Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

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Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (c. 1460 - after 1523) was a Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador. Along with his older brother Martin Alonzo Pinzón, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on the first voyage to the New World in 1492, as captain of the Niña.

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 Pinzón. 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. This was a first step in the colonization of the island called Borinquén by its inhabitants and San Juan Bautista by the Spanish (now called Puerto Rico). However, Pinzón did not fulfill this commission.^[1] In 1508, he travelled with Juan Díaz de Solís to South America. No record exists of Pinzón 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 of the brotherhood with the city of the Cape of Saint Agostinho.