Balboa: first European sighting of the Pacific Ocean

In the last days of September 1513, a Spanish soldier came out of the dense forests of Central America. He climbed a bare peak alone and looked south. Below him, as far as the eye could see, lay a blue sea. No European had seen this sea before while standing on American soil. The man was Vasco Núñez de Balboa. He called the sea the “South Sea”. Today we call it the Pacific Ocean.

From indebted farmer to head of a settlement

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Balboa was born in 1475 in Extremadura, Spain, into a family of minor nobles. In 1500 he went with Rodrigo de Bastidas to explore the coast of present-day Colombia. He then took up farming on the island of Hispaniola, but did not succeed. In 1510 he hid aboard a supply ship to escape his creditors.

On that expedition, on Balboa’s advice, the colonists crossed the Gulf of Urabá and settled in Darién, on the narrow isthmus of Panama. There they founded the settlement of Santa María de la Antigua. Britannica calls it the first lasting Spanish settlement on the mainland. Balboa soon became its head. In December 1511 the King of Spain appointed him acting governor. It was here that local people told him of another sea to the south, beyond the mountains.

Departure: 190 men and a path through the forest

According to Britannica, on 1 September 1513 Balboa set out from Santa María by sea to cross the narrowest part of the land. He had 190 Spaniards and hundreds of local porters with him.

The oldest detailed account of the journey is in De Orbe Novo by the Italian historian Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, translated into English by F. A. MacNutt in 1912. Martyr writes that Balboa took a small ship (brigantine) and ten local boats hollowed out of tree trunks. He first landed in the territory of a local ally. From there he advanced on foot towards the mountains. Another local chief, Poncha, gave him guides and porters who went ahead cutting the way.

Rough terrain and twenty-five days

According to Martyr, there were no roads to speak of in the area, because the local people seldom travelled far. Their informants knew only hidden tracks. The party passed through narrow gorges where wild animals lived and climbed steep mountains. Several large rivers were crossed on makeshift bridges or by laying beams from one bank to the other.

Martyr writes that the journey from Poncha’s village to the place from which the South Sea can be seen normally takes six days, but Balboa took twenty-five. Constant fatigue and hardship made many of his companions ill. They had to be left in a village on the way, Quarequa. According to MacNutt’s note, 66 men were left with Balboa for the final climb.

“Behold, that sea!”

According to Martyr, seven days before the first of October, that is 25 September 1513, a leader from Quarequa showed Balboa a peak from which the South Sea could be seen. Balboa ordered the party to halt and climbed up alone, so that he would be the first to see it. He then beckoned his companions with a wave of his hand. In Martyr’s words, he said: “Behold, the sea we so longed for!” His companions cheered with joy.

To mark the day, they built heaps of stones and carved the name of the King of Spain on tree trunks on both slopes of the peak. According to MacNutt’s note, an official notary named Andrés Valderrábano wrote a formal record of the discovery, which all the companions signed. There is a difference over the date: Britannica gives the sighting as 25 or 27 September 1513.

Coast, gulf and storm

Martyr writes that, with the help of local chiefs, it took four days to come down from the mountain and reach the coast. According to Britannica, Balboa reached the shore of the Gulf of San Miguel. In the name of the King of Spain, he claimed the “Mar del Sur”, or South Sea, and its coasts.

Balboa then took nine boats from the local people and set out to explore the gulf with eighty men. According to Martyr, the locals said the gulf ran sixty miles inland and was full of islands and rocks. The local chief warned that for three months of the year, October, November and December, storms made sailing impossible. Balboa did not stop. As soon as they reached open water, a fierce storm caught them. They tied the boats to rocks and took shelter on a nearby island. In the night, however, the tide rose so high that almost the whole island was submerged.

Martyr made an interesting observation here. In the South Sea the water at high tide rises so far that large rocks are covered, whereas in the northern sea (the Caribbean), according to coastal people, the water barely rises or falls by a hand’s breadth. In the morning they found the boats battered and filled with sand. They repaired them with moss, tree bark and tough sea grass. They returned like hungry, ruined sailors, because their provisions had been washed away in the storm. According to Britannica, the storms were also why they could not reach the Pearl Islands.

Return and end

According to Britannica, Balboa crossed the land and returned to Santa María in January 1514. When news of the South Sea reached Spain, he received the title of adelantado (governor) of the South Sea, but was placed under the new governor, Pedrarias Dávila. He later had ships built with great effort, carried them in pieces across the mountains to the Pacific coast, and explored the Gulf of San Miguel further in 1517-1518. In January 1519, after a trial, he was executed at Acla.

Balboa’s journey lasted only a few weeks, but it told Europe for the first time that there was another great sea beyond the land of America. Six years later, another expedition set out to cross the same sea.

Next instalment: Magellan and Elcano: the first voyage round the world.