Summary of North to California
Discovey of California started with the conquest of Mexico 1519-21
A short summary : The book provides general readers an adventure story drawing on the translated accounts of the early Spanish discoverers of California that were originally published by Henry R. Wagner in 1929 in Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century. Wagner was a gentleman-scholar with a rare mastery over the documents of the era.
The discovery of California was rooted in the conquest of Mexico in 1519-21 by Hernán Cortés and the conquistadors. The exotic name California comes from the heroine, an Amazon queen, of a romance of chivalry popular in the ranks of the conquistadors. California was discovered from the sea by Spanish explorers in the two decades following the conquest. Francisco de Ulloa, sailing for Cortés, explored Baja California in 1539-40. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a veteran conquistador of the conquest of Mexico and Guatemala (and not a Portuguese navigator), explored the Alta California coast in 1541-42; he probably died at Santa Rosa Island in 1542 and not San Miguel Island as popularly believed. A gravestone marked JRC and believed to be authentic by University of California anthropologist Robert Heizer was found on Santa Rosa Island in 1901. The book outlines for the first time a scenario of events based on Cabrillo wintering at Santa Rosa Island and not San Miguel Island. It is compellingly plausible.
However, the Philippines, not California, occupied the center of Spanish interest in the Pacific from their conquest in the 1650's until after the Seven Years War of 1756-63. California was a sideshow. A hugely lucrative trade was carried by galleons sailing across the north Pacific before turning south towards Acapulco while off the California coast. Protecting this trade route became the Spaniards' principal interest in exploring and later settling the California coast.
Cabrillo's discovery was followed by a major exploration of the California coast sixty years later by Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602-03. Later Vizcaino led an important embassy to Japan in an attempt to negotiate an amicable trade relationship between Japan and Spain. Instead Japan turned inward to over two centuries of isolation. After Vizcaino's voyage, the viceroy and officials in Madrid made a cold-eyed geopolitical calculation to leave California unsettled so that other European pirates could not use it as a supply point to attack the galleons.
A century-and-a-half after Vizcaino the Spaniards under army Captain Gaspar de Portola and the Franciscan friar Junipero Serra settled Alta California with the first missions at San Diego and Monterey in 1769-70. Portola discovered San Francisco Bay from the land.
A longer summary:
California - Daughter of Conquest (Chapters 1-5). The conquest of Mexico was a defining experience for the men who later discovered California. These chapters describe the conquest of Mexico. The name California comes from the name of an island that was the home of Amazons in a popular romance of chivalry avidly read by the conquistadors during the conquest. A crucial contributor to the Spanish victory at Mexico City was the building of a fleet of small sailing ships to control the lake surrounding the city; Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo played an important role in their construction. The importance of translation to communicating with Indians is highlighted with the romantic story of Doña Marina, Cortés' Indian mistress and translator. The incredible fortitude and fighting skill of the Spaniards of the era is described with many short, colorful quotes from the famous histories of William Prescott and Bernal Díaz del Castillo; Díaz personally knew Cabrillo and spoke approvingly of him many years later.
Conquistador in California (Chapters 6-7). Cortés sponsored the early voyages of discovery along the west coast of Mexico. These expeditions had many troubles and few successes. Deciding to take personal charge, Cortés led the first expedition to Baja California at La Paz in 1535-36. The expedition ran into many reverses, but the account provides a dramatic look at the competence and intense drive that Cortés brought to the expedition. Most histories dwell on the reverses and failures and overlook the portrait of the immensely capable fifty-year old conqueror in personal command.
Note on the voyages of discovery. The author is a sailor and navigator (he holds a US Coast Guard 100-ton masters license). Each of the voyages in the book was plotted on navigation charts while logs of dates, positions, names and notes were created on Excel spreadsheets; this provides perspectives and insights not found in other histories of these voyages. Each chapter has a map showing the voyage tracks.
