Juan Ponce de Leon went to Spain and obtained from the crown the appointment of adelantado of Bimini and Florida. When he heard, while living at Porto Rico, the reports of the success of Hernando Cortes in Mexico, he fitted out, in 1521, two ships, and sailed to Florida to take possession of it and to settle a colony on its attractive shores. But the natives valiantly opposed the occupation of their country and drove the ambitious invader, with the loss of many men, to his ships. Juan Ponce was wounded in the thigh by an arrow. The vessels sailed to Cuba, where the impoverished and disabled Spaniard not long after died.[307]
The exploration of Central America was continued in 1511 by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, a native of Xeres de los Caballeros, Spain, who had accompanied Rodrigo de Bastidas when he sailed on his voyage of discovery to the New World, in October, 1500. In 1510 the Indian village on the isthmus of Darien, west of the Gulf of Uraba, was made the seat of the government of this part of the continent by the Spaniards, and called Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was appointed alcade of the new colony. This ambitious and avaricious adventurer penetrated the dense forest belting the northern coast of the isthmus, and invaded the interior, where he found a wealthy cacique, named Comogre. The Indian chief entertained Vasco Nuñez and his fourscore followers with generous hospitality in his large and attractive palace, a wooden building one hundred and fifty paces long and eighty wide. He presented his indigent guest with four thousand ounces of golden ornaments and sixty slaves. “This gold, with as much more obtained at another place,” says Peter Martyr, “our men weighed on the porch of Comogre’s palace, to separate the fifth part due to the king’s exchequer, for it was a law that the fifth part of the gold, pearls, and precious stones should be given to the royal treasurer, and the remainder be divided among the discoverers. While our men were wrangling and contending about the division of the gold, the eldest son of Comogre, the cacique, who was present and whom we commended for wisdom, approached with some appearance of anger him who was weighing the treasure, and struck the balances with his fist, scattering the gold all over the porch.” Pointing southward toward the mountains, he told them that beyond those sierras was a great sea, on which people sailed with ships as large as theirs, and that the adjacent country contained great quantities of gold.
Balboa heard this surprising announcement with delight, and, ambitious to be honored as the discoverer of the unnamed sea and the country abounding with rich mines, began to plan to go there and achieve the notoriety that would make his name forever famous. On the first of September, 1513, Vasco Nuñez, with one hundred and ninety men and a number of Indian guides, embarked at Santa Maria de la Antigua and set sail in a brigantine for the Indian village of Coyba. Here he began his toilsome and dangerous march across the isthmus. After enduring untold hardships the pertinacious Spaniard and his small body of wayworn followers arrived at the foot of the Sierra de Quarequa, intercepting the view of the unseen ocean.[308] While climbing the rugged slope of the intervening mountain, on the twenty-fifth of September, Balboa commanded his men to halt and to remain where they were until he had reached the summit and surveyed the wide expanse of the great ocean billowing between the isthmus and the remote shores of India. When the enthusiastic Spaniard ascended to the top of the mountain and beheld the Mar del Sur (Sea of the South), he fell upon his knees and thanked God for honoring him as its discoverer, “as he was a man of moderate ability, little knowledge, and humble birth.” Calling to his men to come to him, he ordered them, after surveying the discovered sea, to construct a wooden cross, and to plant it where he had kneeled and rendered thanks for the honor conferred on him. A mound of stones was built near the cross as a monument to commemorate the discovery of the ocean and the adjacent country for his majesty, the king of Spain. Descending the southern slope of the mountain, Balboa and his followers made their way to the shore of the bay, which he called San Miguel, where the proud discoverer, with a banner embellished with the picture of the Holy Virgin and Child and the insignia of Spain, marched into the sea, and took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, King Ferdinand. Having explored a part of the southern coast of the isthmus, Vasco Nuñez and his men reëntered the wilderness and arrived at Santa Maria de la Antigua on the nineteenth of January, 1514.
In the following year Gaspar Morales and Francisco Pizarro crossed the isthmus with sixty men, and visited the island which Balboa had called Isla Rica. In 1516, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, ambitious of obtaining greater fame, and having two hundred men and considerable money at his command, transported the timber, rigging, and other appendages of two brigantines across the isthmus, and after putting the vessels in sailing condition, launched them upon the recently discovered ocean. After a short cruise among the islands near Isla Rica, Balboa returned to the Spanish settlement at Acla, on the north coast, where he was arrested on some false charges and put in irons by Pedrarias Davila, “as a traitor and an usurper of the territories of the crown of Spain.” The enmity of Pedrarias was so bitter toward the innocent officer that the Spanish governor of Darien ordered Balboa to be executed. In 1517, at the age of forty-one years, in the plaza of Acla, the discoverer of the South Sea was publicly beheaded.[309]
To further explore the coast of Brazil, it is said that Juan Diaz de Solis sailed from Lepe, Spain, on the eighth of October, 1515. Descrying the continent at Cape San Roque, in five degrees south latitude, he steered southward along the coast to Rio de Janeiro, (River of January,) in twenty-three degrees south latitude. Thence he coasted farther southward and entered a large bay of fresh water, which he called Mar Dulce, that was afterward called Rio de la Plata. While exploring this stream, De Solis, with some of his crew, went on land, and while ashore was attacked by the natives, and falling into their hands he and his men were roasted and devoured. The vessel returned to Cape St. Augustine, and having loaded with Brazil-wood, sailed to Spain.[310]
The greed of gold, silver, and pearls,—the master passion governing Spanish capitalists and the horde of moneyless adventurers at this time in the New World,—was the cause of the fitting out of three vessels, in 1517, to go in search of new countries west of the island of Cuba. This fleet, under the command of Francisco Hernando de Cordoba, set sail, with one hundred and ten soldiers, about the beginning of February, from San Cristobal, on the north side of the island, and after a voyage of twenty-one days came in sight of the northeastern part of the peninsula of Yucatan, where an Indian town was seen, to which the Spaniards gave the name El Gran Cairo. Near this place three temples, built of stone and lime, were found, in which were many clay idols “some of them having terrible shapes, seemingly representing Indians committing horrible offences. In these temples,” says Bernal Diaz del Castillo,[311] who was connected with the expedition, “we also found wooden boxes containing other gods with hellish faces, several small shells, some ornaments, three crowns, and a number of trinkets, some in the shape of fish, others in the shape of ducks, all made of an inferior kind of gold. Seeing all these things, the gold and the good architecture of the temples, we felt overjoyed at the discovery of the country.” At a town, which the Spaniards called San Lazaro, although they were aware that the Indians called it Campeachy, they were invited to land by the inhabitants, “who wore fine mantles made of cotton.” “They took us” Diaz remarks “to some large edifices, which were strongly built of stone and lime and were in many ways attractive. These were temples, the walls of which were covered with figures representing snakes and all kinds of gods. About an altar we saw several fresh spots of blood. On some of the idols there were figures like crosses. There were some paintings representing groups of Indians. All these greatly astonished us, for we had neither seen nor heard of such things before.”
