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VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA

Vasco Nunez De Balboa was one of the early Spanish adventurers in the New World. He was born in 1475 and died in 1517. Having dissipated his fortune, he went to America, and was at Darien with the expedition of Francisco de Enciso in 1510. An insurrection placed him at the head of the colony, but rumours of a western ocean and of the wealth of Peru led him to cross the isthmus. On September the 25th 1513, he saw for the first time the Pacific, and after annexing it to Spain, and acquiring information about Peru, returned to Parien. Here he found himself supplanted by a aew governor, Pedrarias Davila, with much consequent grievance on the one side, and much jealousy on the other. Balboa submitted, however, and in the following year was appointed viceroy of the South Sea. Davila was apparently reconciled to him, and gave him his daughter in marriage, but shortly after, in 1517, had him beheaded on a charge of intent to rebel. Pizarro, who afterwards completed the discovery of Peru, served under Balboa.
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