Expedition to the Americas
On 13 February 1502, he sailed from Spain with the new appointed Governor of Hispaniola Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres on a fleet of thirty ships. It was the largest fleet that had ever sailed to the New World. The thirty ships carried 2,500 colonists.
Pizarro in Panama
In 1513, he accompanied Vasco Núñez de Balboa in his crossing of the Isthmus of Panama and became the first Europeans to view the Pacific coast of the New World. The following year, in 1514, Pedro Arias de Avila (Pedrarias) became the newly appointed governor of Castilla de Oro and succeeded Balboa. The next five years Pizarro became a close associate of Pedrarias Dávila and the governor assigned him a repartimiento of natives and cattle. When Pedrarias Dávila decided to get rid of Balboa out of distrust, he instructed Pizarro to personally arrest him and bring him to stand trial. Balboa was duly convicted and beheaded in January of 1519. For his loyalty to Pedrarias Dávila, Pizarro was bestowed the important political position of mayor (Alcalde) and magistrate of the then recently founded Panama City from 1519 to 1523.
Expeditions to South America
Part of the series on
Spanish colonization of the Americas
History of the conquest
Inter caetera
Alaska
California
Chile
Florida
Guatemala
Aztec Empire
Inca Empire
Yucatán
Conquistadores
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
Hernán Cortés
Juan Ponce de León
Francisco de Montejo
Pánfilo de Narváez
Francisco Pizarro
Diego de Almagro
Hernando de Soto
Sebastián de Belalcázar
Pedro de Valdivia
Juan de Oñate
Francisco de Orellana
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The first attempt to explore western South America was undertaken in 1522 by Pascual de Andagoya. The native South Americans he encountered told him about a gold-rich territory called Virú, which was on a river called Pirú (later corrupted to Perú) and from which they came. These reports were...