Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Pearls brought the archipelago to the Old World's attention. Vasco Núñez de Balboa,
within days of discovering the Pacific Ocean, learned of nearby islands rich with pearls
from a local guide. Balboa was anxious to visit, but he was told that a hostile chief ruled
them and cautiously decided to postpone. Nonetheless, Balboa named the archipelago
'Islas de Las Perlas,' and declared it and all its undiscovered riches Spanish property.
The year was 1513, and Balboa vowed to return one day to kill the chief and claim his
pearls for the king of Spain.
Before he could fulfill his vow, Spanish governor Pedro Arias de Ávila dispatched his
cousin Gaspar de Morales to the islands for the pearls. Morales captured 20 chieftains
and gave them to his dogs. The purportedly hostile chief, a man named Dites, saw the fu-
tility of resisting so instead presented Morales with a basket of large and lustrous pearls.
With an appetite not sated, the Spanish took just two years to exterminate the indigenous
population.
In 1517, the same year that Morales raided Las Perlas, Pedrarias (as the governor was
often called) falsely charged Balboa with treason, and had him and four of his closest
friends beheaded.
In the years that followed the Spaniards harvested the islands' oyster beds. Having
slain the entire native population, they imported slaves from Africa to pearl dive. Their
descendants live on the islands today.
LA PEREGRINA
Archipiélago de Las Perlas has produced some of the world's finest pearls.
However, none are as celebrated or well documented as the La Peregrina (the Pil-
grim Pearl). Enormous and pear-shaped, this white pearl weighs 203.84 grains or
31 carats. Four hundred years ago, it earned the slave who discovered it his free-
dom.
In the mid-16th century the pearl was given to King Phillip II of Spain, who later
presented it as a wedding gift to his wife, Queen Mary I of England. Later the British
Marquis of Abercorn acquired it from the son of French emperor Napoleon III.
In 1969 actor Richard Burton purchased it for US$37,000 for his wife, Elizabeth
Taylor. La Peregrina was briefly lost when Taylor's dog scampered away with the
pearl in its mouth. In 2011 the pearl was auctioned as part of her estate, fetching
$11 million dollars.
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