History of California, Volume I, Part 19

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 852

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DID DRAKE ENTER SAN FRANCISCO?

have written without a full understanding of the dis- tinction between the two San Franciscos. Few have been sufficiently impressed with the fundamental truth that Chaplain Fletcher was a liar. Besides certain special pleadings often more ingenious than weighty, the convincing arguments have been on the one side that Drake after a stay of five weeks would not have called any other bay but that of San Francisco a good harbor, or have thanked God for a fair wind to enter the same; and on the other, that, having entered San Francisco, he would never have dismissed it with mere mention as a good bay. The former argument is less applicable to Bodega than to the bay under Point Reyes.

The latter appears to me unanswerable. It is one that has naturally occurred to all, but I doubt if any have comprehended its full force. It grows on the student as he becomes acquainted with the spirit of the past centuries in relation to maritime affairs and particularly to the north-west coast of America. I treat this subject fully elsewhere.52 That Drake and his men should have spent a month in so large and so peculiar a bay without an exploration extend- ing thirty or forty miles into the interior by water; that notes should be written on the visit without a mention of any exploration, or of the great rivers flowing into the bay, or of its great arms; that Drake's companions should have evaded the questions of such men as Richard Hakluyt, and have died without im- parting a word of the information so eagerly sought by so many men, is indeed incredible. For sailors in those days to talk of inlets they had never seen was common; to suppress their knowledge of real inlets would indeed have been a marvel.53 Drake's business

52 Sce Hist. Northwest Coast, i. chap. ii .- iv., this series.

53 Stillman says, Seeking the Golden Fleece, 300: ' He was not on a voyage of discovery; his was a business enterprise, and he had an cye to that alone. What was not gold and silver was of small consequence to him.' Whence perhaps his minnte details of Indian ceremonies! ‘Nor does it secm proba- ble that he knew the extent of the bay of San Francisco. He had already concluded ... that there could be no northwest passage ... and he had aban-

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.

in the North Pacific was to find an interoceanic pas- sage; if he abandoned the hope in the far north, one glance at the Golden Gate would have rekindled it; a sight of the far-reaching arms within would have con- vinced him that the strait was found; San Pablo Bay would have removed the last doubt from the mind of every incredulous companion ; in Suisun Bay the Golden Hind would have been well on her way through the continent; and a little farther the only question would have been whether to proceed directly to Newfound- land by the Sacramento or to Florida by the San Joaquin. That a man like Fletcher, who found sceptres and crowns and kings among the Central Californians, who found a special likelihood of gold and silver where nothing of the kind ever existed, who was so nearly frozen among the snow-covered Californian hills in summer, should have called the anchorage under Point Reyes, to say nothing of Bodega, a fine harbor would have been wonderful accuracy and moderation on his part. But supposing San Francisco Bay to have been the subject of his description, let the reader imagine the result. The continent is not broad enough to contain the complication of channels he would have described.

Proof of the most positive nature, more definite than the vague narratives in question could be expected reasonably to yield, is required to overthrow the pre- sumption that Drake did not enter San Francisco Bay. This proof Stillman, who has made himself in these later years champion of the cause,54 believes himself to have found. First, he declares, and forti- fies his position with the testimony of a coast-survey official and other navigators, that Drake could not

doned the hope.' And Tuthill, ITist. Cal., 24: 'They did not go into ecstasies about the harbor. They were not hunting harbors, but fortunes in compact form. Harbors, so precions to the Spaniards, who had a commerce in the Pacific to be protected, were of small account to roving Englishmen.' These are evasions of the issue, or the statements of men not acquainted with the maritime spirit of the time.

54 Stillman's Footprints in California of Early Navigators, in Id. ; Seeking the Golden Fleece, 285 et seq .; Id., in Overland Monthly, i. 332.

STILLMAN'S THEORIES.

have graved his vessel in the bay that bears his name without the certainty of destruction. Navigators with whom I have conversde are somewhat less positive on the subject, simply stating that the beaching of a vessel there would be venturesome, and a wise captain would if possible avoid it. It is not at all uncommon at many places on the coast for vessels to be beached in a storm, and safely released by the high tide. Stillman and his witnesses imply that Drake's ship was grounded to be repaired and graved, but only one of the narratives, and that the least reliable, contains such a statement; the others simply mention a leak to be stopped, perhaps not far below the water- line, and I am sure that small vessels upon this coast have been often careened and graved without being beached at all. The coast survey charts declare the harbor to be a secure one except in south-east gales. There is an interior bay, communicating with the outer by a passage now somewhat obstructed by a bar, which possibly now, and very probably in 1579, would afford Drake's small ship a safe anchorage. And finally this objection would lose its force if ap- plied to Bodega instead of Drake Bay. Thus we find in this argument nothing of the positive character which alone could make it valid.

