volume 1, chapter 6.

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AMERICA: A. D. 1511. The Spanish conquest and occupation of Cuba.

See CUBA: A. D. 1511.

AMERICA: A. D. 1512. The Voyage of Ponce de Leon in quest of the Fountain of Youth, and his Discovery of Florida.

"Whatever may have been the Southernmost point reached by Cabot in coasting America on his return, it is certain that he did not land in Florida, and that the honour of first exploring that country is due to Juan Ponce de Leon. This cavalier, who was governor of Puerto Rico, induced by the vague traditions circulated by the natives of the West Indies, that there was a country in the north possessing a fountain whose waters restored the aged to youth, made it an object of his ambition to be the first to discover this marvellous region. With this view, he resigned the governorship, and set sail with three caravels on the 3d of March 1512. Steering N. ¼ N., he came upon a country covered with flowers and verdure; and as the day of his discovery happened to be Palm Sunday, called by the Spaniards' Pasqua Florida,' he gave it the name of Florida from this circumstance. He landed on the 2d of April, and took possession of the country in the name of the king of Castile. The warlike people of the coast of Cautio (a name given by the Indians to all the country lying between Cape Cañaveral and the southern point of Florida) soon, however, compelled him to retreat, and he pursued his exploration of the coast as far as 30° 8' North latitude, and on the 8th of May doubled Cape Cañaveral. Then retracing his course to Puerto Rico, in the hope of finding the island of Bimini, which he believed to be the Land of Youth, and described by the Indians as opposite to Florida, he discovered the Bahamas, and some other islands, previously unknown. Bad weather compelling him to put into the isle of Guanima to repair damages, he despatched one of his caravels, under the orders of Jaun Perez de Ortubia and of the pilot Anton de Alaminos, to gain information respecting the desired land, which he had as yet been totally unable to discover. He returned to Puerto Rico on the 21st of September; a few days afterwards, Ortubia arrived also with news of Bimini. He reported that he had explored the island,--which he described as large, well wooded, and watered by numerous streams,--but he had failed in discovering the fountain. Oviedo places Bimini at 40 leagues west of the island of Bahama. Thus all the advantages which Ponce de Leon promised himself from this voyage turned to the profit of geography: the title of 'Adelantado of Bimini and Florida,' which was conferred upon him, was purely honorary; but the route taken by him in order to return to Puerto Rico, showed the advantage of making the homeward voyage to Spain by the Bahama Channel."

_W. B. Rye, Introduction to "Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida, by a gentleman of Elvas" (Hakluyt Society, 1851)._

ALSO IN _G. R. Fairbanks, History of Florida, chapter 1_

AMERICA: A. D. 1513-1517. The discovery of the Pacific by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. Pedrarias Davila on the Isthmus.

