Vasco Nuñez de Balboa: From grandeur to oblivion

Abstract

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa embarked towards the New World in search of fortune and honour, like so many other Spaniards. He did it in 1501, at the age of 26 years, under the command Rodrigo de Bastidas from Triana, whose expedition was licensed to explore the Colombian coast of the Caribbean Sea, from Cabo de la Vela to the Gulf of Uraba. Balboa went to sea motivated and seduced by the news and reports that came to Moguer and Sevilla from the exploits of Christopher Columbus.
Even when fortune never came to him, his lucidity and skills among his insurmountable and brave character, headed up the leadership of a handful of brave hapless who, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, went into the thickness of the Colombian jungle to founded Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien, the first Spanish city in the American continent. An unprecedented milestone that would be eclipsed only by his greatest feat; to become the first European to spot the South Sea, the Pacific Ocean nowadays. A revealing discovery that dismantled the Admiral Columbus’ theories, corroborating that, after a prelude of islands, a very different continent wa hidden, far-away from the Indies. January 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, discoverer and Adelantado of the South Sea.