The other argument urged is that Fletcher's 'conies' were ground-squirrels and that these animals never existed in the region of Drake Bay. It must be admitted that the description in several respects fits the ground-squirrel better than the gopher or any other animal of this region; but a very accurate descrip- tion of anything would be out of place, and certainly is not found, in these narratives; the 'conies'-liter- ally rabbits-were seen on a trip up into the country, how far we do not know; and no very satisfying proof is presented that ground-squirrels never frequented the region of either Drake Bay or Bodega. There- fore whatever weight might be given to Stillman's arguments as against similar arguments on the other

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.

side drawn from the faulty descriptions available, they are in my opinion entitled to very little consider- ation as against the overwhelming and irresistible pre- sumption noted that Drake could not have entered San Francisco Bay.55

Between Drake Bay and Bodega I have no decided opinion to express. I find no foundation for such an opinion. It is not probable that there will ever be any means of ascertaining the truth. Drake's post and plate were doubtless moved from their original site at an early date. If my supposition that Ca- brillo did not pass Cape Mendocino is correct, then the English navigator may perhaps be entitled to the honor of having discovered a portion of the California coast above that point; yet it is by no means certain that he crossed the parallel of 42°.56

The Philippine ships from 1565 followed a northern route in returning across the Pacific to Acapulco; but of these trips we have for the most part no records. Their instructions were to keep as near to the line of 30° as possible, and to go no farther north than was necessary to get a wind. It is probable that, while they often reached latitude 37°, or higher, they rarely sighted the coast of Upper California, on ac- count of turning to the south as soon as they found sea-weeds or other indications that land was near. The lower end of the peninsula was generally the first land seen in these early years.

In 1584, however, Francisco Gali, commanding one of these ships returning from Macao by way of Japan, sailed from that island east and east by north about three hundred leagues until he struck the great oce-

55 Stillman's reference to the Spanish map published by Anson, which I reproduce later, should be noticed. It certainly gives a peculiar form to the bay under Point Reyes; but it has no bearing on Drake's voyage. It simply shows that the draughtsman failed to get a correct idea of the port from the text of Vizcaino and Cabrera Bueno.

56 On the report of one of Drake's men having been landed in California, and having gone to Mexico overland, a report not founded on fact. See Hist. Northwest Coast, i. 60-1, this series.

VOYAGE OF FRANCISCO DE GALI.

anic current, which carried him some seven hundred leagues to within two hundred leagues of the Ameri- can coast. Then, "being by the same course upon the coast of New Spain, under 37° 30', we passed by a very high and fair land with many trees, wholly with- out snow, and four leagues from the land you find thereabout many drifts of roots, leaves of trees, reeds, and other leaves like fig-leaves, the like whereof we found in great abundance in the country of Japan, which they eat; and some of those that we found, I caused to be sodden with flesh, and being sodden, they eat like coleworts; there likewise we found great store of seals; whereby it is to be presumed and certainly to be believed, that there are many rivers, bays, and havens along by those coasts to the haven of Aca- pulco. From thence we ran south-east, south-east and by south, and south-east and by east, as we found the wind, to the point called Cabo de San Lúcas, which is the beginning of the land of California, on the north-west side, lying under 22°, being five hundred leagues distant from Cape Mendocino." This is all that Gali's narrative contains respecting the California coast.57

Gali's seems to be the first mention of Cape Men- docino, though it is not implied that the name was given by him, as nevertheless it may have been. We have scen that the name was not, as has been generally believed, applied by Cabrillo or Ferrelo in 1542-3; and Torquemada's statement has been noted to the effect that the cape was discovered by the Manila ships. It is possible that it had been thus discovered in an unrecorded voyage preceding that of Gali; but it is quite as likely that the name was given in Mexico,

57 This narrative was translated into Dutch and published by Linschoten in his famous and oft-reprinted Itinerario of 1596. From this source an English translation is given in Hakluyt's Voy., iii. 442-7. A blunder in a French trans- lation by which 57° 30' was substituted for 37° 30' has caused a fictitious im- portance to be attached to the voyage, not however affecting California. Sce Burney's Chron. Hist., ii. 58-61; v. 163-4; Navarrete, Introd., Sutil y Mex., xelvi .- ix .; Id. Viages Apóc., 42-3; Twiss' Or. Question, 58-62; and mention in many of the works cited on the voyages of Cabrillo, Drake, and Vizcaino.