With Enciso deposed from authority and Nicuesa sent adrift, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa seems to have easily held the lead in affairs at Darien, though not without much opposition; for faction and turbulence were rife. Enciso was permitted to carry his grievances and complaints to Spain, but Balboa's colleague, Zamudio, went with him, and another comrade proceeded to Hispaniola, both of them well-furnished with gold. For the quest of gold had succeeded at last. The Darien adventurers had found considerable quantities in the possession of the surrounding natives, and were gathering it with greedy hands. Balboa had the prudence to establish friendly relations with one of the most important of the neighboring caciques, whose comely daughter he wedded--according to the easy customs of the country--and whose ally he became in wars with the other caciques. By gift and tribute, therefore as well as by plunder, he harvested more gold than any before him had found since the ransacking of the New World began. But what they obtained seemed little compared with the treasures reported to them as existing beyond the near mountains and toward the south. One Indian youth, son of a friendly cacique, particularly excited their imaginations by the tale which he told of another great sea, not far to the west, on the southward-stretching shores of which were countries that teemed with every kind of wealth. He told them, however, that they would need a thousand men to fight their way to this Sea. Balboa gave such credence to the story that he sent envoys to Spain to solicit forces from the king for an adequate expedition across the mountains. They sailed in October, 1512, but did not arrive in Spain until the following May. They found Balboa in much disfavor at the court. Enciso and the friends of the unfortunate Nicuesa had unitedly ruined him by their complaints, and the king had caused criminal proceedings against him to be commenced. Meantime, some inkling of these hostilities had reached Balboa, himself, conveyed by a vessel which bore to him, at the same time, a commission as captain-general from the authorities in Hispaniola. He now resolved to become the discoverer of the ocean which his Indian friends described, and of the rich lands bordering it, before his enemies could interfere with him. "Accordingly, early in September, 1513, he set out on his renowned expedition for finding 'the other sea,' accompanied by 190 men well armed, and by dogs, which were of more avail than men, and by Indian slaves to carry the burdens. He went by sea to the territory of his father-in-law, King Careta, by whom he was well received, and accompanied by whose Indians he moved on into Poncha's territory." Quieting the fears of this cacique, he passed his country without fighting. The next chief encountered, named Quarequa, attempted resistance, but was routed, with a great slaughter of his people, and Balboa pushed on. "On the 25th of September, 1513, he came near to the top of a mountain from whence the South Sea was visible. {61} The distance from Poncha's chief town to this point was forty leagues, reckoned then six days' journey; but Vasco Nuñez and his men took twenty-five days to accomplish it, as they suffered much from the roughness of the ways and from the want of provisions. A little before Vasco Nuñez reached the height, Quarequa's Indians informed him of his near approach to the sea. It was a sight in beholding which, for the first time, any man would wish to be alone. Vasco Nuñez bade his men sit down while he ascended, and then, in solitude, looked down upon the vast Pacific--the first man of the Old World, so far as we know, who had done so. Falling on his knees, he gave thanks to God for the favour shown to him in his being permitted to discover the Sea of the South. Then with his hand be beckoned to his men to come up. When they had come, both he and they knelt down and poured forth their thanks to God. He then addressed them. ... Having ... addressed his men, Vasco Nuñez proceeded to take formal possession, on behalf of the kings of Castile, of the sea and of all that was in it; and in order to make memorials of the event, he cut down trees, formed crosses, and heaped up stones. He also inscribed the names of the monarchs of Castile upon great trees in the vicinity." Afterwards, when he had descended the western slope and found the shore, "he entered the sea up to his thighs, having his sword on, and with his shield in his hand; then he called the by-standers to witness how he touched with his person and took possession of this sea for the kings of Castile, and declared that he would defend the possession of it against all comers. After this, Vasco Nuñez made friends in the usual manner, first conquering and then negotiating with" the several chiefs or caciques whose territories came in his way. He explored the Gulf of San Miguel, finding much wealth of pearls in the region, and returned to Darien by a route which crossed the isthmus considerably farther to the north, reaching his colony on the 29th of January, 1514, having been absent nearly five months. "His men at Darien received him with exultation, and he lost no time in sending his news, 'such signal and new news,' ... to the King of Spain, accompanying it with rich presents. His letter, which gave a detailed account of his journey, and which, for its length, was compared by Peter Martyr to the celebrated letter that came to the senate from Tiberius, contained in every page thanks to God that he had escaped from such great dangers and labours. Both the letter and the presents were intrusted to a man named Arbolanche, who departed from Darien about the beginning of March, 1514. ... Vasco Nuñez's messenger, Arbolanche, reached the court of Spain too late for his master's interests." The latter had already been superseded in the Governorship, and his successor was on the way to take his authority from him. The new governor was one Pedrarias De Avila, or Davila, as the name is sometimes written;--an envious and malignant old man, under whose rule on the isthmus the destructive energy of Spanish conquest rose to its meanest and most heartless and brainless development. Conspicuously exposed as he was to the jealousy and hatred of Pedrarias, Vasco Nuñez was probably doomed to ruin, in some form, from the first. At one time, in 1516, there seemed to be a promise for him of alliance with his all-powerful enemy, by a marriage with one of the governor's daughters, and he received the command of an expedition which again crossed the isthmus, carrying ships, and began the exploration of the Pacific. But circumstances soon arose which gave Pedrarias all opportunity to accuse the explorer of treasonable designs and to accomplish his arrest--Francisco Pizarro being the officer fitly charged with the execution of the governor's warrant. Brought in chains to Acla, Vasco Nuñez was summarily tried, found guilty and led forth to swift death, laying his head upon the block (A. D. 1517). "Thus perished Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, in the forty-second year of his age, the man who, since the time of Columbus, had shown the most statesmanlike and warriorlike powers in that part of the world, but whose career only too much resembles that of Ojeda, Nicuesa, and the other unfortunate commanders who devastated those beautiful regions of the earth."

_Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America,