A survey map from the 1800’s showing Alcatraz Island set against the background of the East Bay Hills. This unique topography masked the small island and the San Francisco Bay from early explorers.
Spanish Explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.
In 1542 Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, commissioned a Spaniard named Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo to explore the northern reaches of the colony’s west coast.Following the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, a steady stream of explorers had charted expeditions to the New World in search of gold, and to claim territory for their rulers. Mendoza was lured by their tales of magnificent wealth in this unexplored territory, with coastlines said to be rich with pearls, and interiors abundant with precious gold. The main purpose of the expedition, however, would be to seek out the legendary waterway called the Strait of Anián, known to English explorers as the Northwest Passage. For centuries, voyagers had dreamed of a westward route to Asia through the waters of North America, but their expeditions had often ended in disaster.
There is little known about Cabrillo’s early life and the factual traces that remain are debated by historians. It is believed that he was born in Portugal between 1498 and 1500 and spent most of his life in military service. Historical records in the Spanish archives maintain that in 1520, Cabrillo accompanied Panfilo de Naravaez in an unsuccessful attack against Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico’s Aztec Empire – though this is disputed by equal numbers who believe that Cabrillo fought alongside Cortés. Some references suggest that Cabrillo himself served as Governor of Guatemala and was one of the conquerors of the Central American region including Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Many historians believe that Cabrillo’s interest in exploring the northern coast originated with Cortés. In 1522 Cortés had built a shipyard at Zacatula on the Pacific coast of Mexico, as a base from which to send out expeditions to chart the Pacific. Building the ships proved problematic, and by the time they had managed to produce seaworthy vessels in 1526, the King of Spain ordered them sent to the South Pacific. Cabrillo was destined to command one of history’s most daring voyages of discovery and became the first European to explore the northern coastline.
On June 27, 1542, Cabrillo departed from Navidad (known today as Acapulco) in a small sailing vessel christened the San Salvador accompanied by a support vessel named the Victoria. His ships were equipped with modern weapons of the era – cannons, swords, and crossbows – and loaded with massive food rations. The San Salvador was also loaded with trade goods as the explorers hoped to return from their voyages bearing treasure. Cabrillo was instructed by Mendoza to maintain records regarding which trade goods proved most popular for the benefit of future expeditions.
Blessed with strong and steady winds, they journeyed north along the North American coast, staking claim to prominent territories along the way. Cabrillo and his crew of nearly one hundred men made few stops to explore the interior of his newfound claims, which were known as Alta California.
The expedition resulted in extensive charting of the Pacific territories, but it also conveyed a myriad of mapping inaccuracies. The explorers aboard the San Salvador sailed past Monterey and the San Francisco Bay without even noticing them. Although Cabrillo was noted as a distinguished navigator, references indicate that his course-plotting logs erred by one to two degrees of latitude. This was likely the result of an inaccurately calibrated compass. Navigation was further complicated by inclement weather, which did not allow for reliable sextant readings. Several months into the voyage the crew would also endure violent storms, as described on November 11, 1542 in a post summation ship’s log written by a scribe:
The weather from south-southeast worsened so much with rain in the southwest, and darkness, that they could not have a palm of sail and were forced to run with a close-reefed piece of sail on the foremast, with much work all night, and on Sunday the weather grew so much worse that day and night were ruined, and it continued until Monday at midday. The storm was as violent as any could be in Spain, and on Saturday night the ships lost sight of each other.
Storms were often demoralizing to the ship’s crew. Severe weather also meant slower progress and if the conditions grew harsh enough, they could easily prove fatal to both the ship and her crew. November storms forced the San Salvador back out to sea and she became separated from her companion vessel. Nevertheless, Cabrillo decided to continue his voyage north.
