Note VI-10 — Chapter VI · THE GOVERNMENTS OF NUEVA ANDALUCÍA AND CASTILLA DEL ORO. 1506-1510.

I am unable to find this place on any map. Gomara, Hist. Ind., 68, says: 'Començo luego vna fortaleza, y pueblo, donde se recoger, y assegurar en el mismo lugar que quatro años antes lo auia comẽçado Iuan dela Cosa. Este fue el primer pueblo de Españoles en la tierra firme de Indias.' If the author refers his first town to the former visit of Juan de la Cosa four years before, I should say that could scarcely be called an attempted settlement, still less an established town. If he intimates that this fort of Ojeda's was the first settlement, then is he wrong, for Belen, in Veragua, was before this. Whatever he means, and that often is impossible to determine, in this instance it is safe to say that he is in error, as San Sebastian can by no possibility have been the first settlement in Tierra Firme. Herrera writes, i. vii. xvi.: 'Entrò en el golfo de Vrabà, y buscò el rio del Darien, que entre los Indios era muy celebrado de oro, y de gente belicosa, y no le hallando, sobre vnos cerros assentó vn pueblo, al qual llamò la villa de san Sebastian, tomandole por abogado contra las flechas de la yerua mortifera: y esta fue la segunda villa de Castellanos que se poblò, en todo la tierra firme, auiendo sido la primera la que començò a poblar el Almirante viejo, en Veragua.' Words to the same effect are in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 172. It seems rather premature to call these futile attempts establishing towns.