Word: balboa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...little more than a year, Balboa, a wise, courageous and likable conquistador in Mrs. Romoli's version of history, had been confirmed as governor of the colony. He set out to explore, and to make friends with the Cueva Indians. That the Cuevans may have been worth making friends with is suggested in contemporary descriptions of them. An affable, cigar-smoking race, the Cuevans were also uncommonly handsome, and their women "displayed unexpected aspects of sophistication. Smallish, large-eyed with thick and often wavy hair, they had beautiful narrow bodies of which they were inordinately proud . . . They took extraordinary...
...Balboa's approach to the Indians was based much more on kindness than that of some of his compatriots, whose favorite sport was throwing native chieftains to fierce dogs. Balboa, by wining and dining the native rulers (and taking their sisters and daughters as concubines), won over every chieftain within range...
...settlement in Darién prospered, but by 1512 intriguers at home were threatening to have the governor recalled. Balboa decided to stake everything on one magnificent gamble: he would cross the mountains and find the "other sea" of which his Indian friends spoke. Taking 190 picked compañeros, he set out on Sept. 1, 1513 "for the Pacific and immortality...
Austral Seas. Three weeks later, the expedition reached the Pacific. Chronicler Andrés de Valdarrábanos tells what happened: "Captain [Balboa], going ahead of all those he was conducting up a bare high hill, saw from its summit the South Sea . . . And immediately he turned toward the troops, very happy, lifting eyes and hands to Heaven, praising Jesus Christ and His glorious Mother." Balboa knelt, commanding his men to do likewise, "and gave thanks to God for the grace He had shown him in allowing him to discover that sea." Later, Balboa and his men scrambled down...
With all his command of water and of words, Balboa was not able to stave off a rival conquistador named Pedro Arias Dávila. Pedrarias, as he was better known, displaced him as governor of Darién, and despite all Balboa's diplomacy (including marriage with Pedrarias' daughter), had his predecessor's head chopped off and stuck on a pole in the village square...