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Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

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Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
Bornc. 1462
Palos de la Frontera, Crown of Castile
Diedc. 1514 (aged c. 52)
Triana, Seville, Crown of Castile
NationalityCastilian
OccupationExplorer
Known forCaptain of the Niña[1]
Spouse(s)Teresa Rodríguez,[2] Ana Núñez de Trujillo[3]
ChildrenAna Rodríguez, Juana González[2]
Parent(s)Martín Pinzón, Mayor Vicente[4]
RelativesPinzón brothers

Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (Spanish: [biˈθente ˈʝaɲeθ pinˈθon]) (c. 1462 – after 1514) was a Spanish navigator and explorer, the youngest of the Pinzón brothers. Along with his older brother, Martín Alonso Pinzón (c. 1441 – c. 1493), who captained the Pinta, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on the first voyage to the New World, in 1492,[5] as captain of the Niña.[6]

Personal life

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Pinzón was born in Palos de la Frontera on the Atlantic coast of Huelva, youngest of the three prominent sons of seaman Martín Pinzón and his wife Mayor Vicente.[4] His birth year is uncertain; it is generally given as c. 1462;[citation needed] Juan Gil concludes from legal documents that his two daughters were over the age of 20 in 1509, that it certainly cannot be later than 1469.[2] 1469 would be quite a late date, given that there is record of him being a corsair or privateer (with his older brother Martín Alonso) in Mediterranean waters between 1477 and 1479 when other towns failed to provide Palos with an adequate supply of grain in wartime.[7][8]

He married twice: first to Teresa Rodríguez, by whom he had two daughters, Ana Rodríguez Pinzón and Juana González Pinzón;[2] second, probably in 1509, to Ana de Trujillo, who some surviving documents refer to as "Ana Núñez de Trujillo".[3]

It would appear that he was based in Palos at least up to and including the time of Columbus's first voyage (1492); by 1495 he was living in nearby Moguer; after the economic failure of his 1499–1500 expedition,[9] he appears to have moved no later than 1502 to Seville. He may have moved there to escape creditors.[10] Historian Juan Gil, researching Pinzón's family life, found strong circumstantial evidence that his first wife left behind a mansion in Triana, across the river from Seville: her own property, not his, which passed into the hands of their daughters.[11]

The last primary record of him is in 1514, in Seville or Triana. According to the chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, he died that year, probably at the end of September. It is not known precisely where he is buried, though Oviedo expressed confidence that it was in the cemetery of Triana.[12]

Career

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Statue of the Pinzón brothers in Palos de la Frontera.

In 1499, Pinzón sailed to the South American coast. Pinzón eventually disembarked on the shore called "Praia do Paraíso", in present-day Cabo de Santo Agostinho of the state of Pernambuco, or further northwest, in what is today Fortaleza (capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará). According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between the Crown of Castile and Portugal, Castile (later Spain) could make no claim, but the place was named "Cabo de Santa María de la Consolación" by Pinzón. He also sighted the Amazon River and ascended to a point about fifty miles from the sea.[13] He called it the "Río Santa María de la Mar Dulce" ("River of Saint Mary of the Fresh Water Sea") on account of the vastness of the fresh water river mouth, and he thus became the first European explorer to discover an estuary of the Amazon River. Pinzón is also considered the discoverer of the Oiapoque River.[citation needed]

In 1505, Pinzón was named commander-in-chief and corregidor of the city of Puerto Rico, now called "San Juan". This was to be the first step in the colonization of the island called "Borinquén" by its inhabitants and "San Juan Bautista" by the Spanish (now called "Puerto Rico"). However, Pinzón did not fulfill this commission.[14] In 1508, he travelled with Juan Díaz de Solís to South America. No record exists of Pinzón after 1514.[citation needed]

Legacy

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In 1832, botanists Mart. & Zucc. published Pinzona, a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Dilleniaceae and named in honour of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.[15]

Together with his brother, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón is the namesake of Pinzón Island in the Galápagos.

On November 19, 1999, a statue of Pinzón and his brother was dedicated in Palos de la Frontera, Spain, on the occasion of the fifth centennial of the discovery of Brazil and of the brotherhood with the city, Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Brazil.[citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America: From a manuscript recently discovered in Spain, T. B. Wait and Son, 1827. p. 216. Online at Google Books. A version in modern Spanish—Text for 11-16 February Archived 2009-04-14 at the Wayback Machine—can be accessed online at artehistoria.jcyl.es.
  2. ^ a b c d Gil 1987, p. 747
  3. ^ a b Gil 1987, p. 750 et. seq.
  4. ^ a b Archivo General de Simancas, Registro General del Sello, March 1505.
    Cited in :
  5. ^ de Navarette, Martin Fernadez (1829). Viages menores, y los de Vespucio; Poblaciones en el Darien, suplemento al tomo II (in Spanish). pp. 614–.
  6. ^ Personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus to America: From a manuscript recently discovered in Spain, T. B. Wait and Son, 1827. p. 216. Online at Google Books. A version in modern Spanish—Text for 11-16 February Archived 2009-04-14 at the Wayback Machine—can be accessed online at artehistoria.jcyl.es.
  7. ^ Coll y Juliá, Núria (1950). "Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, descubridor del Brasil corsario en Cataluña" (Nº 40 vol. 10). Madrid: Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, CSIC: 594–597. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Manzano y Manzano & Manzano Fernández-Heredia 1988, Vol. III, p. 1-2
  9. ^ Gil 1987, p. 747, 754. On p. 754, Gil characterizes the failure as "el muy serio quebrante experimentado en 1500."
  10. ^ Gil 1987, passim., p. 748–749
  11. ^ Gil 1987, passim., esp. p. 749
  12. ^ Izquierdo Labrado, Julio (1999). "Vicente Yáñez Pinzón". Archived from the original on 2007-10-19. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
  13. ^ Morison, Samuel (1974). The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1492–1616. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 231–232. ISBN 0-19-215945-3.
  14. ^ "Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (1461–1514)" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on June 17, 2007. Retrieved September 13, 2007.
  15. ^ "Pinzona Mart. & Zucc. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 20 May 2021.

Bibliography

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Library resources about
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

English

  • Lemos, William (1992). "Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez". The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 548–549.

Spanish

  • Gil, Juan (Sep–Dec 1987), "Sobre la Vida Familiar de Vicente Yáñez Pinzón", Revista de Indias, XLVII (181): 645:754
  • Gould, Alice Bache (1984). "Nueva lista documentada de los tripulantes de Colón en 1492".
  • Izquierdo Labrado, Julio (1987) Palos de la Frontera en el Antiguo Régimen (1380-1830) Huelva: Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana y Ayuntamiento de Palos de la Frontera
  • Izquierdo Labrado, Julio (2004) Palermos ilustres Huelva: Ayuntamiento de Palos de la Frontera ISBN 84-606-3612-7
  • Manzano y Manzano, Juan; Manzano Fernández-Heredia, Ana María (1988), Los Pinzones y el Descubrimiento de América 3 vol (in Spanish), Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispanica, ISBN 978-84-7232-442-8, OCLC 19216595
  • Manzano Manzano, Juan (1988). Los Pinzones y el descubrimiento de América. Madrid: Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana. ISBN 84-7232-442-7.
  • Ortega, Fray Ángel (1925) La Rábida. Historia documental y crítica 4 vols. Sevilla.
  • de Navarette, Martin Fernadez (1829). Viages menores, y los de Vespucio; Poblaciones en el Darien, suplemento al tomo II (in Spanish). pp. 428–.
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