Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

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In 1499, Pinzón sailed to the South American coast. Carried by a strong storm, he reached the north coast of what today is Brazil on January 26, 1500. Pinzón disembarked on the shore called Praia do Paraíso, Cabo de Santo Agostinho, State of Pernambuco. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain could make no claim, but that place was named Cabo de Santa Maria de la Consolación by Pinzon. He also sighted the Amazon River and ascended to a point about fifty metres from the sea. He called it the "Río Santa María de la Mar Dulce", thus becoming the first explorer to discover an estuary of the Amazon River. Pinzón is considered the discoverer of the Oiapoque river.

In 1505, Pinzón was named commander-in-chief and 'corregidor' of the city of Puerto Rico, now called San Juan, as a first step in the colonization of the island called Borinquén by its inhabitants and San Juan Bautista by the Spanish (and which is now called Puerto Rico), but Pinzón did not fulfill this commission.[Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (1461-1514) - in Spanish] - retrieved July 7 2006 In 1508, he travelled with Juan Díaz de Solís to South America. No record exist of him after 1523.

On November 19, 1999, a monument in his memory was inaugurated in the Palos de la Frontera on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the discovery of Brazil, and the brotherhood with the city of the Cape of Saint Agostinho.

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