While the explorers were taking in water, near a village called Potonchan, now Champoton, on the western side of the peninsula, where there were some wells, maize-plantations, and stone buildings, the inhabitants visited them. “They all wore cotton cuirasses which reached to their knees. They were armed with bows, lances, shields, and swords. The latter,” Diaz further remarks, “were shaped like our broad swords, and are wielded with both hands.” They also had slings for throwing stones. They had bunches of feathers on their heads, and had their bodies decorated with white, brown, and black colors. Speaking of an engagement which the Spaniards had with the natives, Diaz says: “As soon as it was daylight we saw more companies of armed natives moving toward the coast with flags. They wore feather head-dresses, and were provided with drums, bows, lances, and shields. They joined themselves to the others who had arrived in the night. They divided themselves into corps, surrounded us on all sides, and began to assail us with so many arrows, lances, and stones, that more than eight of our men were wounded in the first onset. They then rushed furiously forward and attacked us man to man; some with their lances, others with their swords and arrows, and with such terrible impetuosity that we were compelled to show them opposition. We dealt them many a good thrust and blow, continuing at the same time an incessant fire with our matchlocks and crossbows; for while some loaded others fired. At last, by heavy blows and thrusts we forced them back, but they did not retreat farther than was necessary to keep us strongly surrounded.... Perceiving how closely we were hemmed in on all sides by the enemy, who not only kept getting fresh troops but were plentifully supplied in the field with meat, drink, and numbers of arrows, we soon concluded that all our valiant fighting would not benefit us. All of us were wounded. Many were shot through the neck, and more than fifty of our men were killed. In this critical position we determined to cut our way manfully through the enemy’s ranks and get to the boats, which fortunately lay on the coast near us. We therefore resolutely closed our ranks and broke through those of the enemy. You should then have heard the whizzing of their arrows, the terrible yells of the Indians, and how they incited one another to fight.... Many of our men were wounded while climbing into the vessel, especially those who clung to its side, for the Indians pursued us in their canoes, and persistently assailed us. With the utmost exertion and the help of God we escaped from the hands of this people.”
“Our vessels,” Diaz further relates, “were taken to Santiago of Cuba, where the governor [Diego Velasquez] resided. Here the two Indians were brought on shore whom we had taken with us from Punta de Cotoche, as already related, called Melchorejo and Juanillo. When, however, we brought forth the box with the crowns, the golden ducks, the fish, the idols, more noise was made about them than they really merited, so that they became the common topics of conversation throughout the islands of St. Domingo and Cuba; indeed, the report concerning them reached Spain. There it was said that none of the discovered countries were as rich as this one, and in none had there been found houses built of stone. The earthen gods, it was said, were the heathen relics of ancient times; others ventured to affirm that they [the people of Yucatan] were the descendants of the Jews who had been shipwrecked off this coast, whom Titus and Vespasian had driven from Jerusalem.... Diego Velasquez closely questioned the two Indians whether there were any gold-mines in their country. They answered in the affirmative; and when they were shown some of the gold-dust found in the island of Cuba, they said there was an abundance of it in their country. This was not true, for it is well known that there are no gold-mines on the Punta de Cotoche, or anywhere in the whole of Yucatan. They were likewise shown the beds in which the seeds of that plant are sown from whose root the cassava-bread is made, which in Cuba is called yuca. They assured us that the same plant grew in their country, and was called by them tale. As the cassava-root in Cuba is called yuca, and the ground in which it is planted by the Indians tale, so from these two words originated the name of the country, Yucatan; for the Spaniards, who were standing around the governor at the time that he was speaking to the two Indians, said: ‘You see, sir, they call their country Yucatan.’ And from this circumstance the country retained the name of Yucatan, although the natives call it by a different name.”[312]
“It was in the year of our Lord 1518,” says Diaz, “after Diego Velasquez had heard the good account we gave of the newly-discovered country called Yucatan, that he determined to send another expedition to it. For this purpose he selected four vessels, among which were the two in which we soldiers had accompanied Cordoba on our late voyage to Yucatan, purchased at our expense.... Our account that the houses in the newly-discovered country were built of stone and lime had originated an extraordinary conception of its riches, besides the Indian Melchorejo had indicated by signs that it contained gold-mines. All these things created a great desire among the inhabitants and soldiers on the island [Cuba] who possessed no official authority over the Indians to go in search of a rich country like this one; consequently, in a very short time, we mustered two hundred and twenty men.”