Spanish discoverer. Galician origin and uncertain lineage, it was probably son Nuno Arias Balboa gentleman and a lady of Badajoz.
In 1501 he undertook his first trip to the issuance of Rodrigo de Bastidas through the Caribbean islands that belong to the current Colombia (Santa Marta, Cartagena and Gulf of Uraba or Darien). He remained in the Spanish, but had no luck in it and was forced to leave.
In 1508, Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa created two new governorates in the lands between the ends of the candle (Venezuela) and Gracias a Dios. At the easternmost called Nueva Andalucía and the west of the Gulf of Uraba, Castilla del Oro. A year later he fled from his creditors Santo Domingo and embarked as a stowaway on the expedition commanded by Enciso coming out to meet Fernando Alonso de Ojeda, who had founded the settlement of San Sebastián de Urabá in Nueva Andalucía, leaving a group of men he commanded by Francisco Pizarro.
Shortly after his arrival, Balboa became popular among his peers thanks to his charisma and his knowledge of the land. Later, the regiment moved to Darien, where Balboa founded in 1510 the first permanent settlement on American mainland, Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Elected mayor, sent emissaries to Nicuesa inviting him to establish himself as governor in the former, but the latter saw the gesture as an intrusion and led a mission of punishment against Balboa, but this beat, and Nicuesa was left to die in a boat that was lost at sea.
In 1511, Balboa won the governorship; Moved by the desire to discover the sea speaking Indians, went into the continent and the September 25, 1513 ended one of the greatest feats of the Spanish conquest of America, the discovery of the South Sea, name given then the Pacific Ocean.
After the arrival of Pedrarias Davila, the new governor, Balboa retained charges ahead of South Sea and governor of Panama and Coiba, and began exploring the Pacific coast. On hearing that his father was to be replaced, he returned to Acla to support it, but Pedrarias accused him of conspiring against the Crown, and the finder was tried, sentenced to death and executed in Acla.
AMERIGO VESPUCCI
Amerigo Vespucci; Florence 1454 - Seville, 1512) Italian navigator whose name would cause the name of the American continent. As is known, Christopher Columbus died believing he had reached the Indies, without suspecting that those islands which had taken possession in the name of the Crown of Castile belonged to a new continent. A friend of his, Amerigo Vespucci, was asked to tell the old Europe that lands found by Columbus were not Asian, but part of a "fourth pars" the world that would give his name involuntarily. This man, insignificant compared to the great figure of Columbus, also died without knowing the effects of its revolutionary news: posthumous glory, derived from the casual baptism for himself and his lineage.
Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine who had come to Spain as employee trading shortly before the first departure of Columbus. The Medici banking house of Castile sent to a commercial mission for a certain Beraldi, and Italian settled in the vicinity of the court establishing business contacts and projecting some prominent gentlemen. When the March 15, 1493 Christopher Columbus returned from his first voyage and spoke of the immense riches found, the commercial houses of Genoa and Venice began to speculate on the possibility of opening new routes for transporting spices, highly-coveted product in that time. Medici also tried to learn in order to guide their future business, and possibly the first news of the feat of Columbus came to them through letters, more or less accurate, Vespucci.
Beraldi's sudden death, however, left no pattern Américo without livelihoods. Thus he was born his intention to take the same trip to India, which he did in 1497 and then in May 1499. In this second expedition, led by Alonso de Ojeda, followed the route of the third voyage of Columbus: 4th May 1499, ships sailed from Puerto de Santa María and, after twenty days at sea, arrived at the mouth of the Orinoco, as discovered by Columbus, and began the journey north coast. The geographical features of the low and flooded coast and pre-entrance Lake Maracaibo, accidents Venice reminded Amerigo Vespucci and therefore called on those lands Venezuela or Little Venice. Ojeda's expedition continued its exploration reaching Cape Vela, in today's Colombia, and cartographers first fixed part of the boundary of the lands discovered.
