Coventina's History Thread: Vasco Nunez de Balboa
This particular conquistador has a few "firsts" to his name.
1. He founded the first permanent European settlement in the mainland Americas! This was in 1510, in what is now present-day Columbia. The name of the settlement was: Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien. (An earlier settlement had been abandoned). It was eventually abandoned once Panama City was founded.
2. His second claim to fame was in September of 1513, he left Darien to climb the highest mountain in the area - just to see the view from the top. When he reached the summit, he looked Westward and became the first European to see the Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean!
He returned home, got a gang together, and they struck out for the opposite coast (Darien was on the shores of the Atlantic). It was extremely rough, jungled terrain and it took four days to hike the 40 miles to the Pacific.
Having said all that, he was a typical Spanish Conquistador, with all the problematic behaviors that suggests.
One particularly infamous thing he did was to "execute" 40 Native American men for "sodomy." Even worse, he had them killed by vicious dogs! (Because they didn't deserve a "clean" death). According to historians, the local Native culture did not enforce the gender binary, and these biological men were behaving as women, something the strict Catholics could not permit.
This is the kind of thing that will cease to be taught in schools if the fascists get their way in November.
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