Balboa sets out on September 1, 1513,…

Balboa sets out on September 1, 1513, with one hundred and ninety Spaniards—among them Francisco Pizarro, who will later conquer the Inca Empire in Peru—a pack of dogs, and a thousand enslaved natives.

After twenty-five days of hacking their way through the jungle, the party gazes on the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Balboa, clad in full armor, wades into the water and claims the sea and all the shores on which it washes for his God and his king.

Balboa returns to Antigua in January 1514 with all one hundred and ninety soldiers and with cotton cloth, pearls, and forty thousand pesos in gold.

His enemies have meanwhile denounced him in the Spanish court, and King Ferdinand appoints a new governor for the colony, at this time known as Castilla del Oro.