John Oxenham

This article is about the 16th century English privateer. For the 19th/20th century English poet who sometimes used this pen name, see William Arthur Dunkerley.

John Oxenham (–30 September 1580), also known as John Oxnam, was the first non-Spanish European explorer to cross the Isthmus of Panama in 1575, climbing the coastal cordillera to get to the Pacific Ocean, then referred to by the Spanish as the Mar del Sur (South Seas).

Departing from Acla (in modern Darién Province), he descended to the Chucunaque River, which Vasco Núñez de Balboa had also used in 1513 to cross the isthmus, first following the coast to the town of Careta, then receiving assistance from the Cimarrones for the crossing itself.

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