Vasco Núñez de Balboa biography

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Explorer, conquistador. Born around 1475 in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain. Balboa became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. At a time when many people in Spain were seeking their fortunes in the New World, Balboa joined an expedition to South America. After exploring the coast of present-day Colombia, Balboa stayed on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). While there, he got into debt and fled, hiding away on a ship headed for the fledgling colony of San Sebastian.

Once he arrived at the settlement, Balboa discovered that most of the colonists had killed by nearby native peoples. He then convinced the remaining colonists to move to the western side of the Gulf of Uraba. They established the town of Darién on the Isthmus of Panama, which is a small strip land that connects Central America and South America. Balboa became the interim governor of the settlement.

In 1513, Balboa led an expedition from Darién to search for a new sea reportedly to the south and for gold. He hoped that if he was successful he would win the favor of Ferdinand, the king of Spain. While he didn't find the precious metal, he did see the Pacific Ocean and claimed it and all of its shores for Spain.

The news of the discovery arrived after the king had sent Pedro Arias de Ávila to serve as the new governor of Darién. The new governor was reportedly jealous of Balboa and ordered him to be arrest on charges of treason. After a brief trial, Balboa was beheaded in 1519.

Career in the New World

Balboa came from the ranks of that lower nobility whose sons—“men of good family who were not reared behind the plow,” in the words of the chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés—often sought their fortunes in the Indies. In 1500 he sailed with Rodrigo de Bastidas on a voyage of exploration along the coast of present-day Colombia. Later, he settled in Hispaniola (Haiti), but he did not prosper as a pioneer farmer and had to escape his creditors by embarking as a stowaway on an expedition organized by Martín Fernández de Enciso (1510) to bring aid and reinforcements to a colony founded by Alonso de Ojeda on the coast of Urabá, in modern Colombia. The expedition found the survivors of the colony, led by Francisco Pizarro, but Ojeda had departed. On the advice of Balboa the settlers moved across the Gulf of Urabá to Darién, on the less hostile coast of the Isthmus of Panama, where they founded the town of Santa María de la Antigua, the first stable settlement on the continent, and began to acquire gold by barter or war with the local Indians. The colonists soon deposed Enciso, Ojeda's second in command, and elected a town council; one of its two alcaldes, or magistrates, was Balboa. With the subsequent departure of Enciso for Hispaniola, Balboa became the undisputed head of the colony. In December 1511 King Ferdinand II sent orders that named Balboa interim governor and captain general of