In 1501, inspired by the exploits of Christopher Columbus, Spanish nobleman Vasco Núñez de Balboa set off with two ships across the Atlantic to explore the northern coast of the newly discovered South America. Balboa took a liking to the New World and settled on the island of Hispaniola (today split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti).
After a few years, he found himself heavily in debt. To escape his creditors, he stowed away on another explorer’s ship that was setting sail for a failing colony in Colombia.
He ended up joining that ship’s crew and, after picking up the colony’s residents, established a new settlement on the isthmus (a thin stretch of land with oceans on both sides) of Panama. With time, Balboa became the colony’s governor.
Having heard rumors that another grand ocean existed beyond a nearby mountain range, in September 1513, Balboa set off to find it. On Sept. 25, he became the first European to ever see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas. A few days later he waded into the Pacific, claiming it and its islands for Spain.
Balboa’s story came to an unhappy end. After a few months on the Pacific, he was summoned back to Darien by its new governor, Pedro Arias Dávila. The two had a strained relationship; even though Balboa was married to his daughter, Dávila really, really hated him. So, like any good father-in-law, he had the explorer arrested on false charges of sedition, tried for treason, and executed in 1519.
For more on Balboa, read these stories from Smithsonian Magazine and the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va.
