Not many people know about Vasco de Balboa even though he was an influential explorer. Like, did you know he was the first to sight the Pacific Ocean? Vasco de Balboa was an explorer that had many accomplishments and played a big role in exploration. However, he lived only for about 44
years of age and could have had a lot more impact on the world than he did. Vasco de Balboa is not as familiar as Christopher Columbus but he made a big discovery. In fact, Christopher Columbus inspired Balboa!
Vasco de Balboa was born in 1475 in the town of Jerez de los Caballeros(in region of Spain). At one time Balboa’s family was wealthy, well known, and important. But when Balboa was living, his family did not have that much money and was not important.
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To get money Balboa became a page for a rich nobleman at a very young age. He had many jobs with helping the knights. One job he did was to serve meals to the knights and his guests. Another job was to keep the knights’ armor shiny. Balboa’s reward for doing his job was getting taught things like how to read, write, hunt, and how to ride a horse. Balboa always looked at other explorers riches and was inspired because of seeing the riches. Balboa always dreamed of having the riches and was looking into exploring. Since his family was not wealthy he decided to search for the New World to try and get rich. A known explorer in Spain, Rodrigo de Bastidas, talked to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella about exploring more land. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella told him that he could explore all the land that Spain has not claimed and could take any riches he found. Upon hearing this Balboa wanted to go. “So in 1501, Balboa joined Bastidas and his crew as they sailed across the ocean.”(Molzahn, pg. 15) Balboa and Bastidas sailed to Central America and Hispaniola.
Balboa tried to make a living on a farm and raising pigs, but in 1510 got stuck with no money to pay bills. On Hispaniola you have to pay all your bills before you leave, but since Balboa didn’t have any money he hid on one of Hispaniola’s ships and escaped. When the ship was out in the sea, Balboa came out of his hiding place and revealed himself. The crew’s captain, Martin Fernandez de Enciso, accepted him into the crew but was angry when he saw Balboa. Enciso was sailing to try and help a guy named Alonso de Ojeda. Alonso de Ojeda was in pursuit of any gold he could find. He attacked people in villages(mostly attacked Indians) and took all the gold he could find but a lot of Indians attacked them and killed many Spaniards. Ojeda then took charge and told all of the crew to sail west. Enciso disobeyed him though and went back toward Hispaniola. When they sailed they ended up by present day Columbia though. The men built a settlement there named San Sebastian. However, the Indians who lived their were very protective and had poison arrows. Their was also a illness going around called yellow fever that men were dying every day from. Ojeda recognized this and fled to Hispaniola to get help. But Enciso got a group of men, one being Vasco, and went back to San Sebastian to help the other men stuck …show more content…
there. On the way to San Sebastian though one of their ships sank.
When the crew got to San Sebastian they rescued the men but could not escape. Every time they tried to sail away they were attacked by the Indians and they were running low on their food too. Then Balboa proposed a plan of sailing to a land that had lots of food. The men all agreed and ended up docking in a village. They named this village Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darién. The Indians in the area had a plethora of gold. However Martin Enciso was the leader of the crew and he recognized that the Indians there had a lot of gold, so he passed a law that only he could trade for gold. The crew was enraged and decided to select another leader. The men chose Vasco Balboa and soon after Enciso left for Spain. This left Balboa in charge of Darién. In 1511 Balboa was serving as an interim governor in the settlement Darién. Balboa dealt the Spaniards that were under him harshly so that Balboa could get riches. He ended up leaving to explore Panama and captured several villages. Vasco then led a group of 190 Spanish soldiers and 800 Indians and crossed the Isthmus of Panama. When Balboa was exploring one day he looked out on top of a mountain pinnacle and looked out. At this moment he made history and on September 29, 1513, was the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean. He called it the Mar del Sur or, in English, The South
Sea. Balboa claimed all that he found for the country of Spain. After sighting the Pacific, Balboa went back to Darién and sent out a letter to King Ferdinand about sighting the Pacific. In 1514, a ship arrived from Spain and on this ship there was a man named Pedro Arias Davila. When Davila came the king named him governor of Darién and King Ferdinand made Balboa an admiral and governor of the Pacific Ocean. When King Ferdinand made Balboa an admiral and governor of the Pacific, it made Davila envious. Pedro, because he was jealous, then arrested Balboa and falsely accused him of treason. Pedro wanted to hurry up and kill Balboa so he made a speedy trial and beheaded him on the day of January 20, 1519. Strangely he was executed in Acla, Panama. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was a Spanish conquistador and had/led to many accomplishments. He helped establish many settlements, was the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, established the first stable settlement in South America, and conquered lots of villages. With conquering villages he also collected many riches because of the jewels and gold he found and stole. Balboa “opened Spanish exploration and conquest along the western coast of South America.” (World Book Student) His whole life he wanted to be an explorer to get riches and conquer land. Balboa may have aggravated a lot of people,(like people in Hispaniola and Pedro Davila) but he made a substantial impact on the life of exploration.
From a proud Conquistador, to a castaway, a slave and trader, and then medicine man, Cabeza de Vaca was the first European to explore much of the southern coast of Texas. Cabeza was a 37 year old military veteran in 1527 when he left on the Narvaez Expedition to find gold and colonize the Gulf Coast. He was the expedition’s treasurer. Cabeza de Vaca was enslaved by Indians in 1528 when one of the rafts the crew made crashed on present day Galveston island, he then escaped in 1530 and joined/was enslaved by another tribe called the Charrucos until his escape with 3 other survivors in 1534. He then walked to Mexico City. Cabeza survived this ordeal because of the incredible patience he had, his skills of diplomacy and goodwill, and his amazing wilderness survival skills.
Many countries have the pleasure of celebrating Independence Days. These historic holidays are filled with nationalistic celebrations and delicious traditional food. In Chile, the natives celebrate their break from Spain with Fiestas Patrias. In Mexico, the president begins the celebration by ringing a bell and reciting the “Grito de Dolores” and he ends his speech by saying “Viva Mexico” three times.
In "The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca", Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca’s fight for survival, while being deprived of the basic necessities of life, proves there is a change in him from the beginning of the narrative to the end. This transformation, though, affected multiple aspects of de Vaca, including his motives, character, and perspective of civilization. Cabeza de Vaca’s experience is crucial to the history of America, as well as Spain, because it was one of the first accounts that revealed a certain equilibrium between the mighty and superior Spaniard and the Indian, once the Spaniard was stripped of his noble stature. The idea of nakedness is consistent throughout the narrative and conveys the tribulations he experienced and a sort of balance between him and the Indians. The original intentions of conquering and populating the area between Florida and a northern part of Mexico quickly shifted Cabeza de Vaca’s focus to the need to survive. His encounter with different Indian tribes and ability to get along with them (no matter what the means), and then prosper as a medicine man, shows that through his beliefs in Christian faith, and in himself, he turned the failure into an unexpected success.
Reading both passages of the two explorers, Christopher Columbus and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, gives a great description of how the world was back in the 1500s. Now, although both were Spaniard explorers, each had different experiences and discoveries. One of the differences is how they approached exploring the new world. For instance, Columbus went to find new land in the west, while Cabeza de Vaca went as an expedition to already found lands. In addition, Columbus had a lot of success, while Cabeza de Vaca since the beginning, because of Narváez, “endured many disasters” (Baym, et al., 2013, p. 28). Furthermore, Christopher Columbus considered most important to find more land, and especially the route to reach Asia.
	Don Juan Ponce de Leon was a Spanish conqueror and explorer. He was born around 1460 in San Tervas de Campos, Spain. Ponce de Leon lived during an age of great discovery and excitement. Ponce de Leon is well known, claiming and naming what is now Florida, the discovery of Puerto Rico, and his never-ending search for the old time classic, the Fountain of Youth!
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, and he discovered the new land and wrote a letter to Luis de Sant’ Angel in 1493.Columbus was telling Angel about the island that he landed on it.
