Such was the King's mistrust that he sent Pedro Arias Davila - otherwise known as Pedriarias the Cruel - an experienced, albeit disgruntled, nobleman to replace Balboa as governor of Darien. Needless to say, Balboa's sighting of the Pacific and newly-acclaimed wealth restored the king's faith, and once again he was chosen to govern the regions he had recently conquered for [G 02 / Castile]: Panama, Coiba and the Mar del Sur. He was still, however, answerable to Pedriarias.
Balboa and Pedriarias, from the moment the latter arrived in June 1514, resented and mistrusted each other. Despite a brief period of reconciliation (Pedriarias offered Balboa his daughter's hand in marriage), the relationship between the two leaders was doomed from the very beginning. In what was probably one of the worst and most unreasonable indictments in history, Pedriarias condemned Balboa to death for trumped up charges of treason, rebellion and maltreatment of the native Indians. On Pedriarias' orders, he was publicly strangled by the town executioner on January 12, 1519. He was then decapitated and his head was placed on the top of a pole for display in the town center. It was a gruesome and undignified end to one of history's most important explorers.