After exploring as far as the Russian River in Northern California, the expedition turned back to the south as Cabrillo had decided not to voyage any further unaccompanied. On his way back he would again miss sighting the inlet to the San Francisco Bay, probably due to fog or the masking illusion of Alcatraz. Cabrillo found his companion ship anchored near Santa Cruz, located just north of Monterey. While his crew repaired damages from the storm, Cabrillo briefly explored the Monterey Bay territories. After the necessary repairs had been completed, both ships set southward along the coast.
Cabrillo’s return voyage led the explorers to San Miguel Island in the Santa Barbara Channel. The expedition was further complicated when Cabrillo met a tragic and untimely death from a severe leg injury. One of Cabrillo’s men, Francisco de Vargas, described how several crewmen were ambushed by natives while filling drinking urns with fresh water. Cabrillo led a rescue party and severely injured his leg when jumping from the small shore boat. Vargas wrote: “one foot struck a rocky ledge, and he splintered a shinbone.” Weeks later the open fracture became severely infected as gangrene set in. Cabrillo would die shortly thereafter on January 3, 1543. He had given final orders to Senior Navigator Bargolomé Ferrelo to resume the expedition, taking a northern course.
After burying Cabrillo on the Channel Islands, Ferrelo took charge of the expedition and continued the exploratory voyage north. He decided to push further than was originally planned, charting the coastline up through the northwest regions of Oregon. The ships rounded Cape Mendocino, finally reaching what is now known as the Rogue River in Oregon. With rations running low and huge winter storms inhibiting the visibility necessary to plot their course, they turned south and made the journey back to Navidad. Only ten months after their original departure they arrived back at their homeport on April 14, 1543, and their expedition was judged a monumental failure by Mendoza. The surviving crewmen were weakened by starvation and many were seriously ill with scurvy. They had found no riches and more importantly, no mystical passage joining the great oceans.
Mendoza had the ships refitted and sent them to Peru on a trading voyage. Neither the San Salvador nor the Victoria would ever return, both falling victim to the shipworms that fed on the wooden hulls, eroding their structures. There is little documentation detailing Pacific coastal expeditions over the next two centuries. The crude charts from Cabrillo’s voyages were published and they served as the primary means of navigating the California coast for explorers of this period.
The earliest authenticated instance of the name California being used by explorers was in the summation ship logs of Cabrillo’s expedition in 1542. But the first ever recorded use of the name was discovered in a romantic novel entitled The Exploits of Esplandián written around 1500 by Garci Ordóńez de Montalvo. This work referred to an “Amazon Island” called California, and it is believed that explorers of this period were familiar with the book – which further romanticized the early exploration of these waters.
In late 1577, England’s famed sea voyager Sir Francis Drake embarked on a courageous expedition, once more in hope of locating the elusive Northern Passage. He would journey to the Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Magellan with five ships and he announced to his crew: “Whoever first describes her, shall have my chain of gold for his good news.” As they ran down the Atlantic Coast of South America, storms, separations, dissension and a near fatal encounter with natives marred their passage. Drake was forced to scrap two of his severely damaged vessels and it would be several months before he could recommence his journey. His fl
agship the Pelican would be christened under a glorious new designation and would henceforth be known as the Golden Hind.
Renowned English sea voyager Sir Francis Drake.
Sir Francis Drake’s flagship, the Golden Hind.
In September of 1578, now traveling with only three ships, Drake sailed through the deadly Strait of Magellan, emerging dangerously into terrific Pacific thunderstorms. For two months the ships endured horrendous weather, unable either to sail out of the storms or to stay clear of the treacherous coastline. The ships were scattered and the smallest, the Marigold, went down with her entire crew. The Elizabeth found herself in the Strait once again and turned back for England. The Golden Hind had drifted far to the south, ultimately sailing around the end of the South American continent and then plotting a northward course.
