4 
Introduction 
Prior to this, however, the king in Spain had effected a complete reor¬ 
ganization on the mainland. On July 27, 1513, that body of land thereto¬ 
fore called Tierra Firme was ordered to be called Castilla del Oro, with 
the exception that this was not to include the original province of 
Veragua —the land explored by Columbus on his fourth voyage—nor the 
land discovered by Pinzón and Solis, nor the province of Paría. In the 
same royal order the province of Darién was renamed Andalucía la Nueva. 
Also, at the same time, the king appointed Pedrarias Dávila as captain- 
general and governor of Castilla del Oro. Later, in September of that 
year, after learning of the explorations of Balboa, he created the provinces 
of Panamá and Coiba, and Balboa was named adelantado (frontier gov¬ 
ernor) of these provinces and of the South Sea, though subordinate to 
Pedrarias. Internal friction and disputes which followed hindered the 
development of the colony; these apparently having been settled, Balboa 
made plans for conquering Peru, but he fell a victim to the jealousy of 
Pedrarias in 1519 and plans for expansion to the south were thereby 
checked. However, interest in the South Sea continued and in August, 
1519, the town of Panamá was founded and soon afterward became the 
capital of Castilla del Oro. The chief significance of the founding of 
Panamá lies in the fact that it became the base from which Espinosa, 
Niño, and Gil González Dávila, prior to 1524, explored the coast country 
as far as Fonseca Bay, and from which lieutenants of Pedrarias in the 
year 1524 founded the towns of Bruselas, Granada, and León; the latter, 
which was about half-way between the Gulf of Fonseca and Lake Nica¬ 
ragua, marked the northern limit of Spanish advance from Panamá before 
other Spaniards, who were operating in the same region, were en¬ 
countered. 
It was not until 1509 that from Santo Domingo as a base the other 
islands of the West Indies began to be occupied. In that year Juan Ponce 
de León was named governor of the island of Porto Rico and in the same 
year he established a settlement at Caparra, near the present San Juan, 
which was not founded until 1511. Also, in the year 1509, the island of 
Santiago (Jamaica) was settled by Esquivel under orders from Diego 
Columbus, governor-general at Santo Domingo. A number of settlements 
were founded, a ship-yard was established, and in 1517, so important had 
the island come to be regarded, a governor was appointed in the person of 
Francisco de Garay. 
No effort was made to settle Cuba, the largest of the West Indian group, 
until 1511. In that year Governor-general Diego Columbus named Diego 
Velásquez, a rich citizen of Española, as leader of an expedition to con¬ 
quer the island; this he succeeded in doing within three years. In 1514 
Trinidad, Santo Espíritu, and Puerto Principe and in 1515 Santiago de 
Cuba and Havana were founded. Associated with Velásquez in the con¬ 
quest of Cuba were Pánfilo de Narváez, Bartolomé de las Casas, and 
Hernando Cortés. 
If Santo Domingo at the outset served as a base for the establishment 
of the first colony on the mainland and also for the conquest and coloniza¬ 
tion of the other large and adjacent islands, it was not long to maintain 
