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Updated: June 5, 2025
Balboa then consented to their extending their incursions to more distant lands, as they had already wasted and ruined the immediate environs of Antigua, and he sent Valdivia to Spain to apprise the admiral of the clew he had gained to the South Sea, and the reported wealth of those regions.
Already, however, as early as 1504, a considerable number of Negroes had been introduced from Guinea because, as we are informed, "the work of one Negro was worth more than that of four Indians." In 1513 thirty Negroes assisted Balboa in building the first ships made on the Pacific Coast of America.
John drew his glass and swept the horizon. The slight clouds, from which an occasional flake had fallen, cleared away at sunset, and they had an excellent view as far as the eye could reach. "Do you see any sail?" she asked. "None." "Then we must be in an ocean as unexplored and unknown as the great south sea which Balboa discovered." "I know not where we are."
General Fremont, too, like a great many explorers, got puffed up with his own importance, and when, on the 6th of September, 1846, he saw for the first time the Great Salt Lake, he compares himself to Balboa, when that famous Spaniard gazed upon the Pacific.
The Spaniards had not been long here when they became tired with Enciso, and they refused to obey him, and sent him off in a ship to Spain. Upon his departure, Balboa took the command. In one of his expeditions into the interior parts of the country in search of gold, he first heard of a sea to the west, as yet unknown to Europeans.
Often as Joel had come out upon the edge of that bluff on his innumerable journeys to the river for fishing, swimming, skating, or just staring, it always smote him with the thrill Balboa must have felt coming suddenly upon the Pacific.
But other and gloomier destinies were in reserve for the Indian races. The first arrival of the white men on the South American shores of the Pacific was about ten years before the death of Huayna Capac, when Balboa crossed the Gulf of St. Michael, and obtained the first clear report of the empire of the Incas. Whether tidings of these adventurers reached the Indian monarch's ears is doubtful.
Judged by the high standard of the modern times, Balboa was cruel and ruthless enough to merit our severe condemnation. Judged by his environments and contrasted with any other of the Spanish conquistadores he was an angel of light. He seems to have remained always a generous, affectionate, open-hearted soldier.
Twelve men were sent on in advance to seek the easiest and shortest path to the sea, one of them a man destined to become still more famous than Balboa,—Francisco Pizarro, the future conqueror of Peru.
We trusted one another, and so it is barely possible that for a moment some one who was supposed to be watching the subject was off his guard. Therein lies the sole possibility of fraud in this result, and, as I said, this is out of the question with us who know the character of the subject. Yours very truly, Vincent Jones, 215 Balboa Bldg.
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