Enciso, Martín Fernández de (c. 1470–c. 1528)

Martín Fernández de Enciso (b. ca. 1470; d. ca. 1528), a lawyer and central figure in an early sixteenth-century Vasco Núñez de Balboa venture. In 1508 Diego de Nicuesa and Alonso de Ojeda sealed a contract with the Spanish crown to divide the entire coast of South America into two governing areas. Explorer Francisco Pizarro was sent on expedition.

After it became clear that Pizarro's attempt at colonization in 1509 had failed, Ojeda contracted Martín Fernández de Enciso to travel to present-day Central America in relief of Pizarro. Meanwhile, Vasco Núñez de Balboa had secretly boarded Enciso's ship in Hispaniola. Balboa's popularity grew among the other passengers, who disliked the often petty and temperamental Enciso. In the end, Balboa emerged from this power struggle as the natural leader of the early settlements in northern South America. Although Enciso's group took Darién (probably in November 1510), Balboa and his supporters forced them to leave the colony, thus triggering a series of events which led to Balboa's later execution.

Enciso eventually returned to Spain, where he joined others who opposed Balboa and were finally successful in instigating Balboa's beheading in 1519.

Later, Enciso helped lead an ill-fated expedition to Cenu, in northwestern South America. This attempt to secure wealth, like the first, failed, and Enciso again returned to Spain. Enciso is remembered primarily for his role in the Balboa story.

See alsoExplorers and Exploration: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Central America, v. 6-8 San Francisco: A.L. Bancroft, 1883.

Gerbi, Antonello. De Cristóbal Colón a Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1978.

Romoli, Kathleen. Balboa of Darién: Discoverer of the Pacific. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1953.

Barlow, Roger, E.G.R. Taylor, ed. A Brief Summe of Geographie. London: Hakluyt Society, 1932.

                                   Blake D. Pattridge