After stopping to make repairs off the coast of Southern Mexico, the Golden Hind sailed out of Spanish waters in April of 1579 and continued north along the California coastline. After nearly one and a half years of this journey, Drake was forced to bring the Golden Hind close to shore for key repairs. The Hind was a small, one-hundred-tonvessel carrying over thirty tons of Spanish treasure, which had been acquired through pirating raids and consisted mostly of gold and silver. The repairs required were so extensive that on June 17, 1579, Drake set up camp in an area south of Point Reyes California, now officially named Drake’s Bay. While waiting for the work to be completed, Drake spent five weeks exploring the interior region of the Marin coastline – yet he too failed to notice the inlet leading into the Bay of San Francisco, perhaps due to their inherit fog and inclement weather. Centuries later, historians are still passionately debating over Drake’s western voyage. The discoveries made on his North American expedition are poorly documented and only fragmentary records remain.
Much of Drake’s five-week respite on shore was spent interacting with native people. Francis Fletcher, the chaplain of the Hind, maintained a detailed journal of events throughout their expedition. He described the Indians at Drake’s Bay and their brave shore landings in their canoes. They approached Drake’s crew with peaceful gestures and welcoming gifts. Although there are no official records of Indians occupying the island of Alcatraz previous to its official discovery, there are some references indicating that the native Ohlone and Miwok Indians may have used the island as a fishing platform and it is almost certain that they were the first to explore Alcatraz by canoe.
In 1595 Sebastián Rodriguez Cermeño, another explorer searching for harbors along the California Coast sailed only twenty miles from the shores of the Golden Gate – but nevertheless he too failed to detect the clandestine bay. Although the details of his voyages are often disputed, numerous descriptions illustrate how he was forced to set anchor in Drake’s Bay during a heavy storm and subsequently lost his vessel the San Agustin which sank just offshore. The San Agustin was carrying a cargo of porcelain ware, silks, wax and other trade goods, some of which were salvaged by the shipwrecked Spanish and were left onshore when they departed in a small launch that had been used to explore the coastal regions. Cermeño would make the first recorded use of the name San Francisco, misidentifying Drake’s Bay. He named the land the Bay of San Francisco for the founder of his order, Saint Francis. The Cermeño expedition was termed a disgrace by his government and even his navigational charts would be considered suspect. In recent years, there have been several maritime artifacts discovered in this area that date from the same period, giving credence to modern theories of Cermeño’s landing and the wreck of the San Agustin.
In 1602, yet another Spanish explorer would lead an expedition to this region in search of a good shipping harbor. His name was Sebastían Vizcaíno, and his exploration would result in some of the most extensive chartings ever made of the northern coastline. Sailing with two vessels and a small launch for land expeditions, he departed Navidad and on the sixteenth of December landed in what he termed the “deepest harbor near land to lay anchor. ” He named the safe harbor for his Viceroy, the Conde de Monterey, and saw it as a profitable northern frontier port. He wrote that the magnificent harbor was rich with timber for shipbuilding, and a natural paradise with abundant shelter from wind. Despite these romantic tales of a harbor in Paradise, the new Viceroy of New Spain, Marqués de Montesclaros, did not trust Vizcaíno’s stories. A study written by Walton Bean, Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, suggests that the Viceroy’s distrust of Vizcaíno was so great that the expedition’s mapmaker, Martínez Palacios, was convicted of forgery and then hanged. San Francisco was destined to remain isolated and barren of discovery for nearly two hundred more years.
In New Spain, Jesuit missionaries had ruled the northwestern frontier regions dating back to late 1580, under the terms decreed by their King. These missionaries established settlements along the northern Baja peninsula, which were considered to be the most structured and disciplined of all the missions in New Spain. The Jesuits maintained their dominance in Baja until around the late 1760s, when the King ordered their expulsion, under suspicion that they would attempt to fragment the Spanish government and take power for themselves. The evictions of the Jesuits were delegated to Visitor-General Jośe de Gálvez, a special envoy of the King. His role was to conduct tribunals, and to restructure the political systems in various regions. Gálvez proposed to the King that a new governmental unit be established throughout the northwest. The new structure would be called a commandancy-general, and it was intended to expand Spanish territories up into the Californias. Gálvez claimed that the Europeans were starting to populate the northern lands beyond the Californias, and would soon begin a southward migration to establish their own rule.