Ulloa explores Baja California (Chapters 8-11). Sailing for Cortés, Francisco de Ulloa sailed up the west coast of Mexico to the mouth of the Colorado River. Ascertaining that the Gulf ended at the estuary, he then explored down the east coast of Baja California. In November 1539, he rounded Cabo San Lucas and sailed up the Pacific coast to Cedros Island. In rounding the cape he became the first of the great Spanish captains to sail north to California. Blocked by northwest winds from going further north, he sent one of his ships back to Acapulco with the written report that became the basis for this account. Ulloa continued north up the coast for another hundred or so miles and then returned to Mexico.
Alarcon explores the Colorado River (Chapter 12). Hernando de Alarcon sailed up the Gulf in two ships in 1540 to the mouth of the Colorado River, crossed the bar at the river mouth, and went up the river about twenty miles and anchored. He then went upriver in two long boats taking an Indian interpreter who spoke the language of the Yuma Indians. Alarcon was a friendly, people-oriented commander; he made friends with a chief they called the Old Man. The Old Man accompanied Alarcon up the river past the where the Gila River meets the Colorado near the town of Yuma. Alarcon learned many interesting things about the morality and sexual practices of the Indians from the Old Man; his account was an insightful and sympathetic look at the Indians of the era. Some of the conversations were quite funny. Alarcon's experiences shed some light on the sexual jealousies that may have led to Cabrillo's death at Santa Rosa Island two years later. Alarcon and Cabrillo got along well with Indians where Ulloa did not.
Cabrillo discovers Alta California (Chapters 13-17). As a young boy Juan Rodriguez was taken into the household of a successful merchant family in Seville to be the companion to the family's son. The two boys went to Cuba in their teens, were engaged in merchant and maritime activities, and then went to Mexico as crossbowmen in the conquest of Mexico. Juan Rodriguez helped build the launches that controlled the lake around the city during the final siege. Later he rose to high rank in the conquest of Guatemala under the flamboyant Pedro de Alvarado. He served as shipbuilder and then deputy commander, or almirante, in the fleet that Alvarado took to Mexico in 1540. Part of this fleet was going to explore the northwest coast of California while the larger part was going to cross the Pacific and settle the Philippines. After Alvarado's death the viceroy selected Juan Rodriguez, who had added the name Cabrillo several years before, to command the expedition up the California coast. The Philippine expedition later miscarried.
Cabrillo sailed his two ships into San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542 to begin his exploration of Alta California. Along the Santa Barbara Channel he established warm relations with the Chumash Indians. Cabrillo then spent eight days in Cuyler Harbor at San Miguel Island, trapped by high winds in the narrow harbor. The author believes this experience would lead Cabrillo to stay away from this harbor when he returned to the Channel Islands a month later. Sailing north from San Miguel, Cabrillo approached Point Reyes north of San Francisco Bay without discovering the entrance to the great bay. He then explored Monterey Bay before returning to winter in the Channel Islands. While at Bechers Bay on Santa Rosa Island, Cabrillo was mortally injured in an accident when he led a party ashore to help a watering party that was beset by hostile Indians. Different Indians tribes along the coast had very differing moral standards; the Indians on Santa Rosa Island may have practiced a strict sexual morality that the Spanish sailors ran afoul of while wintering at the island. The Spaniards were in almost constant conflict with the Indians on the island while they had enjoyed friendly relations with the Chumash across the channel.
Bartholomew Ferrel took command and in an audacious feat of seamanship led the two ships southwest out into the winter seas of the Pacific. As a storm passed over, he gibed the ships and rode the "southeaster" four hundred miles north to make a perfect landfall at Point Reyes. Then he led the two ships north into stormy seas to reach the latitude of the Oregon border before a big storm forced him to turn south. The ships became separated and were finally reunited at Cedros Island, from which they returned to the port of Navidad in Mexico. Ferrel and his sailors proved that they were probably the best to ever sail the seas off California. Cabrillo stands as the most able of the historical figures in California's long history.