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.

of course in honor of the viceroy Mendoza, to a point discovered but not named by Cabrillo.

The fourth voyage of Californian annals was like the third one from the far west. The piloto Sebastian Rodriguez de Cermeñon in charge of the San Agustin coming from the Philippines in 1595, was ordered by Governor Gomez Perez das Mariñas, in accordance with royal instructions through Viceroy Velasco, to make some explorations on the coast, doubtless with a view to find a suitable station for the Manila ships. Of Cermeñon's adventures we know only that his vessel ran aground on a lee shore58 behind what was later called Point Reyes, leaving on the land a large quantity of wax and silk in boxes. It is possible that the San Agustin was accompanied by another vessel on which the officers and men escaped; but much more probable I think that the expression 'was lost' in the record is an error, and that the ship escaped with a loss of her cargo. One of the men, Francisco Bolaños, was piloto mayor, or sailing-master, under Vizcaino in 1603, when he anchored in the same port to see if any trace of the cargo remained, but without landing. The statement of Bolaños as reported incidentally in the narrative of Vizcaino's voyage by Ascension and Torquemada is, so far as I can learn, the only record extant of this voyage.50

58 'Se perdió, y dió á la costa con vn viento travesía.' 'Que en aquel puerto avia dado á la Costa el año de 1595.'

59 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., i. 717-18. 'En la costa reconocimos el puerto de San Francisco, adonde en tiempos pasados se perdió nna nao de China que venia con órden de descubrir esta costa, y creo que hoy dia hay mucha cera y losaza [loza?] que el navio traia.' Ascension, Relacion, 558. 'Here was where the ship S. Agustin was lost in the year 1595, coming to make discoveries, and the cause of her being lost was rather the fault of him who steered than stress of weather.' Cabrera Bueno, Navegacion, 303. Venegas, Noticia, i. 183, says 'the viceroy Velasco, desirous of making a station for the Philippine ships on the outer coast, sent a ship called San Agustin, which soon returned without any results.' And Lorenzana, in Cortés, Hist. N. Esp., 326. Also, from Torquemada, Salmeron, Relac., 20; Niel, Apunt, 74; and Navarrete, Introd., lvi .- vii. It does not clearly appear that any of these writers saw anything in addition to the statement in Torquemada. In Bodega y Cuadra, Fiage de 1775, MS., it is said that Cermeñon was wrecked in a south-east wind, as he could not have been at Bodega or the new San Francisco. Where this infor- mation was obtained does not appear.

CERMEÑON'S SHIPWRECK.

It is somewhat remarkable that no additional light has ever been thrown on this voyage; but, slight as is the record, there is no good reason to question its accuracy, especially as no grand and impossible discov- eries of interoceanic channels are involved. There can be very little doubt that Cermeñon named the port of his disaster San Francisco, perhaps from the day of his arrival. There is nothing to support the view sometimes expressed that he came in search of a San Francisco Bay, or of the port discovered by Drake; though it is not unlikely that rumors of Drake's fine bay had an influence with other motives in promoting this exploration. That the Spaniards, now or at any other time, founded the name of San Francisco on that of Sir Francis, the English free- booter, is so improbable as to merit no consideration; but it is certain that subsequently foreign writers and map-makers confounded the names to some extent, as was natural enough. That Vizcaino, Cabrera Bueno, and other Spaniards of the early times mistook the identity of Cermeñon's bay is hardly possible. The timely circulation of a paragraph from Cabrera Bueno's work of 1732 and another from Crespi's diary of 1769 would have well nigh removed all diffi- culties in this matter, which has proved so puzzling to the annalists.

