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Rodrigo de Bastidas (b. ca. 1460; d. 1526), early Spanish explorer. With a royal commission to explore and trade, Bastidas sailed from Cádiz in 1500 or 1501 with three ships carrying more than fifty people, including some women.
- Overview
- The Spanish conquest
- Appointment of Pedrarias
- Further conquest of the Indians
Rodrigo de Bastidas was first to establish Spain’s claim to the isthmus, sailing along the Darién coast in March 1501, but he made no settlement. A year later Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage, sailed along the Caribbean coast from the Bay of Honduras to Panama, accumulating much information and a little gold but again making no settlement...
Rodrigo de Bastidas was first to establish Spain’s claim to the isthmus, sailing along the Darién coast in March 1501, but he made no settlement. A year later Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage, sailed along the Caribbean coast from the Bay of Honduras to Panama, accumulating much information and a little gold but again making no settlement...
The king relieved Balboa with a trusted general, Pedro Arias Dávila (known as Pedrarias), although he allowed Balboa to continue his explorations on the Pacific coast. Pedrarias, however, distrusted the ambitious Balboa and, accusing him of treason, had him beheaded in 1517. Pedrarias expanded the colony but was responsible for enslaving and murdering the Indian population, despite royal orders for more humane treatment. In 1519 he established Panama City on the Pacific coast and moved the capital there in 1524, abandoning the hot, humid Darién.
Pedrarias sent a kinsman, Gil González Dávila, to explore northward, and he found civilization on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. The jealous Pedrarias forced him to flee to Santo Domingo before a Spanish colony could be planted, however, and instead sent Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1524, who established Granada on Lake Nicaragua and León not far from Lake Managua. But when Córdoba attempted to set up a kingdom independent of Panama, Pedrarias came to Nicaragua himself and put Córdoba to death after a year of civil war.
While Pedrarias and Córdoba conquered lower Central America, the conqueror of Mexico, Hernán Cortés, looked southward. In 1524 he sent Cristóbal de Olid by sea to Honduras and Pedro de Alvarado overland to conquer Guatemala. Olid founded the port of Triunfo de la Cruz but immediately declared himself independent of Cortés, a common practice among the conquistadores. Accompanied by a large force of Indian warriors from central Mexico and preceded by a smallpox epidemic, Alvarado faced little opposition until he reached Guatemala. There he allied with the Cakchiquel Maya against the rival Quiché. He allegedly defeated the Quiché chief, Tecúm-Umán, in hand-to-hand combat at Xelajú, near present-day Quezaltenango. Alvarado went on to conquer the Pipil of El Salvador in the same year, but a bloody rebellion by the Cakchiquel took four more years to quell.
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Quick Quiz: Central American Geography
In Honduras a three-way struggle developed between the forces of Pedrarias, Cortés, and González, who had returned to Central America to press Pedrarias’s claim to Nicaragua. The discovery of gold in Honduras made the struggle more intense. Cortés first sent Francisco de Las Casas to relieve the rebellious Olid but then marched to Honduras himself to reprimand Olid. Before he arrived, however, Las Casas and González had united against Olid and put him to death. Cortés’s difficult trip to Honduras thus turned out to be unnecessary, but, before leaving, he consolidated his control of the Honduran coast with the establishment of Puerto Natividad (renamed Puerto Cortés in 1869). The loyal Alvarado consolidated Cortés’s control over Honduras as well as Guatemala and El Salvador, confronting the forces of Pedrarias, with whom rivalry continued for years.
Indian resistance delayed the conquest of Costa Rica until 1561, when Juan de Cavallón led a successful colonization expedition there. Although none of his settlements in the Nicoya Bay region survived, he and his men began the permanent Spanish occupation of Costa Rica. A year later Juan Vásquez de Coronado took over as governor of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and in 1564 he established Cartago as the seat of government in the central valley of Costa Rica, where a small but industrious population developed.
Spanish domination of Central America was achieved by relatively few Spanish military forces but at a great cost in Indian lives. Remote areas, however, especially in northern Guatemala and along the Caribbean coast, remained outside Spanish control throughout the colonial period, eventually allowing Great Britain to colonize Belize and the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua.
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Rodrigo de Bastidas was on another one of the ship that survived the hurricane, along with his gold and pearls. In Spain he was acquitted by the Crown in 1503, and he paid a large share of this treasures to the government. He was ordered to return to his home, and display his share of the gold and pearls, three chests full, in all of the towns ...
Rodrigo de Bastidas. 1460-1526. Spanish explorer of what is now Colombia. Working variously with Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) and Juan de la Cosa (1460?-1510), Bastidas travelled along the South American coast from Trinidad to the isthmus of Panama during the years 1500-1502. He discovered the mouths of the Magdalena River near present ...
Bastidas, Rodrigo de rôᵺrēˈgō dā bästēˈᵺäs , c.1460–1526, Spanish conquistador in Colombia. In 1501, accompanied by Balboa and Juan de la Cosa, he discovered the mouths of the Magdalena River.
views 1,929,144 updated. Rodrigo de Bastidas (rôŧħrē´gō dā bästē´ŧħäs), c.1460–1526, Spanish conquistador in Colombia. In 1501, accompanied by Balboa and Juan de la Cosa, he discovered the mouths of the Magdalena River. Because of difficulties with the Spanish crown, it was 1525 before he returned to found Santa Marta.
Apr 15, 2020 · Via Knopf. Where They Sing to the River: Sierra Nevada, the Heart. of the World. With the Arhuaco on the Sacred Magdalena River. By Wade Davis. April 15, 2020. Under orders from the Spanish Crown, Rodrigo de Bastidas reached the coast of South America in 1501.
