Discovery of and Failure to Occupy
California by Spain.
Discovery of the Pacific Ocean -
Fate of the Discoverer - A New Incentive for Discoveries - Straits of
Magellan - Pacific Ocean Named - Letter by Cortez - An Island of
Amazons - A Country Abounding
in Pearls and Gold - First Intimation of California and its Gulf
- Lower California Discovered - Fate of
the Discoverer - Cortez Sails, and Establishes the First Colony
on the Peninsula - Regarding the
Origin of the Name of California - Colony by Cortez Abandons the
Country - Expedition to Explore
the Pacific Coast in 1543 - Spanish Policy in the Pacific Ocean
- Sir Francis Drake's Expedition -
He Abandons his Pilot on the Shores of Oregon - He Anchors for
Thirty-six Days in a Bay that now
Bears His Name, and Takes Possession of the Country - The
Inducements for the Occupation of
California - King Philip's Message - He Gives a Reason: Desires
a Supply Station on the Coast of
California - A Questionable Statement as to the Indians, and
what they Produced - A Glittering
Scene in the King's Kaleidoscope - Venegas also Gives a Reason -
He thinks the Pacific Coast
a Sweet Morsel for the Lips of Kings - History of the
Seventeenth Century Commences with the
Voyage of Viscaino - He Searches for a Harbor where can be
Established a Supply Station; but his
Genius Sends him out to Sea, and he Passes the Bay of San
Francisco without Discovering it -
He Anchors in Drake's Bay - The Wreck of the Ship San Augustine
- A Council Called: but Five
Able-Bodied Men Respond - The Straits of Anian - Suffering from
Scorbutic Diseases - The Return -
Expedition of Admiral Otondo - Final Abandonment of Further
Efforts to Occupy California by the
Government.
Over three and a half centuries have
passed since a representative of the civilized race, standing upon the
heights of Panama, beheld for the first time the placid bosom of our Pacific
Ocean. It was a Spaniard whom destiny had selected to stand in history at
the threshold of a new era, and part the screen that hid from the world a
stage on which mankind were to commence a new act in the drama of life.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the name of that fortunate man. In 1513, he was
guided by an Indian to the place where, spread out before him, lay sleeping
the legendary waters "beyond America," that conquerors and kings had sought
for in vain. The event rescued his name from oblivion, but its owner,
because of cruelty, perished miserably at the hands of the race of whom one
had been his guide.**
After it became known that a western water
boundary had been found to the country that Cortez had subjugated for Spain,
the spirit of discovery was increased to a fever-heat. The imagination of
the adventurous of all countries was excited to search for the El Dorado,
where the Incas had procured their vast treasures of gold. Possibly the
"fountain of perpetual youth" was there, that would rescue from old age the
one who bathed in its living waters. At least, beyond were the Indies, with
the wealth of the Orient, to tempt adventurous trade, and to fan the flame
was added, by the Catholic Church, their spirit and zeal for religious
conquest, to save the souls of heathen who lived in the countries found and
to be found, where the shores were washed by the newly-discovered ocean.
With all these incentives can it be
wondered that vast treasures were spent in searching into these new fields
of adventure. They had been opened after eleven years of search, by Columbus
and others, unsuccessfully prosecuted, to discover a strait or water passage
through America, over which they might sail to the fountain of wealth, the
fabulous land of Cathay, and the Island of Cipango. To reach those
strange countries had been the dream that first led Columbus to undertake
the voyage that resulted in the discovery of America.
Six years later after this, that is,
1519, the ill-fated Portuguese, Magellan, started on the famous voyage that
resulted in the discovery of the long-sought route to the Indies; thus
solving the maritime problem of the fifteenth century. Three years later
his vessel returned to Spain, with a log-book that contained a record of the
death of that gallant commander at the Philippine Islands, whose vessel, the
Nictoria, had been the first European craft to sail on the waters
of the Pacific Ocean, and the first to make a voyage around the world. It
was this famous navigator that gave the name "Pacific" to our
ocean, after having sailed into it from the straits of the "Ten-Thousand
Virgins," as he called it (now known as Magellan). He had been for
sixty-three days beating up through it against tempest and adverse currents,
where the tides rose and fell thirty feet. It is strange that the word
PACIFIC should have been the one above all others that forced itself upon
the happy navigator, when he saw the comparatively quiet water that lay
before and around him, as he passed out upon this unexplored ocean?
Five years after the departure of the
Magellan expedition from Spain, Cortez wrote to his monarch, Charles V. (the
letter being dated Oct. 15, 1524), in which he says that he is upon the eve
of entering upon the conquest of Colima, on the South Sea (Pacific
Ocean). Colima is now one of the States of Mexico. He further says that "the
great men
__________________________________________________________________
** In Bryant's History of the United States it is
recorded that - "But the man whose energy and perseverance led the way,
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, fell a victim, five years later, to the jealousy and
fears of the Governor of Darien, Peter Anais, who ordered him, after the
mockery of a trial, to be beheaded."
there" had given him information of "an Island of Amazons or
women only, abounding in pearls and gold, lying ten days journey from
Colima," and the Spanish Jesuit historian, Miguel Venegas, writing one
hundred and thirty years ago, says of that letter: "The account of the
pearls inclines me to think that these were the first intimations we had
of California and its gulf."