Sebastian Vizcaino, commanding a Spanish explor- ing fleet of three vessels, anchored in San Diego Bay on November 10, 1603. He had sailed from Acapulco in May of the preceding year, with a force of nearly two hundred men including three Carmelite friars. His special mission, in addition to that of general ex- ploration and the ever potent purpose of finding an interoceanic strait, was to find a suitable port for the Philippine ships. Details of his expedition to the date mentioned and of his explorations along the outer coast of the peninsula have been presented in another part of this work. It is only with his experience on HIST. CAL., VOL. I. 7

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.

the coast of Upper California that we are now con- cerned.60

It had been sixty years since Cabrillo had visited this bay and named it San Miguel; but here as else- where on the Californian coast Vizcaino pays no heed to the discoveries of his predecessor; giving indeed no indication that they were known to him. The name was now given doubtless with reference to that of the flag-ship, and also to the day of San Diego de Alcalá occurring on the 12th of November. A party landed to explore, climbed to the summit of the hills on the northern peninsula, had a view of the grand harbor and a glimpse of the False Bay, found plenty of wood, and came back to report. The general decided to clean and pay his ship, and to obtain a supply of wood and water. A tent church for the friars was pitched somewhere on the western shore between what are now La Playa and Point Loma. Wells were dug on the opposite sand island, or peninsula, and the work of

60 Hist. North Mex. States, this series. The vessels were the flag-ship, or capitana, San Diego, on which sailed Vizcaino as captain-general; the Santo Tomás, under Toribio Gomez de Corvan as admiral; and the Tres Reyes under Alférez Martin Aguilar and the piloto Antonio Flores. Other officers were Captain Alonso Estévan Peguero, Captain Gaspar Alarcon, Captain Geró- nimo Martin Palacios, cosmographer; Alféreces Juan Francisco Suriano, Sebastian Melendez, and Juan de Acevedo Tejeda; pilotos Francisco Bolaños, Baltasar de Armas, and Juan Pascual; sergeants Miguel Legar and Juan Castillo Bueno; and corporals Estévan Lopez and Francisco Vidal. The friars were Andrés de la Asuncion, Tomás de Aquino, and Antonio de la Ascension, the first serving as comisario and the latter as chronicler and assistant cosmographer and map-maker. The standard and original authorities are Padre Ascension's account, perhaps but little changed from the original diary, in Torquemada, i. 694-726; the same author's Relacion Breve, 539-74, written in 1620, and adding not much of importance to the other; Salmeron, Relaciones, 14-21, the author of which was personally acquainted with Ascension and other companions of Vizcaino; Cabrera Bueno, Navegacion, 302-13, which contains a derrotero of the coast from Cape Men- docino south, drawn from Vizcaino's log and charts; Venegas, Not., i. 193- 201; iii. 22-139 and Navarrete, Sutil y Mex. ix .- xviii., the author of which saw in the Spanish archives certified copies of all the papers relating to the expedition, including 32 maps, a small reduction from which combined in one he published in his atlas. This map, which I reproduce, was also published in Burney's Chron. Hist., ii. 236-59. It is very much to be regretted that the narratives and maps of this voyage have never been published, and that Nav- arrete has made so inadequate a use of them. For accounts of the voyage adding nothing to information derived from those mentioned I refer the reader to the account in an earlier volume of my work; it may be added that very many of the works cited in this chapter on the voyages of Cabrillo and Drake contain also a mention of Vizcaino.

VIZCAINO'S EXPEDITION.

refitting went on, though many were sick with the scurvy of which some had already died. Indians armed with bows and arrows soon appeared on the beach but were neither hostile nor very timid, gladly consenting to an interchange of gifts. They were understood to say by signs that other bearded men like the Spaniards were in the interior. All were de- lighted with the port and its surroundings. Vizcaino with Fray Antonio and an escort made an expedition on land, how extensive or in what direction we may not know, but probably including the eastern shores. After a stay of ten days, they set sail on the 20th of November.61 The islands known as Los Coronados were noted and named by Vizcaino; and Cabrera Bueno, giving a full description of the port which he puts in latitude 34°, names also the Punta de Guijar- ros, that is the point of cobble-stones, or ballast. 62

A voyage of eight days against a north-west wind, the Tres Reyes hugging the coast and the others keep- ing farther out, brought them to an anchorage at the island which from the day they named Santa Cata- lina, sighting another large island in the south-west named San Clemente.63 Before arriving here they had gone to a bight on the main, where smoke and green vegetation were seen, but there seemed to be no protection from the winds. This was probably the bay they called San Pedro,64 a name still retained,

61 The narratives enter somewhat into descriptive details for which I have no space. Says Ascension: 'In the sands of the beach there was a great quan- tity of marcasite, golden (dorada) and spongy, which is a clear sign that in the mountains round the port there are gold-mines, because the waters when it rains bring it from the mountains.' They also found in the sand masses of a gray light substance like dried ox-dung, which it was thought might be am- ber. Some very heavy blue stones with which powdered and mixed in water the natives made shining streaks on their faces were thought to be rich in silver. The fertility of the soil, abundance of game and fish, and indeed all the natural qualities of the place are highly praised. San Diego was deemed a fine site for a Spanish settlement.