In late 1768, Gálvez sent Captain Gaspar de Portolá on what he termed a “sacred expedition,” to establish colonies in the Californias. Father Junípero Serra, a catholic missionary, would accompany him to sanctify and establish the holy missions. Serra had been born in the village of Petra on the island of Majorca in 1713, the son of a poor farmer. His given name was Miguel, but he chose Junípero as his religious designation, naming himself for the closest companion of Saint Francis. Serra became a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Majorca, but left in his mid-thirties to pursue a more meaningful life as a foreign missionary. In Walton Bean’s fascinating interpretive history, the author described Serra:
“Through his life he was a vigorous, hard-driving man, never turning back from a task he had begun, always demanding the full measure from others as well as himself. In physical stature, Serra was short, not more than 5 feet 2 or 3 inches in height, but in courage and determination, he was a giant...”
Father Junípero Serra
A period engraving of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo, founded in 1770.
Serra’s role in the colonization of California was most significant. He inspired the settler communities with missionary sermons that communicated divine principles and ethics. He would also establish the first Missions in San Diego (on July 16, 1769) and Monterey (which he founded on June 3, 1770, originally at what is known today as the Royal Presidio Chapel and then relocated to a site in Carmel in 1771, naming it Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo). Father Serra died in 1784, and is buried in the Basilica at the Mission in Carmel.
There were three vessels that made the sacred voyage to California. The San Carlos would serve as the flagship with Portolá commanding from her helm. The other ships, the San Jose and San Antonio, were filled with livestock and other goods to be used in establishing the colonies. These vessels transported some of the furniture and other artifacts from Portolá’s expedition that still remain at the Carmel Mission in present day. The condition of the ships was less than adequate, and they took on large amounts of water through their leaky hulls. The San Jose went down, taking with her all of her crew, who additionally, were believed to have been stricken with Scurvy. The crews of the other vessels were also sick and the expedition would lose nearly half of its total numbe
r of nearly three hundred men. The expeditions into Monterey and north to San Francisco would have to be continued by land.
The first overland expedition failed to locate the Port at Monterey. It is suspected that Vizcaíno’s romanticized description may have been misleading and caused the frontiersmen to press too far northward in search of a site for their future mission. By the time the crew arrived in the area that is today known as Berkeley, they had already realized that they had overshot their destination. Many of the men had fallen ill during the exhausting expedition, with several documented as having severe diarrhea, and others stricken with scurvy. Portolá himself was described as being ill with “sickness of the intestines, ” and with rations low, the expedition settled for a brief period to allow the men time to rest.
On Tuesday October 31, 1769, Portolá’s party made the first official references to the discovery of San Francisco. In excerpts from the logs of Portolá and Miguel Costansó, the expedition’s engineer and cosmographer, the historic moment is described:
“We traveled two hours of very bad road up over a very high mountain. We stopped upon the height and the sergeant with eight soldiers were dispatched to explore, as some farallones, and a point of land, and a bight had been seen. Here we stayed for four days to explore. The pioneers set out, and we afterward followed along with the packtrain and the rest of the people at eleven o’clock in the forenoon. From the summit we descended a large bay lying to the northwest under a point of land reaching far out to sea, over which there had been much disputing the evening before whether it was an island or no, it having been impossible then, because of some horizon-mist covering it, to make it out as clearly as we did now. Out beyond, about to the west-northwest with respect to our position, and a bit to the southwest from the point could be seen seven white farallones of differing sizes and looking back along the north side of the bay there were abrupt white bluffs made out more toward the north, while turning around toward the northeast, the mouth of the inlet was discovered that seemed to reach inland. At the sight of these marks we turned to the Cabrera Bueno’s sailing directions, and it seemed to us out of all doubt that we were looking upon was the Harbor of San Francisco, and so persuaded that Monterrey Harbor lay behind us.”
Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years Page 3
