Vicente Yáñez Pinzón () (c. 1462 – after 1514) was a Spanish

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

and

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

, the youngest of the

Pinzón brothers The Pinzón brothers were Spanish sailors, pirates, explorers and fishermen, natives of Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, Spain. Martín Alonso, Francisco Martín and Vicente Yáñez, participated in Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the ...

. Along with his older brother,

Martín Alonso Pinzón Martín Alonso Pinzón, (; Palos de la Frontera, Huelva; c. 1441 – c. 1493) was a Spanish mariner, shipbuilder, navigator and exploration, explorer, oldest of the Pinzón brothers. He sailed with Christopher Columbus on his Voyages of Christoph ...

(''c.'' 1441 – ''c.'' 1493), who captained the '' Pinta'', he sailed with

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

on the first voyage to the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

, in 1492, as captain of the ''

Niña ''La Niña'' ( Spanish for ''The Girl'') was one of the three Spanish ships used by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in his first voyage to the West Indies in 1492. As was tradition for Spanish ships of the day, she bore a female saint's n ...

''.

Personal life

Pinzón was born in

Palos de la Frontera Palos de la Frontera () is a town and municipality located in the southwestern Spanish province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is situated some from the provincial capital, Huelva. According to the 2015 census, the cit ...

on the Atlantic coast of

Huelva Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The rias ...

, youngest of the three prominent sons of seaman Martín Pinzón and his wife Mayor Vicente. His birth year is uncertain; it is generally given as c. 1462; 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. 1469 would be quite a late date, given that there is record of him being a corsair or

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

(with his older brother Martín Alonso) in

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

waters between 1477 and 1479 when other towns failed to provide Palos with an adequate supply of grain in wartime. He married twice: first to Teresa Rodríguez, by whom he had two daughters, Ana Rodríguez Pinzón and Juana González Pinzón; second, probably in 1509, to Ana de Trujillo, who some surviving documents refer to as "Ana Núñez de Trujillo". 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 Moguer is a municipality and small city located in the province of Huelva, Andalusia, Spain. According to the 2022 census, it has a population of 22,623. Its surface area is , and its population density is . The present site of Moguer had been h ...

; after the economic failure of his 1499–1500 expedition, he appears to have moved no later than 1502 to

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

. He may have moved there to escape creditors. 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. The last primary record of him is in 1514, in Seville or Triana. According to the chronicler

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (August 14781557), commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish soldier, historian, writer, botanist and colonist. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few year ...

, 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.

Career

In 1499, Pinzón sailed to the

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

n coast. Pinzón eventually disembarked on the shore called "

Praia do Paraíso Praia (, Portuguese for "beach") is the capital and largest city of Cape Verde.Cabo de Santo Agostinho of the state of

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a States of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it List of Brazilian states by population, sev ...

, or further northwest, in what is today Fortaleza (capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará). According to the

Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, ; pt, Tratado de Tordesilhas . signed in Tordesillas, Spain on 7 June 1494, and authenticated in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Emp ...

(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 The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of t ...

and ascended to a point about fifty miles from the sea. 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 An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

of the Amazon River. Pinzón is also considered the discoverer of the

Oiapoque River The Oyapock or Oiapoque (; ; ) is a long river in South America that forms most of the border between the French overseas department of French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá. Course The Oyapock runs through the Guianan moist for ...

. 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 Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

"). However, Pinzón did not fulfill this commission. In 1508, he travelled with

Juan Díaz de Solís Juan Díaz de Solís ( – 20 January 1516) was a 16th-century navigator and explorer. He is also said to be the first European to land on what is now modern day Uruguay. Biography His origins are disputed. One document records him as a Portuguese ...

to South America. No record exists of Pinzón after 1514. In 1832, botanists Mart. & Zucc. published ''

Pinzona ''Pinzona'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Dilleniaceae. It only contains one known species, ''Pinzona coriacea'' Mart. & Zucc. Its native range is Tropical America. It is found in Belize, Bolivia, Brazil (northe ...

'', a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s belonging to the family

Dilleniaceae Dilleniaceae is a family of flowering plants with 11 genera and about 430 known species. Such a family has been universally recognized by taxonomists. It is known to gardeners for the genus ''Hibbertia'', which contains many commercially valuabl ...

and named in honour of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. On November 19, 1999, a statue of Pinzón and his brother was dedicated in

, 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.

References

Bibliography

* * *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 * * *Ortega, Fray Ángel (1925) ''La Rábida. Historia documental y crítica'' 4 vols. Sevilla. *

External links

*
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. Los Viajes Andaluces
. Geocities.com.
Ayuntamiento de Palos de la Frontera

''Hermanos Pinzón'', Enciclopedia GER

''The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus''
(PDF), by Washington Irving. NLJ.gov.jm.
''Voyages and discoveries of the companions of Columbus''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinzon, Vicente Yanez 1460s births 16th-century deaths Spanish navigators 16th-century South American people People from Palos de la Frontera 15th-century Castilians 16th-century Spanish people 15th-century explorers Spanish West Indies Spanish explorers of South America

Personal life

Career

See also

References

Bibliography

External links