Biography[edit]

Very little is known about the early life of Enciso. He was born about 1470 in Seville and probably studied law. By 1508 he had a thriving legal practice in Santo Domingo, the capital of the first Spanish colony in the Americas. Gold mining was the primary activity in the colony and Enciso made his fortune from the frequent litigation in the industry.^[1][2]


He was instrumental in colonising the Isthmus of Darien.^[3] Fernandez de Enciso founded a village near the Cabo de la Vela with the name Nuestra Señora Santa María de los Remedios del Cabo de la Vela, the first settlement in the Guajira Peninsula. Due to constant attacks from the indigenous and pirates the village was moved to present-day Riohacha in 1544.^[4] His Suma de Geografia que trata de todas las partidas e provincias del mundo, published in 1519 in Seville, was the first account in the Spanish language of the discoveries of the New World.^[3] Among other things, this document contains one of the first western descriptions of the avocado.^[5]


Fernández' 1509 expedition from Santo Domingo to aid Alonso de Ojeda saw Vasco Núñez de Balboa stow away on his ship.


In his work, “Suma de Geografía,” Fernández states that they found an indigenous population who called themselves the “'Veneciuela.’” This suggests that the name "Venezuela" may have evolved from the native word.^[6] (The conventional etymology of Venezuela, however, cites Amerigo Vespucci, who, seeing the indigenous palafitos, was reminded of the city of Venice, and therefore named this New World location, "Little Venice".)