On his return, Vespucci continued with their reporting to the Medici and, apparently, prepared to undertake new journeys. Although the authenticity of his later expeditions has been doubted by many historians, the same Vespucci realizes in his two letters. On the third trip, the service of the king of Portugal, Brazil claims to have paid for and returned to Lisbon in July 1502; and fourth, also on behalf Portuguese, he must go back the Brazilian coast in late 1503, confirming their suspicions that the continent was not Asia. The truth is that in 1504 was published in Augsburg booklet Mundus Novus (New World), where a letter of Vespucci to Lorenzo de Medici in chronicling his travels was reproduced, and the following year his second book was printed, Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci Isole delle quattro nuovamente ritrovate in Suoi viaggi, expressing his belief that Europe and Asia were new land.
Such extraordinary revelations fascinated the German cosmographer Martin Waldseemüller, who decided to publish in 1507 Vespucci's letters with his Cosmographiae Introductio. This work included portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci, and in his preface he wrote: "Now that those parts of the world have been extensively examined and another quarter have been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci, I see no reason not to call it America, is ie land of Amerigo, its discoverer, as well as Europe, Africa and Asia received names of women. "
The name of America began to spread and flood everything. Earlier, in 1505, Amerigo Vespucci had become Amerigo Vespucci upon being granted naturalization in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. His fame as a merchant seaman and had grown considerably, to the point of taking you to participate in the Board of Burgos next to sailors, explorers and cartographers as illustrious as Finch, Solis and Juan de la Cosa in 1507, and being named greater pilot House of Hiring the following year.
At his death in 1512, the New World had definitely become America. After a few years, Waldseemüller had news discoverer of the fourth continent and wanted to amend his error in a new edition of his book which was released in 1516. It was too late and nobody listened. Only a piece of American soil took the name of the pioneer Admiral: Colombia. In the early nineteenth century, Simon Bolivar dreamed of a vast country called Gran Colombia and tried unsuccessfully to give life to his dream. It would have been a median compensation for the man who starred in the most dazzling epic of the modern era, but destiny's not allowed.
FERDINAND MAGELLAN
Portuguese explorer and navigator. Member of the Portuguese nobility, studied and nautical cartography in Lisbon. At twenty-five, he joined the expedition to India commanded by Francisco de Almeida. On his next trip, this time to Morocco under the command of the Duke of Braganza, was wounded.
The Portuguese king, Manuel I the Fortunate, which had an unfavorable report on the conduct of Magellan in this last mission, rejected twice a project of sea to explore new routes to the East, so that he decided to try his luck in Spain . He arrived in Seville in October 1517 and from there went to court, which at the time was at Valladolid. In the same year he married Beatriz Barbosa, daughter of a Sevillian important official, who gave him a son, Rodrigo.
Magellan was convinced that there should be a step south of the South American coast to reach India by the West, a step that had sought unsuccessfully Juan Diaz de Solis. The possibility of finding an alternative route to East across the Atlantic Ocean was of vital interest to the Spanish monarchy, as the African coast was under the control of its main rival in the spice trade, Portugal.
After resigning Portuguese nationality, and with the support of the Portuguese astronomer Ruy de Faleiro and Bishop Fonseca, he managed to interest in the project to King Charles I, who put at their disposal five ships: Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria and Santiago with a crew of 270 men of different races and nationalities. He was appointed governor of the lands he might discover and given one-twentieth of the potential benefits of the expedition.
The fleet set sail from Seville in September 1519, after a failed attempt to sabotage Portuguese trip. Faleiro, victim of an attack of madness, went ashore. The contingent passed by the Canaries archipelago, continued journey to the coast of Brazil and then turned south, where he explored the estuary of the Plata. In the Bay of San Julian, Patagonia, the expedition was set for winter, a period in which two ships, one by accident and the other for desertion were lost; In addition, the Navy had to quell a riot.
