Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, rose from poverty-ridden obscurity to take his place among the great Spanish explorers, only to be ultimately vanquished by the greed and treachery of others.

Balboa was twenty-five when he arrived in the New World. In that year, 1501, Spain occupied only a few islands in the Caribbean, and the vast land mass of South and Central America remained shrouded in mystery and danger. Like other Spaniards crossing the Atlantic, Balboa came to make his fortune and extend Spanish rule; but unlike many of his ruthless compatriots, Balboa could not bring himself to senselessly slaughter and brutally enslave the native population.

This humanitarian instinct was both his greatest source of strength and his fatal weakness. It allowed him to win the trust of the Indians of the Isthmus of Panama, where he founded a flourishing colony after previous Spanish cruelty had caused near-disaster. With the aid of friendly natives, he made the perilous crossing to the Pacific, and opened up a huge new realm for his country. But his faith in his fellow man betrayed him when he refused to recognize the hatred of his rival for power, the infamous Governor Pedrarias, and the disloyalty of the self-seeking Francisco Pizarro, and he was beheaded.

Iris Noble brilliantly recreates a dramatic era and a fascinating character in this story of courage, adventure and tangled intrigue.

From the book