Martín Fernández de Enciso

Martín Fernández de Enciso (c. 1470 in Seville, † 1528 ) was a Spanish geographer, cartographer and navigator.

1508 he lived on Hispaniola. 1510 he followed Alonso de Ojeda to conquer the Isthmus of Darien. On the Guajira Peninsula, near present-day Cabo de la Vela, they founded a village called Nuestra Señora Santa María de los Remedios del Cabo de la Vela. ( The settlement was in 1544 due to constant attacks by locals and pirates moved to the present Riohacha. ) In 1510, he founded Santa María la Antigua del Darién. Among his colleagues counted Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Shortly after founding the city of Balboa he succeeded in inciting a rebellion, and to banish Enciso to Spain. In 1514 he went back accompanied by the new governor of Darién, Pedrarias Dávila.

Soon after, he returned to Spain, where he Suma de Geografia 1519 his que trata de todas las partidas del mundo, the first work in Spanish about the discoveries in the New World, published.

Works

• Suma de Geographia; Seville, Cromberger, 1530
• Descripción de las Indias Occidentales, Santiago de Chile, 1897
• Abridged description of the river of Amazon and of the countries thereabouts