus if they would help defeat one of his tribe’s enemies. Balboa agreed to take charge of the fight and set out in 1513 with 190 Spanish soldiers and almost 1,000 Native Americans, to traverse some of the most challenging rainforest in the world, fighting enemy tribes along the way.
On the morning of September 25, 1513, Balboa climbed a peak and became the first European to look out on what would become the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean. He called the rest of the Spaniards to look at the vision, and then led a forced march to the shore and formally took possession of the ocean in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
He spent a month on the Pacific shore collecting gold and pearls and visiting the Pearl Islands in the Caribbean Sea. On his return to the other side of the isthmus, Balboa conquered more native tribes and took yet more gold.
It is notable that compared to many of his compatriots, Balboa was a generous and merciful to the natives and during this four-month journey, not a single Spanish soldier was killed.
However, Balboa was not without faults and the arrival in 1514 of Pedrarias Dávila as governor of the regions discovered and occupied by Balboa, revealed many of them. Balboa was generous, careless, and over-confident that his achievements would guarantee his good favour with the king while Pedrarias was clever, suspicious and jealous of Balboa’s accomplishments.
Pedrarias began to build a web true and false testimony around Balboa under cover of the Residencia – the Governor’s Palace. Within a year Balboa was accused of treason, the Residencia swiftly convened criminal proceedings before his friends could mount an adequate defence, the death sentence hastily pronounced, and Balboa was beheaded for high treason in1519.
Other Great Explorers
tenzing, Vancouver, Almagro, Alvarado, Balboa, burton, clark, drake, eriksson, grant, heyerdahl, hillary, humboldt, ingstad, james cook, livingstone, magellan, Piccard, Raleigh, Scott, Shackleton