Pedrarias Dávila had Balboa, his son-in-law by proxy, beheaded at Acla in 1519 for treason

Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and in early 1514 he sent the Crown its fifth of the loot. The Crown then sent Pedro Arias Dávila (Pedrarias) to govern the colony over him. Later the King named Balboa adelantado of the South Sea and governor of Panama and Coiba. To keep the peace, Bishop Juan de Quevedo and Isabel de Bobadilla, Pedrarias's wife, arranged for Balboa to marry their daughter María de Peñalosa, who was in Spain. The marriage was made by proxy and the couple never met. Pedrarias then called Balboa to Acla. On the way, Francisco Pizarro and a company of soldiers arrested him. He was charged with treason: plotting a separate government on the South Sea. The lawyer Gaspar de Espinosa drafted the indictment and passed sentence. Balboa denied the charge and asked to be tried in Spain, and the request was refused. He was beheaded with four associates: Fernando de Argüello, Luis Botello, Hernán Muñoz and Andrés de Valderrábano. Pedrarias watched from hiding, and the heads were displayed for days. Espinosa later sailed the South Sea in ships Balboa had commissioned. In 1524 María married Rodrigo de Contreras. They had 11 children, and she died in Lima on 25 May 1573. In 2026 the location of Balboa's remains is unknown, because no record survives of what was done at Acla after the execution.