62 Cabrera Bueno, Naregacion, 305.

63 Name only in Cabrera Bueno, Nav., 305. The island is not on the map.

6ª On the map it is Ensenada de S. Andrés. Cabrera Bueno names San Pedro in 34° 30', and mentions the little island there. Nov. 26th is the day of St Peter, bishop of Alexandria. It will be remembered that Cabrillo had called this bay Bahía de los Humos.

100

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.

like those of the islands. Santa Catalina had a large population of fishermen and traders, who had large well built canoes and houses, as well as a temple where they sacrificed birds to an idol. They had no fear and were friendly, though skillful thieves. One or two days were spent here,65 and then they went on through the waters which they named the Canal de Santa Bárbara,66 between the main and a chain of islands which commanders of the Philippine ships are said to have regarded before as tierra firme. The

P.Año Nuevo

Plo. Monte Rey

-Pinos

Pia,que parece isla

Costa de Sierras dobladas de mucha arboleda

Ens. Roque

Pta.Concepción

Pueblo grande

Pta.Ro.Dulce

Gran. Ens.

Ens.S.Andrés

.RASA

BEISLAS

HOS

LAGRANDE

E BARGADA

ES NICOLAS

ARBARAO

Costa Segura

P.San Diego

ta de Arbole

ITS"MARTINS

·EL CALVARIO

Pta.Sierras

No se vio fondo

TODOS SANTOS

VIZCAINO'S MAP.

country was very attractive on both sides of the channel, but Vizcaino did not anchor, deeming it important to take advantage of favorable winds to reach northern latitudes. A chief came off in a canoc, however, and used all his eloquence to induce the strangers to visit his home, offering ten women for each man to supply a nced that he noted on board the ships. I give here a copy of Vizcaino's map of the coast up to Monterey. Between the narrative,

65 Torquemada, i. 713, says they departed on December 25th, but this must be an error.

66 The day of Santa Barbara is December 4th.

Costa bara

ENT

MESA DE LA CENA

Pta

101

VIZCAINO AT MONTEREY.

the map, and Cabrera's description there is no little confusion in details.67

There were other friendly visits from the natives as the Spaniards advanced northward; but after emerging from the channel and passing Point Concep- cion the coast was so hidden from view by fogs as to greatly interfere with the search for a harbor.63 On the 14th of December the fog lifted and revealed to the voyagers the lofty coast range which from the preceding day was named Sierra de Santa Lucía, and which as the chronicler states had been the landmark usually sighted by the China ships. Four leagues beyond, a river flowing from lofty hills enters the ocean with fertile and well wooded banks between the shore cliffs. It was named the Rio de Carmelo in honor of the Carmelite friars who accompanied the expedition.60 Then Vizcaino's fleet rounded and named Punta de Pinos, and on the 16th of December anchored in a famoso, or excellent, harbor which in honor of the viceroy who had despatched the expedition was named Monterey.70

Next day the church tent was pitched under the shade of an oak whose branches touched the tide- water, twenty paces from springs of good water in a ravine, which barranca, with similar trees not quite so near the shore, is still a prominent landmark at Monterey. There were now but few men on the ships

67 Map from Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, Atlas No. 4. Torquemada gives no names except Santa Catalina Island and Santa Bárbara Canal. Cabrera Bueno, 304, gives a page of not very clear description. He names Punta de Concepcion in 35° 30', Farallon de Lobos, Canal de Sta Bárbara, Punta de la Conversion (perhaps identical with the Punta de Rio Dulce of the map, and with the modern Pt Hueneme) Isla de Sta Bárbara, Isla de Sta Catalina in 34° 30', Isla de San Clemente in 43° (a little less).

68 On the map is named Ensenada de Roque, which is either San Luis Obispo or Estero Bay; and 'point which looks like an island,' evidently Pt Sur. Cabrera gives no names except Tierra de Santa Lucía, mentioning how- ever the 'morro' corresponding to Pt Sur.

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History of California, Volume I, Part 19

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Publication date: 1885 Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers Number of Pages: 852

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 852