Finally, on October 21, 1520, they approached the strait that now bears his name (Magellan called it "Strait of All Saints'), which allowed them to surround the American continent. Just over a month later found across an ocean of calm waters (which later became known as the Pacific Ocean), in whose sight the seasoned sailor cried with emotion.
They continued northwards, first along the coast of Chile and then turn northwest toward those currently known as Mariana Islands (which christened Islands of Thieves), without running water or fresh provisions, and the crew sick scurvy. The arrival in the islands let them refuel and continue exploring other islands making up the archipelago that bears the name of the Philippines.
It was in one of them, Mactan, where Magellan fell mortally wounded in a clash with indigenous, which miscarried her dream of completing the first voyage around the world. This corresponded to the marine feat of Basque origin Juan Sebastian Elcano (captain of the ship Conception, abandoned near the island of Cebu). Under his command the expedition completed its journey, the Moluccas first to make landfall in Spain on September 6, 1522; He arrived one ship, the Victoria, with eighteen survivors aboard and a cargo of spices.
JUAN SEBASTIAN ELCANO
Spanish navigator who completed the first round the world. The first news we have of him show him as a Basque sailor with ample nautical knowledge, who participated in the expedition of Cisneros to Algiers (1509) and the Italian campaigns of the Great Captain.
In 1518 he met in Seville to the Portuguese navigator Magellan, who was preparing an expedition to the service of Spain to find the route to the Indies by sailing west. Elcano enlisted in the expedition, which departed from Sanlucar de Barrameda in 1519 and explored the Rio de la Plata and Patagonia; there Elcano helped quell a first riot, but participated in a second attempt against Magallanes, who spared his life, is not to consider him or find him guilty essential to continue the journey (1520).
With reduced to a secondary role Elcano, the expedition discovered the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the South American continent and the Mariana Islands and the Philippines. When Magellan died in a battle with the natives of the Philippine island of Mactam (1521) the expedition was under the command successively several of his captains who vied for power, still exploring the islands, building relationships with local chiefs and earnestly seeking the route to the Moluccas.
Finally, a triumvirate led by Elcano took command of what remained of the fleet, arguing that the Portuguese bosses (including Magellan) had eluded order to avoid prejudicing the Moluccas to Portugal, which held the lucrative monopoly of trade in the spices sailing to the islands around Africa and across the Indian Ocean (1521).
After reaching the Moluccas and establish treaties with the native princes, they acquired a cargo of spices and prepared to return. However, a fault in one of the two remaining ships made the expedition separated: the damaged ship would stay in the Moluccas to repair and return to Spanish American lands across the Pacific; while the ship Elcano Victoria back to the Peninsula by the Portuguese route.
This last trip was a difficult and dangerous feat, because the actual maritime problems (such as rounding the Cape of Good Hope) the need to cross the Indian and skirting the African continent without scales, for fear it was added to be captured by the Portuguese, who had already sent a fleet to defeat the efforts of Magellan.
Elcano managed to dominate impatience crew, anxious to go ashore from to pass off the coast of Mozambique; but the lack of food will eventually forced to refuel in the Cape Verde Islands, where several crew members were captured by the Portuguese governor and the rest had to flee in haste. There he discovered Elcano in your own time had one day less, a result of having given the world a complete turn. Finally, the expedition arrived at Sanlucar de Barrameda in 1522, with only 18 of the 265 men who had left it there three years earlier.
Emperor Charles V Elcano received in audience, though not very generous rewards for their achievement. His trip was a success, both from a geographical point of view (as confirmed experimentally the sphericity of the Earth) and economic (as the sale of goods in Antwerp amply covered the costs of the issue).
Business expectations and did open a new House of Hiring intended to specialize in the spice trade was founded in Corunna. From there came a second expedition, financed by the Fugger and commanded by Loaisa (an aristocrat, to prevent further problems insubordination); Elcano traveled, despite their protests, as chief pilot. But this expedition, which left La Coruña in 1525, failed for the death of Loaisa and Elcano on (1526).
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