How did Balboa reach the Pacific Ocean across Panama?
Balboa reaches the Pacific
Balboa llega al Pacífico
29 September 1513. Vasco Núñez de Balboa, leader of the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, set out on 1 September 1513 with Spaniards and Indigenous guides to cross…
Where: Central America, Panama
What happened
Vasco Núñez de Balboa, leader of the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, set out on 1 September 1513 with Spaniards and Indigenous guides to cross the isthmus of Panama, where he had been told a great sea and a rich kingdom lay to the south. From a peak on 25 or 27 September he saw the ocean, and on 29 September his party reached the shore and he waded in to claim the 'Mar del Sur', the South Sea, for Castile. It was the Pacific, the first time Europeans had seen it from the Americas. The Crown made him adelantado, but his rival, the new governor Pedrarias Dávila, had him tried for treason and beheaded on 12 January 1519.
Say it
Balboa cruzó Panamá y vio el océano Pacífico.
Balboa crossed Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean.
Why it matters
Panama became the land bridge of the empire: silver from Peru crossed the isthmus to the Caribbean fleets for two centuries, and the Pacific would later carry Spanish to the Philippines.
Read about it
Connected
- Elcano sails round the world (6 September 1522)
- Elcano sails round the world (6 September 1522)
- Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa (16 November 1532)
- Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa (16 November 1532)
- Before: The Classic Maya: Tikal, Palenque and the collapse
- After: The Viceroyalty of New Spain is created
Sources
- Vasco Núñez de Balboa — World History Encyclopedia
- Francisco Pizarro — World History Encyclopedia