Martín Fernández de Enciso

Martín Fernández de Enciso (c. 1470 – 1528) was a Spanish lawyer, colonial official and geographer. He was instrumental in the colonization of the Isthmus of Darien, one of Spain's earliest attempts to occupy the mainland of the Americas. His successful advocacy for the rights of the Crown in the Indies led to the publication of the proclamation known as the Requerimiento in 1513. In 1519 he published Suma de Geografía, the first Spanish-language account of the New World.

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".)

• Fernández, Tomás; Tamaro, Elena (2004). "Martín Fernández de Enciso". Biografías y Vidas (Spanish).
• Hanke, Lewis (1949). The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Howgego, Raymond John, ed. (2003). "Encisco, Martin Fernandez de". Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800. Hordern House. ISBN 1875567364.
• Prieto, Andrés (2010). "Alexander and the Geographer's Eye: Allegories of Knowledge in Martín Fernández de Enciso's Suma de geographía (1519)". Hispanic Review. 78 (2).
• Romoli, Kathleen (1953). Balboa of Darien, Discoverer of the Pacific. Doubleday & Company.
• Sauer, Carl Ortwin (1966). The Early Spanish Main. University of California Press.