Juan Ponce de Leon is most recognized as the Spanish explorer who discovered Florida. However this was not his only achievement or contribution to the Spanish empire. Prior to discovering Florida he helped fight off the last of the Moors in Granada, he prevented the Indians from attacking the Spaniards in Hispaniola, he served as the first governor of Puerto Rico, discovered other geographical features off of Florida’s coast all while never giving up on his quest for gold or to gain the same recognition as Christopher Columbus.
und three hundred men. His journey took him around three years and while making this journey he was thinking about no one but himself. Magellan took all the credit for everything and without his crew members he would be nothing and could not have achieved half as much. He also ended up using violence to make people change they way they believe. Magellan was not worth defending and shouldn't get all the credit he does.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus was a self-made man who worked his way up to being the Captain of a merchant vessel. He gained the support of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, for an expedition to the Indies. With the support of the Spanish monarchy, he set off to find a new and faster trade route to the Indies. Upon the arrival of his first voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to Luis de Santangel, a “royal official and an early supporter of his venture,” in February 1493 (35). The epistle, letter, entitled “Letter to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage” was copied and then distributed in Spain before being translated and spread throughout Europe. The Letter is held in such regard with the people as it is considered the first printed description of the new world. Through his description of the nature of the islands, Columbus decided the future fate of the islands. His description of the vast beauty of the nature around him, declares both the economic and nationalistic motivations for colonizing the new world.
In 1539 Hernando de Soto and five hundred adventurers began on a journey of exploration that would take 4 years and would travel through 10 states in the southeast United States. His goal was to discover a source of wealth, preferably gold, and around his mines establish a settlement. During his travels through La Florida he encountered numerous groups of native peoples, making friends of some and enemies of others. His expedition was not the first in La Florida; however, it was the most extensive. In its aftermath, thousands of Indians would die by disease that the Spaniards brought from the Old World. De Soto would initially be remembered as a great explorer but, would be later viewed as a destroyer of native culture. However, in truth de Soto was neither a hero or a villain but rather an adventurer.
Bartolomé de Las Casas was born in 1484 AD in Seville and died in 1566 in Madrid. In the ending of the 15th century and the beginning of 16th, he came to America and become a “protector of Indian”. In 1542, most based on his effort, Spain has passed the New Law, which prohibit slaving Indians (Foner, p. 7). In 1552, he published the book A Short Account of the Destruction of The Indies.
He led many expeditions into South America. Most were unsuccessful because they met many hostile tribes and he didn’t have enough men. He went back to Panama many times to ask for reinforcements. The governor of Panama gave him men and supplies in exchange for some gold. Pizarro’s partner , Diego de Almagro, went with him on many expeditions and always went back to Panama for men and supplies. The governor was becoming restless because he was not getting much gold. Almagro went to convince the governor that all was not lost and they received more reinforcements. With these men, he set sail for Peru and founded the city of Trujillo.
Columbus went on four voyages in his lifetime to the New World accomplishing many great things along the way. Although all the land Columbus had found was already inhabited by other civilizations he was ultimately the first person to lead the permeant European discovery of the New World or better known as
Christopher Columbus, one of the most famous explorers with an extraordinary legacy was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. He was an Italian explorer and navigator and is very well known for his four voyages and his “discovery” of the New World. Columbus began sailing when he was just a teenager in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Later, he moved to Lisbon, Portugal and then Spain, where he spent the rest of his life. Columbus’ purpose was to find a passage to Asia by sailing West, but during his voyage he ended up in the Caribbeans and South America. Columbus’ proposal was turned down by King John of Portugal and the rulers of England and France. After several years of being declined, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella funded Columbus’ voyage
Cabeza de Vaca was sent to fulfill the quest of claiming territory from Florida to Mexico for Spain. His choice to become a conquistador sent him through an unforgettable journey that he never saw coming. Landing in Florida with his large army, he eventually got split up from his army. Cabeza de Vaca and his men were the few survivors out of everyone who went. Landing in Galveston they found the Karankawa Indians and began living like there slaves. He discovered that his experiences were different from other Spanish conquistadors. He no longer wanted to take away from these people.