Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sees the Pacific

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1513-09-25

Places

Panama (Location)
Spain (Involved)

Vasco Nunez de Balboa (c 1475-1519), an adventurer from Jerez de los Caballeros in Estremadura, western Spain, had led the life of colonist and conquistador in Colombia and Hispaniola from 1501. In 1511 he was appointed governor of the colony of Santa Maria de la Antigua on what is now called the coast of Panama. He left the colony on 1 September 1513 with an expedition of 200 Spaniards and indigenes, and headed inland, fighting with the indigenous inhabitants and struggling through dense jungles and swamps. On 25 or 27 September he reached a peak from which he could see the “South Sea”. His expedition reached the coast four days later and Balboa claimed the ocean and all it touched for the King of Spain. Balboa returned to …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

157 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sees the Pacific". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 May 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5555, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sees the Pacific

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback