lived from 1475 to 1517
Balboa was a
Spanish explorer who is primarily known for being the first
European to discover the
Pacific Ocean.
When living in
Hispaniola, he worked himself into a bit of a
debt, and therefore he grabbed his dog and skipped town by stowing away on a ship in 1510. The ship happened to be that of an explorer named Fernández de Enciso, and it was bound for
Panama. Once it reached
Panama, Balboa siezed control from Enciso of the expedition. Hearing from the
Indians around there of a body of water on the other side of
Panama, he and his newly acquired men marched across the isthmus and became the first
Europeans to discover the
Pacific Ocean. He promptly claimed the whole thing for
Spain.
After this, he heard from some of the
natives about a great
civlization who resided in cities of gold and the like. He was vastly intrigued by this, and, being the
conquistador he was, proceeded to gather his men and march south with the intent of
stealing from,
conquering, and otherwise kicking around said peoples. He explored a tiny bit, but he never found this
civilization, however, because he was ultimately caught and
executed for
treason by, of all people,
Francisco Pizarro. The
civlization he had heard about turned out to be the
Incas, and Balboa's
executioner,
Pizarro, went on to
conquer them.