Pedro Arias Dávila

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Pedro Arias Dávila
1st
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
Succeeded byPedro de los Ríos y Gutiérrez de Aguayo
Royal Governor of Nicaragua
In office
1528–1531
MonarchCharles I
Preceded byDiego Gutiérrez de los Ríos y Aguayo
Succeeded byPedro Ramírez de Quiñones
Personal details
Born1440
General
Battles/wars

Pedro Arias de Ávila (1440 – 6 March 1531; often Pedro Arias Dávila) was a Spanish soldier and colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition to the mainland of the New World. There, he served as governor of Panama (1514–1526) and Nicaragua (1527–1531), and founded Panama City (1519).[1][2] He died in 1531 aged around 90 or 91.

Family

Pedrarias was the son of Pedro Arias and María Ortiz de Cota. He was born into a prominent and well-connected Spanish family. His grandfather, Diego Arias de

Enrique IV; his older brother was the Count of Puñonrostro; and his uncle was the Bishop of Segovia, a wealthy man who left Pedrarias a fortune.[3]

Early life

As a boy, he was a

Juan II of Castile. Physically imposing and athletic, he was nicknamed "the jouster" for his skill in tournaments and "the gallant" in reference to his extravagant wardrobe and spendthrift habits. In later life, he served in the war against the Moors in Granada (1482–1492) and distinguished himself as a colonel of infantry fighting in North Africa (1508–1511). When he returned to Spain, he received a promotion, a citation for valor, and another nickname: "the lion of Bugia".[3]

Towards the end of 1485, he married an intimate friend of queen

Isabella I of Spain, Isabel de Bobadilla y Peñalosa, the daughter of Francisco de Bobadilla who was appointed to succeed Christopher Columbus
as the second governor of the Indies in 1499.

A few years before 1513, he collapsed of some unrecorded illness. As he was about to be lowered to his grave, a tearful servant who was embracing the casket was astonished to hear movement inside. Incredibly, Arias was breathing and very much alive. Thereafter, he ordered an annual Requiem Mass sung for him in the cathedral at Torrejón, and stood in his own unused grave to listen to it. He took his coffin everywhere he went, even to the New World.

better source needed
]

In 1514, at the age of nearly seventy, he was made commander by King Ferdinand II of Aragon of the largest Spanish expedition (19 vessels and 1,500 men) hitherto sent to America.

America

Tierra Firme 1513 - Castilla de Oro

They reached

ruled as governor.

Arias Dávila superseded him and promised him his daughter in wedlock but he had Balboa judicially murdered at age 44 on 15 January 1519,

Ciudad de los Reyes
on 25 May 1573.

Another of Arias Dávila's daughters, who was born when he was elderly, Isabel Arias or Isabel de Bobadilla (to mark the female ancestors of the family), was married in

Governor of Cuba
.

In 1519, Arias Dávila founded

Darién. Dávila sent Gil González Dávila to explore to the north. In 1524, he sent another expedition under Francisco Hernández de Córdoba
, who was executed there in 1526 by order of Dávila, by then aged over 85.

The death of the New Governor, a change of position decided in Spain, Lope de Sosa, in 1520 before even landing and taking possession, the expeditions with military garrisons from Panamá and Nata, to reduce the "disorders" promoted by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, a.k.a. Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, the diversion from New Governor of Castilla del Oro since 1526, now, more or less Panamá, Pedro de los Ríos, getting a nomination for himself as the new Governor of Nicaragua in 1527 show the energy of Dávila, already approaching his nineties.[clarification needed]

María Ortiz Cota, the mother of Dávila, was the daughter of Toledo family member and Royal Treasurer Alonso Cota (died 1468) who was married to one Teresa Ortiz, their children being known however as "Ortiz Cota" under the Portuguese family style, whereas, following the Spanish succession style, they would have been known as "Cota Ortiz".

Moreover, he was a party to the original agreement with Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro which brought about the discovery of Peru, but he withdrew (1526) for a small compensation, having lost confidence in the outcome. In the same year, he was superseded as Governor of Panama by Pedro de los Ríos and retired to León, Nicaragua, where he was named its new governor on 1 July 1527. Here he lived for the rest of his life until his death on 6 March 1531. He left an unenviable record, as a man of unreliable character, and who was cruel and unscrupulous.[6]

Through his foundation of

conquest of Peru
.

Notes

  1. ^ "Pedro Arias Dávila". Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  2. ^ Sherman (2008)
  3. ^ a b Romoli (1953)
  4. ^ Wood, Peter. Time-Life Books Inc. The Seafarers: The Spanish Main.
  5. ^ Andagoya, Pascual de. Narrative of the Proceedings of Pedrarias Davila. The Hakluyt Society. Retrieved 21 June 2019 – via Wikisource.

References

Spanish references

External links