Its first discovery came in
1534, by Ortun Ximenes, a mutineer who had headed an outbreak on board the
ship of which he was pilot, that had resulted in the death of the captain
and some of his officers. The expedition had been fitted up for exploration
purposes by order of Cortez, and after the Commander was thus killed,
Ximenes took charge and continued the search, discovered the Peninsula of
Lower California, and landed at a point somewhere between La Paz and Cape
St. Lucas, and while on shore he and twenty of his men were killed by the
Indians. The remainder of the crew returned to Chametla, where they reported
a country found numerously peopled, among whose shores were valuable beds of
pearls. Up to this time the word "California" had not been applied to any
part of the Pacific Coast or its waters.
In 1536, Cortez fitted up an expedition,
and set sail for the country found by the mutineers. He landed on the first
day of May at the place where Ximenes was killed, giving the name of Santa
Cruz to the bay. He established a colony there, and sent back his four
vessels for supplies and such of his party as had remained behind. But one
only of these vessels ever returned, and it brought no provisions. Cortez
immediately embarked on the returned vessel and set out in search of his
lost squadron, finding it stranded on the coast of Mexico, hopelessly
damaged. Procuring fresh stores he returned to his colony, that in his
absence had been reduced to a famishing condition, many of whom died of
starvation, or overeating from the provisions he brought with him. The
historian Gomara says (and mark the language): "Cortez, that he might no
longer be a spectator of such miseries, went on further discoveries, and
landed in California, WHICH IS A BAY;" and Venegas, the California
Historian of 1758, referring to this passage in the work of Gomara says that
it "likewise proves that this name was properly that of a bay which Cortez
discovered on the coast, and perhaps that now called de la Paz, and used
to signify the whole peninsula." This was the first
application of the name of the name California to any definite point on what
is called the Pacific Coast.
Cortez was soon recalled to Mexico on
account of impending troubles and danger of a revolt in that country; glad
to have an excuse for leaving a place that had proved fruitful only of
disaster. Within a few months he was followed by the colony, and Lower
California, with its rocks and wastes of sand, was left to the Indian, the
cactus and the coyote.
During the remainder of the sixteenth
century there were four attempts made to explore the northern Pacific coast
by the Spaniards. Only one was of importance; it occurred in 1542, under
command of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, who reached, in latitude 44 deg., March
10, 1543, the coast of Oregon, and then returned. He discovered Cape
Mendocino, and named it after his friend Mendoza, the viceroy of Mexico. He
also named the Farallone Islands, opposite San Francisco bay.
Spain, however, did not have everything her
own way in the sixteenth century in the new world. Her great ambition was to
control the western route to the East Indies, that her ships, laden with
silks, costly gems, and rare fabrics from that country, might pass
undisturbed into her home ports. But the student of history reads of combats
and strife between the Spaniards on the one side and the Dutch fleets and
English freebooters on the other, as they searched the high seas in quest of
Spanish treasure-ships.
There was one more bold and reckless, more ambitious and successful than
others, who won the reputation of being the "King of the Sea." In 1578,
he passed into the Pacific, around Cape Horn, and scattered terror and
devastation among the Spanish shipping along the coast. He captured the
East India galleon that was on her way home, loaded with wealth; levied
contributions in the ports of Mexico; and finally, with his war-vessels
freighted with captured treasures, sailed north to search for the fabled
Straits of Anian. Through it he proposed to pass home to England, and
thus avoid a combat with the fleets of Spain, that lay in wait for him
off the Straits of Magellan. His name was Captain Francis Drake; but
afterwards the English monarch knighted him because he had proved to be
the most successful robber on the high seas, and now the historian
records the name as Sir Francis Drake. When near the mouth of the Umpqua
River, in Oregon, he ran his vessel into a "poor harbor," put his
Spanish pilot, Morera, ashore, and left him to find his way back,
thirty-five hundred miles, through an unknown country thickly populated
with savages, to his home in Mexico. The feat must have been
successfully accomplished, as the only account existing of the fact came
through Spanish records, showing that he survived the expedition to have
told the result. Drake then moved on north until he had reached about
latitude 48 deg., where the cold weather although it was the fifth of
June, forced an abandonment of the hope of a discovery of the mythical
straits. The chaplain who accompanied the expedition, being the
historian of the voyage, says of the cold, that their hands were numbed,
and meat would freeze when taken from the fire; and when they were
lying-to, in the harbor at Drake's Bay, a few miles up the coast from
San Francisco, the snow covered the low hills. That June of 1579, three
hundred years ago, must have been an extraordinary one for California.
