Balboa Sights the Pacific Ocean (1513): Crossing Panama

On 25 September 1513 the Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa climbed a ridge on the Isthmus of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first European known to have seen it from the Americas. Four days later he waded into its waters and claimed the “South Sea” and all its shores for the Crown of Castile. His crossing revealed how narrow the land was between the two oceans and opened the way to Spanish expansion down the Pacific coast of South America.

Background

Balboa was born around 1475 in Jerez de los Caballeros, in Extremadura in western Spain. He sailed to the Caribbean in 1500 or 1501 with the expedition of Rodrigo de Bastidas along the northern coast of South America, then settled as a farmer on Hispaniola, where he fell deeply into debt.

In 1510 he escaped his creditors by smuggling himself aboard a ship of Martín Fernández de Enciso, which was carrying supplies to the struggling Spanish colony at San Sebastián de Urabá. Popular accounts say he hid in a barrel with his dog, Leoncico. When the expedition found the colony in ruins, Balboa, who knew the region from his earlier voyage, suggested moving across the Gulf of Urabá to the land of Darién. There the Spanish founded Santa María la Antigua del Darién in 1510, the first lasting European town on the American mainland.

Balboa soon pushed Enciso aside and outmanoeuvred Diego de Nicuesa, the governor appointed to the region, becoming the colony’s effective leader. He combined war with alliances, forming ties with Indigenous rulers such as Careta and Comagre.

News of another sea

According to Spanish chroniclers, Panquiaco, a son of the cacique (chief) Comagre, told the Spaniards about a great sea to the south and a land rich in gold beyond it. Balboa hoped that a major discovery would win royal favour and protect him from enemies at court, where Enciso was accusing him of usurping power.

The crossing

Balboa left Santa María on 1 September 1513. He sailed to the territory of Careta, then set out overland with about 190 Spaniards, several hundred Indigenous guides and carriers, and a pack of war dogs. Among the Spaniards was Francisco Pizarro.

The route led through dense rainforest, swamps and steep hills. The expedition fought its way through the lands of several Indigenous groups. In the territory of a ruler called Torecha, at Quarequá, the Spaniards killed the cacique and many of his people; chroniclers also recorded that Balboa had dozens of men killed by his dogs, an episode that shows the violence of the conquest.

On 25 September 1513, near the end of the crossing, Balboa went ahead of his men to the top of a ridge and saw the ocean stretching to the south. He then called the others up, and the notary Andrés de Valderrábano recorded the names of the 67 Spaniards present. On 29 September, the feast of Saint Michael, Balboa reached the shore of a large bay, which he named the Gulf of San Miguel. Wearing armour and holding a banner and sword, he waded into the water and claimed the sea and its lands for the Spanish monarchs.

Key people

• Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475–1519): conquistador and leader of the crossing.
• Panquiaco: son of the cacique Comagre, who told the Spanish of the southern sea.
• Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478–1541): member of the expedition who later arrested Balboa and went on to invade Peru.
• Pedrarias Dávila (c. 1440–1531): royal governor of Castilla del Oro from 1514 and Balboa’s rival.
• Martín Fernández de Enciso: lawyer and expedition leader whom Balboa displaced in 1510.

Timeline

• c. 1475: Balboa is born in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain.
• 1510: Santa María la Antigua del Darién is founded.
• 1513, 1 September: Balboa leaves Santa María on his expedition.
• 1513, 25 September: Balboa sights the Pacific Ocean.
• 1513, 29 September: He reaches the Gulf of San Miguel and claims the South Sea.
• 1514, January: Balboa returns to Santa María with gold and pearls.
• 1514, June: Pedrarias Dávila arrives as governor with a large fleet.
• 1519, January: Balboa is executed at Acla.

Consequences

The news reached Spain too late to save Balboa’s position. The crown had already appointed Pedrarias Dávila governor of the region, now called Castilla del Oro, and he arrived in 1514 with some 1,500 settlers. As a reward for his discovery, Balboa was named adelantado (governor-explorer) of the South Sea and governor of Panama and Coiba, but he remained under Pedrarias’s authority.

The two men made an uneasy peace, and Balboa was betrothed by proxy to Pedrarias’s daughter. Balboa had ships built and carried in pieces across the isthmus to explore the Pacific coast. In late 1518, however, Pedrarias, fearing his independence, ordered Pizarro to arrest him. Balboa was tried for treason and beheaded at Acla in January 1519, together with several companions.

Pedrarias founded Panama City on the Pacific coast in 1519. Santa María la Antigua del Darién, the town Balboa had helped to found, lost importance and was abandoned in the 1520s. Its remains lie in present-day Colombia, near the border with Panama, where archaeologists have studied the site. Panama City, not Santa María, became the base for later expeditions, including the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire led by Pizarro.

Myths and facts

Several popular ideas about Balboa need qualifying. He was not the first European to see the Pacific in any sense, since travellers such as Marco Polo had reached its Asian coasts centuries earlier; he was the first known European to see it from the Americas.

The story that he stowed away in a barrel comes from early chroniclers, but details such as the barrel may have been embellished in retelling. It is well attested, however, that he left Hispaniola secretly to avoid his creditors.

He was also not alone in discovering the ocean. Indigenous people had lived along its shores for thousands of years, and it was Indigenous guides who led the Spanish across the isthmus. The Spanish claim of possession, made on 29 September 1513, reflected European ideas of discovery rather than the experience of the people who already knew the coast.

Legacy

Balboa’s sighting showed Europeans that a vast ocean lay between the Americas and Asia. Within a decade, Magellan’s expedition crossed it and gave it the name Pacific. The narrow isthmus Balboa crossed later became the site of the Panama Canal, opened in 1914.

Panama honours him widely: its currency, introduced in 1904, is called the balboa, and the port at the Pacific entrance of the canal is also named Balboa. In Spain his birthplace, Jerez de los Caballeros, remembers him as one of the many conquistadors who came from Extremadura, alongside Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. In literature, the poet John Keats famously confused him with another conquistador, writing of “stout Cortez” gazing at the Pacific in his 1816 sonnet On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.

Why it matters

Balboa’s crossing of Panama in 1513 revealed the Pacific to Europe and changed how Europeans understood the size of the world. It also launched Spanish conquest along the Pacific coast of the Americas, with deep and often devastating consequences for the peoples who lived there.