Four folios of paper, gathered today among the papers that the Consejo de Indias assembled on the settlement of Tierra Firme, carry what Vasco Núñez de Balboa wrote from Santa María la Antigua del Darién on October 16, 1515. The letter is preserved in Seville, Archivo General de Indias.
A Colony Unsettled by the Arrival of Pedrarias Dávila
Balboa had founded Santa María in 1510 and governed it on his own authority until June 1514, when Pedrarias Dávila landed with a fleet and a royal commission. Within a year the settlement was split between the two men and their followers. The letter belongs to that quarrel, written by a man who had already sent earlier reports to the court and received no answer.
Paper, a Cursive Documentary Hand, and the Drawing of a Pearl
The text runs in Spanish across the four folios in a cursive documentary hand, without ruling, rubrics, or decoration of any kind. Its single image is practical: a pen drawing of an exceptional pearl brought from the Isla Rica, inserted so that the King might judge its shape and size for himself. The letter closes with the day of the week, the date, and Balboa’s signature.
A Complaint Addressed to Ferdinand the Catholic
Balboa reports the ruin of the agreements he had built with the caciques, the raids and enslavements carried out under the new governor, and asks that the Crown send someone to take testimony before the territory is lost altogether. The indigenous peoples, he writes, once as sheep, had turned into fierce lions.
Three years later Pedrarias had him beheaded at Acla. The papers of the losing party rarely survive; these four folios did.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Letter of Vasco Núñez de Balboa to King Ferdinand the Catholic": Vasco Núñez de Balboa: Descubridor del Océano Pacífico facsimile edition, published by Círculo Científico, 2013
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