spanishvoyages

What new information does your book tell us about the Cabrillo expedition?

Myers. For the first time, the book shows how the two ships of the Cabrillo expendition left Santa Cruz Island and went far out into the Pacific Ocean and then turned north to make a landfall north of San Francisco. This stunningly bold maneuver has never before been discussed by historians. A complete plot of the ocean track is illustrated on charts which visually makes clear the boldness of the maneuver. After making landfall at Point Reyes, the book then plots the ocean track of the ships through winter storms north to the latitude of the Oregon border. This dramatic chapter in the history of the Cabrillo expedition has been virtually ignored in previous histories.

What are the details about this phase of the Cabrillo expedition?

Myers. In February 1543, after Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo's death, his second-in-command Bartolomé Ferrelo embarked on a strategy of sailing his two ships southwest far out into the Pacific Ocean. He was literally looking for trouble in the form of a big Pacific storm approaching the coast. These storms approach from the northwest, but the accompanying winds blow from the southeast, the opposite of the normal northwest winds along the Pacific coast. Sailors call these storms "southeasters." Finding a storm, Ferrelo tacked his ships and rode the southeast wind and waves northeast making landfall high up the California coast at Point Reyes, about 40 miles northwest of San Francisco. Ferrelo's plan was a very gutsy maneuver.

Where did Ferrelo go from Point Reyes?

Myers: Ferrelo left Point Reyes behind. Because the Spaniards thought the coast trended northwest and around towards Japan, they sailed northwest. For five days they battled winter storms while going as far north as the Oregon border, although they were 170 miles off the coast. A ferocious storm came up and in the bitter cold the Spaniards turned back and raced down the coast to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. Ferrelo's winter voyage north was one of the great epics in the era of Pacific discovery. Ferrelo is probably the finest sailor ever to sail the seas off California, an intrepid mariner leading great crews.

What else is new in your telling of the Cabrillo story?

Myers: The book presents a new scenario showing that Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the Spanish discoverer of California, probably died at Santa Rosa Island and not at San Miguel Island as popularly believed. The two months that the Cabrillo expedition spent in the northern Channel Islands are completely reexamined, which gives a new telling to an old story.

Why haven't previous histories set Cabrillo's death on Santa Rosa Island?

Myers: George Davidson of the US Coast Survey placed Cabrillo's death at San Miguel Island in a report prepared in the 1880s; no subsequent scholar wanted to make an outright refutation of Davidson's conclusion. Henry Wagner, the author of the definitive Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast in 1929, expressed skepticism about San Miguel Island as the burial site, while UC Berkeley anthropologist Robert F. Heizer set forth a number of compelling reasons for considering Santa Rosa Island as the burial island in 1974. But no one went back and re-wrote the narrative, as it were, placing Santa Rosa as the island where Cabrillo wintered over in 1542-43. My book devotes a chapter to the new scenario; the facts fit surprisingly well, though not perfectly, to the Santa Rosa Island scenario. Cabrillo was probably buried on either San Miguel or Santa Rosa; we can't narrow it down further with the information we now have.

What compelling fact supports the Santa Rosa Island hypothesis?

Myers: This is a case of the evidence hiding in plain sight. Heizer closely examined an Indian milling stone found in 1901 by archaeologists on the southeast corner of Santa Rosa Island and engraved with the initials JRC. Heizer concluded that this was the genuine gravestone placed above Cabrillo's grave on January 3, 1543. Heizer did not overturn Davidson's San Miguel Island hypothesis; he simply expanded the probable conclusion to encompass both San Miguel and Santa Rosa. So I simply accepted Heizer's expanded conclusion, used Santa Rosa in a "what if" scenario, and wrote the narrative accordingly.

What about Cabrillo himself?

Myers: Cabrillo was a tough kid off the streets of Seville, the port city in Spain from which ships sailed to the New World. Cabrillo came to the New World and fought as a conquistador in the conquest of Mexico City. He then followed the flamboyant Pedro de Alvarado in the conquest of Guatemala as a captain. In Guatemala, Cabrillo prospered owning several large estates while also building a fleet of ships on the Pacific coast for Alvarado. These ships were divided between two expeditions: one to go straight across the Pacific to the Philippines and one to go up the northwest coast and hopefully around the North Pacific to Japan and China. After Alvarado's death, the viceroy in Mexico selected Cabrillo as captain general of the expedition to explore the northwest coast. Cabrillo had a lot of ability; he went from foot soldier to captain general in the Spanish conquests. Although little known, he is probably the ablest of all of California's historical figures, a real "can do" guy, highly respected by his contemporaries. The crews he had on his two ships were probably some of the finest Spanish mariners in the Americas.

Who is the most overlooked of the great Spanish captains?

Myers: Francisco de Ulloa's explorations of Baja California go unappreciated because he sailed for Cortés, an immense historical personality with little respect in modern Mexico, and because Ulloa never got to Alta California, so modern Americans have little interest in him. Ulloa left a rare first-person written account of his voyage. Ulloa's forceful, commanding personality comes through in his written account, which was addressed to Cortés, no slouch at the leadership game.

Which explorer left the most interesting account of his explorations?

Myers: Hernando de Alarcón led his ships across the sand bars at the top of the Gulf of California and into the Colorado River to become its discoverer. He then traveled by small boat up the river as far as Yuma. He left a fascinating account of his friendly interactions with Yuman Indians that he met along the river, in particular one of the chiefs called the Old Man, a personality of great insight and humor. The dialogues between the jovial Alarcón and the Old Man are fascinating. Alarcón's descriptions of the sexual morality of the river Indians may provide some insight into the source of conflict between Cabrillo's crews and the Indians on the Channel Islands two years later. The conflicts were probably over women. Cabrillo suffered his mortal wound leading a relief party to a group of Spaniards beset by Indians.

What was the great historical event of the early discovery period?

Myers: The discovery of California was a sideshow, something incidental to the larger Spanish goal of settling a colony in the Philippines and tapping the great riches of the Far East. The key achievement upon which the success of all other Spanish endeavors in the Far East rested was the successful return of the Spanish ship San Pedro from the Philippines to Acapulco in 1565-66. This was a hugely lucrative trade route for centuries. And the San Pedro made her Pacific coast landfall at San Miguel Island after crossing the North Pacific. Cabrillo's maps and logs were groundwork to this epic-making voyage.

What about Sebastián Vizcaíno?

Myers: His background was as a merchant, not a conquistador, so he comes across as less commanding as the leader of a voyage of exploration. But after his California exploration, he led an important embassy to Japan in the early 1600s. Spanish relations with Japan at this time are fascinating for the "what ifs" involved and Vizcaíno played a major role. But the Japanese decided against opening up to the outside world; they feared their way of life would be overthrown by the introduction of Christianity by Spanish missionaries coming from the Philippines. The Japanese had wanted, above all else, the opportunity to engage in long-distance trade with Mexico. If the Spanish would have granted this wish, the history of the Pacific would have gone down a completely different track. Rebuffed, the Japanese cut themselves off from the outside world for over two centuries.