Vasco Nuñez de Balboa

by Frederick A. Ober

"A fine cavalgada [troop or herd] of captives you have, Rodrigo, and they should be sufficiently impressed by the punishment of their chiefs to behave well in the future."

"Doubtless they will," replied Colmenares, "for it was a conspiracy of the caciques, and not of the people at large. These are spirit-less wretches, most of them, and of themselves will be prone to keep the peace, I trow."

"Still, I think we will build a fort here in this wood, for it is a fine site for one, and the country at large is productive. Goldmines there are, too, back in the hills, and while old Zemaco is at large there will be no peace for us. Santa Maria! But I wish we could find that golden temple and its idol. Perchance we may, with a strong fortress here, and a garrison in command of a good man like thyself, Rodrigo."

Leaving Colmenares to erect a fortress on a commanding bluff overlooking the gulf, and eighty soldiers to hold the Indians in check, Balboa, with fifty of his own men, returned to Darien in the canoes. He arrived none too soon, as it chanced, for, taking advantage of his absence, some seditious fellows had stirred up a disturbance. He had left in command that Bartolomé Hurtado, who had been driven from Zemaco's country after the disastrous ending of the Dobaybe expedition. He was a favorite with the governor, but a man of no particular force (as may appear from his having fled the country he was left to defend), and against him rose the most unquiet spirits of the colony, led by one Alonzo Perez de la Rua.

Hurtado may have been arrogant when he found himself invested with sole authority in the settlement, and as Alonzo Perez was a cavalier of some distinction when in Spain, he took offence at the upstart's assumptions and refused to obey him. Not content with maligning Hurtado, he proceeded to declaim against Balboa himself, denouncing him as a man of low birth whom circumstance had invested with a brief authority, and who was, he said, a creature of their own creation. "A soldier of fortune," and "absconding debtor who ought to be cooling his heels in jail," were some of the milder things he said about the absent Balboa, who, as soon as he arrived and learned what had been done, promptly arrested Alonzo Perez and confined him in the calaboose.[2] As the testy cavalier had many friends in the colony, a party was quickly formed of considerable strength, which was opposed to Balboa, and for a time a collision seemed imminent between the rival forces.

Balboa had his soldiers at his back, and doubtless could have restrained the mutineers by resorting to force; but his penetrating mind looked beyond the present, with its temporary evils, to the future and its golden promises, so he released Alonzo Perez merely with a reprimand. This action for a time appeased the factious followers of Perez; but for a matter of hours only, and the next day they assembled anew. Taking advantage of Balboa's absence in the fields, whither he had gone to superintend the Indian laborers, they seized Hurtado, and possessed themselves of weapons, which they threatened to turn against the governor himself. Alonzo Perez was again in command, and being supported in his pretensions by a lawyer, one Bachelor Corral, he demanded that Balboa should at once deliver up for division among the colonists the ten thousand pieces of gold then in the treasury.

In the estimation of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, this hoard of gold was of small account, as he expected and intended to add to it at least ten times that amount. Whatever happened, he was not willing to risk his life in defence of it, and learning that the mutineers intended to throw him into prison, provided they could secure his person, he hastily withdrew from the scene of strife, giving out that he was going hunting in the forest.

"Friend Hurtado," he said to his lieutenant, "I foresee that when those scoundrels get possession of that bone of contention, the ten thousand castellanos in our treasury, they will so abuse one another in the division of it that the sober-minded members of our community will be only too glad to recall me to restore order. Hence, let them have it. I had hoped to send it to our lord the king—and in truth I yet shall do so; but let them first have the fingering of it. Meanwhile, friend Bartholomew, we will go hunting, you and I, for it is better, methinks, to slay the beasts of the forest, which may aid in sustaining us, than our own countrymen—which we shall certainly have to do if we remain."

This was the purport of a conversation the shrewd Balboa held with Hurtado and his immediate followers, and his wisdom and foresight were soon clearly shown by the manner in which his scheme worked itself out. Alonzo Perez and his rabble seized the treasury, which he had left purposely unguarded, and with great hilarity proceeded to share among themselves the ten thousand pieces of gold. The result was what the crafty Balboa had foreseen, for a furious dispute broke out at once, and from words the mutineers came to blows.

There were still many adherents of Balboa in the community, but they had been awed into silence by the rabble. When the latter began quarrelling among themselves, however, and some of them even cried out, boldly, that their self-exiled governor had always been fair in the apportionment of the spoils, while Perez was extremely partial to himself, the friends of Balboa ventured to proclaim their own opinions.