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MARTIN FERNANDEZ DE
ENCISO
Born
in Seville during the mid-15th century, Martin
Fernandez de Enciso lived until 1525 but led an eventful
life as an explorer, lawyer, and writer.
Although Enciso headed to America, the exact date is
unknown. However,
historians do know that he settled on the island of Santo
Domingo in 1508, making an excellent living as an attorney.
In fact, he ended up with the title, “Baehiller y
letrado”.
During
this time, Ojeda, a navigator, had just been granted the
government for that part of America as well as east of the
gulf of Uraba and isthmus of Darien.
However, for his to gain possession of the land and
develop colonies, he needed money.
With that, Ojeda approached Enciso since he was known
for being both wealthy and a man with an adventuring spirit.
Soon, the two men agreed that Enciso would be given
the title of Alcalde Mayor of Ojeda’s government.
In return, Enciso would provide the finances needed
to stock a ship with provisions and a crew.
Unfortunately,
Ojeda sailed to the gulf of Uraba, finding his friends had
fallen to famine. Determined
to return to Santo Domingo and hurry along the arrival of
succors that Enciso had promised, he left Francisco Pizarro
in charge of the new colony. Sixty days later, Enciso arrived in the harbor or Carthagena
with a ship of provisions along with a number of stallions,
12 mare, boars, sows, spears, ammunition, swords, various
other arms, and more than 150 men.
Once
at Carthagena, Enciso was joined by a ship under the control
of Pizarro that had left the gulf of Uraba 50 days after
Ojeda left with the few remaining colonist who had survived
the famine. The
expedition involved shipwreck and even hostile savages but
in 1510, they reached Darien.
Once there, the men began erecting a city.
However, Enciso provoked a mutiny by which trade with
the Indians for gold was forbidden under pain of death,
which was thrown out by Vasco Nunez de Balboa.
By
1512, Enciso set sail for Spain, bringing with him
Balboa’s conduct before the court.
Following, Pedrarias Davila was appointed governor of
Darien, being told to carry out justice between contestants.
Enciso went with Davila as Alguacil Mayor and after
arriving, obtained the right to demand payment of a large
sum from Balboa as indemnity for all of the wrongs suffered.
Then in 1515, Enciso was sent as an expedition’s
head to Cenu. Records
tell us that they discovered large quantities of gold but
did not have success in persuading or forcing the caciques
to surrender to the King of Spain.
Soon
after this event, Enciso returned to his country of Spain
where he gave all of his time to organizing and publishing
materials gathered while staying in the New World.
In fact, one of these publications was a memoir that
supported the commands established and those about to be
established in the West Indies.
This particular publication was met with great
opposition from the Franciscans.
Enciso became completely engrossed in his work, much
that covered his theory and practice of pilotage.
His most impressive work was a dissertation on the
sphere to include tables of declination, method of the polar
star height, construction of mariner’s compass, and
more.
Unfortunately,
Enciso never knew the inaccuracies that resulted from his
projections nor the trouble of representing a spherical
figure on a plane surface.
However, when it came to the geographical writing,
these were extremely accurate.
In fact, these contained the first description of the
result of the Spanish exploration all the way to 1519.
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