Legaspi settles the Philippines in 1565. (Chapter 18-19) None of the previous Spanish expeditions to the Philippines had been successful. In 1565 Miguel Legaspi led an expedition that established a colony at Cebu Island, which was later transplanted to Manila in 1571. To date, no ship had been able to sail back across the North Pacific to Mexico. To meet this epic challenge, Legaspi sent his grandson Felipe de Salçedo in command of the galleon San Pedro with veteran navigator Andrés de Urdaneta to guide the navigation. The San Pedro made the voyage back to Navidad in four months pioneering one of the most lucrative trade routes in history.
California sat on the flank of this hugely profitable trade route. The dilemma facing the leaders in Mexico City and Madrid was whether or not to settle California. A settlement might provide a port offering relief to the scurvy-ravaged galleons, or it might provide a base for foreign pirates to attack the galleons enroute. The leaders wrestled with this question for decades.
Spaniards hunt for the mythical islands of silver and gold. (Chapters 20-21). The Spaniards became entranced by the tale of two islands in the western Pacific, Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata ("rich in gold" and "rich in silver"). The islands would also provide excellent waystations for galleons returning to Mexico. Pedro de Unamuno sailed across the Pacific in 1587 searching for the two islands, which he dismissed as myths, before landing on the California coast near San Luis Obispo. He beat off an Indian attack and then sailed on to Mexico. Unamuno was a talented and capable military commander and his story shows Spanish leadership at its best.
In 1595, Sebastian Cermeño led an expedition from the Philippines with a goal to explore the California coast on their way to Mexico. The flagship was lost in a storm in Drakes Bay near Point Reyes and the Spaniards had to make an arduous open-boat voyage down the California coast to Mexico. This voyage set the stage for Vizcaino expedition.
Vizcaino explores the California coast. (Chapters 22-27). Sebastian Vizcaino, a merchant, led a three-ship expedition up the California coast as far north as Cape Mendocino in 1602-03. Returning to Mexico, he generously sang the praises of Monterey as a port of refuge for galleons coming from the Philippines. The expedition provided the first detailed accounts describing the coast of California and the Indians; the expedition was cut short due to the ravages of scurvy.
Vizcaino leads an expedition to Japan. (Chapters 28-29). Madrid and Mexico City selected Vizcaino to lead an expedition to Japan in 1611 to try to establish friendly relations between the ruling shogun and Spain. The goal was to permit Spanish galleons safe refuge in the harbors of Japan if they encountered difficulties in the stormy north Pacific. He was also instructed to search once again for the islands of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata. Vizcaino encountered many difficulties in Japan as the Japanese rulers were turning violently anti-Christian in response to provocations by missionary friars from Portugal and Spain. The Japanese turned completely isolationist two decades later and stayed insular until the American naval officer Matthew Perry opened Japan to foreign trade in the nineteenth century.
Upon Vizcaino's return, officials in Mexico City and Madrid made a well-thought out decision not to proceed with a settlement at Monterey. They reasoned that it was better to leave something asleep to the north than to attract the attention of other European nations to the vulnerable flank of the important Manila-Acapulco trade route.
A look forward to the Spanish settlement of California in 1769. (Chapter 30). This chapter surveys the highlights leading to the Spanish land and sea expeditions which explored and settled California in 1769-70. This is an introduction to the subjects covered in the second volume of the two-book series. In a scene providing closure to the discovery era and a beginning to the era of settlement, Father Junipero Serra conducted a thanksgiving mass at Monterey in 1770 under the very same Cypress tree on the edge of the bay where Vizcaino and his men had celebrated their mass of thanksgiving 167 years before. Later that year Captain Gaspar de Portola, the Spanish commander, led a group of horsemen north who discovered San Francisco Bay from the land.
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California history and maritime history by Paul A. Myers