For a long time it was believed that Sir Francis Drake was discoverer of
the Bay of San Francisco, that it was in its waters he cast anchor for
thirty-six days, after having been forced back along the coast by
adverse winds from latitude 48 deg., near the north line of the United
States; but in time this was questioned, and now is generally conceded
that he is not entitled to that distinction. Who it was that did
discover that harbor, or when the discovery was made, will probably
never be known. What clothes it in mystery is that the oldest chart or
map of the Pacific coast known on which a bay resembling in any way that
of San Francisco, at or near the point where it is, was laid down , was
a sailing-chart found in an East Indian galleon, captured in 1742 with
all her treasure, amounting to one and a half million dollars, by Anson,
an English commodore. Upon this chart there appeared seven little dots
marked "Los Farallones," and opposite there was a land-locked bay that
resembled San Francisco harbor, but on the chart it bore no name. This
is the oldest existing evidence of discovery of the finest harbor in the
world, and it proves two things: First, that its existence was known
previous to that date; second, that the knowledge was possessed by the
Manila merchants to whom the chart and galleon belonged. Their vessels
had been not unfrequently wrecked upon our coasts as far north as Cape
Mendocino; and as Venegas, writing sixteen years later, says nothing of
such a harbor, we are led to believe that its existence was possibly
only known to those East India Jesuit merchants, and kept secret by them
for fear that its favorable location and adaptation would render it a
favorite resort for pirates and war-ships of rival nations to lie in
wait for their galleons.
With Sir Francis Drake unquestionably
lies the honor of having been the first of the European race to land
upon the coast of California, of which any record is extant. The account
of that event, given by Rev. Fletcher, the chaplain of the expedition,
states that the natives, having mistaken them for Gods, offered
sacrifices to them, and that, to dispel the illusion, they proceeded to
offer up their own devotions to a Supreme Being. The narrative goes on
to relate that, "Our necessaire business being ended, our General, with
his companie, travailed up into the countrey to their villages, where we
found heardes of deere by 1,000 in a companie, being most large and fat
of bodie. We found the whole countrey to be a warren of a strange kinde
of connies; their bodies in bigness as be the Barbarie connies, their
heads as of ours, the feet of a Want (mole) and the taile of a rat,
being of great length; under her chinne on either side a bagge, into
which she gathered her meate, when hath filled he bellie, abroad. The
people do eat their bodies, and make accompt of their skinnes, for their
King's coat was made out of them." The farmer will readily recognize the
little burrowing squirrel that ruins his fields of alfalfa, where the
ground cannot be overflowed to drown them. "Our General called this
contrey Nova Albion, and that for two causes: the one in respect of the
white bankes and cliffes which lie toward the sea; and the other because
it might have some affinitie with our country in name, which sometime
was so called.
"There is no part of earth here to be
taken up, wherein, there is not a resonable quantitie of gold or silver.
Before sailing away our General set up a monument of our being there, as
also of her majestie's right and title to the same, viz: a plate nailed
upon a faire great poste, whereupon was engraved her majestie's name,
the day and yeare of our arrival there, with the free giving up of the
province and people into her majestie's hands, together with her
higness' picture and arms, in a piece of five pence of current English
money under the plate, whereunder was also written the name of our
General."
The incentive that prompted all
nations to discoveries and occupation along the Pacific coast is
forcibly and plainly given by King Philip III, of Spain, in his message
to his viceroy in Mexico, in which he states the reason why he issues an
order for the further exploration of the coast and its occupation. The
document was dated August 16, 1606, and sets forth that, "Don Pedro de
Acunna, Knight of the Order of St. John, my governor and captain-general
of the Philipian Islands and president of my royal audience there. You
are hereby given to understand that Don Louis de Valasco, my late
viceroy in New Spain, in regard to the great distance between the port
of Acapulco and those islands, the fatigue hardships, and danger of that
voyage, for want of a port where ships might put in and provide
themselves with water, wood, masts, and other things of absolute
necessity, determined to make a discovery, and draughts, with
observation of harbors along the coast, from New Spain to these
islands."
The communication goes on to give the
successive events in the prosecution of the enterprise until after the
return of Viscaino's expedition in 1603, and then adds, speaking of the
Indians found upon our coast, "that their clothing is of the skins of
sea-wolves, which they have a very good method of tanning and preparing,
and that they have abundance of flax, hemp and cotton, and that the said
Sebastian Viscaino carefully informed himself of these Indians and many
others whom he discovered along the coast for above 800 leagues, and
they all told him that up the country there were large towns,
silver, and gold; whence he is inclined to believe that great riches may
be discovered, especially as in some parts of the land veins of metal
are to be found."
Thus the Spanish crown gives
the reasons for wishing to occupy the country, and it must be borne in
mind that these inducements were equally strong with other powers that
were hostile to Spain. Venegas, in his efforts to justify the Jesuits,
gives the additional reasons not mentioned by the king, why the opposing
countries, Spain and England, should desire to possess it. He says:
"That in the meantime the English should find out the so-much-desired
passage to the South Sea, by the north of America and above California,
which passage is not universally denied, and one day may be found; that
they may fortify themselves on both sides of this passage, and thus
extend the English dominion from the north to the south of America, so
as to border on our possessions. Should English colonies and garrisons
be established along the coast of America on the South Sea beyond Cape
Mendocino, or lower down on California itself, England would then,
without control, reign mistress of the sea and its commerce, and be able
to threaten by land and sea the territories of Spain; invade them on
occasion from the E., W., N. and S., hem them in and press them on all
sides."
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta