Benton County, Oregon - Chapter 2: Early Explorations in the Northwest, 1885

Chapter 2: Early Explorations in the Northwest

Cortes Conquers Mexico and Turns his Eyes towards California - He Hopes to Reach the Indies by following the Coast - California Discovered by Ximenes - Cortez Undertakes its Conquest - Tale of the Florida Refugees - Voyage of Ulloa - Wonderful Story of Friar M areas- Coronado seeks Cibola and Quivira - Voyage of Cabrillo and Ferrelo.

Immediately following the first discoveries by Columbus, Spain began to plant colonies in the West India islands. Her enlightened sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, proposed to open at once the great storehouse of wealth this new land was popularly supposed to be. Gold and jewels were procured from the natives by every possible means, including cheating in trade and conquest by the sword, and sent back to enrich the mother country. The same year that saw Magellan set sail upon his voyage around the globe, witnessed the inauguration of another enterprise fraught with great results to the future of America. Hernando de Cortes entered Mexico with the sword in one hand and bible in the other, bent upon winning riches and power for himself and His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, and impressing upon the heathen Aztecs the beauties of the Christian religion with musketry and cannon. The details of his bloody conquest it is needless to relate.

Having subjugated Mexico and overturned in blood the throne of the Montezumas, Cortes looked westward for more countries to subdue and plunder of their accumulated wealth. On the fifteenth of October, 1524, he wrote to Spain's most powerful monarch, Charles V, that he was upon the eve of entering upon the conquest of Colima, a country bordering on the South sea (Pacific ocean), and that the great men there had given him information of "an island of Amazons, or women only, abounding in pearls and gold, lying ten days' journey from Colima. ,, Though Colima is the name of one of the present states of Mexico, there is but little doubt that Cortes referred to Lower California. This was the opinion of Miguel Venengas, who wrote in 1749 : " The account of the pearls inclines me to think that these were the first intimations we had of California and its gulf."

The idea held by Cortes was that possessed by geographers generally, that America, if not an actual portion of Asia, into which the Pacific projected a long distance northward, was at least separated from that ancient continent simply by a narrow strait; and this idea, though founded simply upon theory, was wonderfully correct. It was his plan to sail northward, along the coast until the Straits of Anian were encountered, or failing in that, to continue westward and southward until he reached the rich lands of India. The fatal defect in this theory was in not ascribing to the Pacific ocean and the American continent the magnificent proportions they were in after years found to possess.

Pacific Coast

At the time Cortes wrote his letter the Pacific coast had been several times explored from the Isthmus of Panama as far northward as 350 leagues from that point. In 1522 he began the construction of several vessels at Zacatula to carry out his ideas, and in 1526 they were joined by a vessel which had come through the Straits of Magellan. In 1527 three of these vessels were completed and made a short voyage along the coast ; but orders came from Spain to send them to India by a direct route across the ocean instead of the long way along the coast proposed by Cortes. Other ships were begun at Tehuantepec, but rotted on the stocks while the great conqueror was in Spain. In 1530 he began the construction of others. Finally, in 1532, he dispatched two vessels from Acapulco, reaching as far north as Sinaloa, both being wrecked at different points, and their commanders and all but a few of the men slain by the natives. The next year two more vessels were dispatched from Tehuantepec, one of which accomplished nothing. The crew of the other one mutinied and killed their commander, Becerra, and continued the voyage under the pilot, Fortufio Ximenes, landing upon the extreme southern point of the peninsula of California, in 1534, where Ximenes and twenty of his men were slain in an encounter with the natives. The survivors succeeded in navigating the vessel back to the main land, where it was seized by Nufio de Guzman, the governor of Northern Mexico. He was a bitter enemy of Cortes, and his rival in covering the advancing pathway of civilization with a carpet of blood.

To resent this insult, Cortes sent three vessels northward by sea, and started himself, by land, at the head of a considerable body of troops. He changed his intention, however, and embarking a large portion of his force upon the vessels which had met him at Chiametla, he set sail for the new country discovered to the west by Ximenes, which was said to abound in the finest of pearls. On the third of May, 1535, his little squadron came to anchor in the bay where the mutineers had met their fate the year before, and in honor of the day, which was that of the Holy Cross in the Roman Catholic calendar, he bestowed upon it the name of Santa Cruz. This was probably the one now known as Port La Paz. To this body of land the name of California was soon after given, though by whom, for what reason and what is the significance of the title remain perplexing questions to the present day, and this name gradually expanded in its application until in after years it signified the entire Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast, that portion above the mouth of the Colorado being known as Alta California.

Cortes landed upon this barren and inhospitable coast with 130 men and forty horses, with visions of conquest floating before his mind. He hoped to find in this new country another Mexico to yield its vast storas of gold, pearls and ornaments into his bloody hands. Two of his vessels were at once sent to Chiametla for the remainder of his troops, and returned with but a portion of them. They were again dispatched upon the same errand, one only returning, the other having gone to the bottom of the sea. Cortes then went to the Mexican coast in person, returning to Santa Cruz just in time to rescue those he had left there from death by starvation. More than a year's time had now been fruitlessly squandered, and explorations inland had revealed the fact that the land was utterly barren and worthless. With the exception of a few pearls on the coast, the Spaniards had found nothing to tempt their cupidity, the great controlling power which bound them together and made them subservient to discipline. Many had died and the remainder were mutinous. In the meantime the wife of Cortes, hearing of his ill success, sent a vessel to Santa Cruz with letters, imploring him to abandon his enterprise and return. News came at the same time that a Spanish nobleman of high rank, Don Antonio de Mendoza, had been appointed to supersede him as viceroy of New Spain, and had already installed himself in office in the city of Mexico. He hastened to the mainland, leaving a portion of his forces still at Santa Cruz, under the command of Francisco de Ulloa ; but finding his authority in New Spain entirely gone and being much embarrassed financially by the expenses of his unprofitable venture, he sent word to Ulloa to return, and in 1537 the sandy deserts of Lower California were abandoned by the ragged remnant of that little army of adventurers who had entered it with such high hopes two years before.

About this time there arrived in Mexico four wandering refugees whose story had much to do with the nature of explorations for the next few years. They were Alvaro Nufiez de Cabeza-Vaca, two other Spaniards and a Negro or Moor. They had landed in Florida in 1527 with a plundering expedition that invaded that portion of the coast under Panfilo Narvaez. The company was almost exterminated by shipwreck, famine and battle, and these four survivors wandered for nine years through the interior of the region bordering upon the gulf until they finally arrived in Mexico. They had encountered no civilized or wealthy nations in their long journey, but had been informed, at various places, of populous countries inhabited by rich and civilized races further to the northwest.

Mendoza was moved by these stories to invade the northwest. It was the civilized nations the Spaniards were eager to subdue ; not because their conquest afforded them more honor in a military sense, for their warfare was but a series of bloody butcheries of unwarlike races whose undisciplined and unprotected masses, armed simply with spears, were mowed down like grain by the cannon, musketry and steel of the mailed warriors of Spain ; but because these civilized nations possessed the great stores of gold and precious jewels which were the loadstone that drew these representatives of European chivalry to the New World. The viceroy organized a body of fifty horsemen for the purpose of invading this new country, and then abandoned the idea, sending, instead, two friars and the Moor to explore and report the true facts of the case before he ventured upon more extensive efforts.

They departed in March, 1539, and on the eighth of the following July, Cortes, who still claimed the right of exploration into the unknown ocean and government over all lands discovered, having again equipped three vessels, sent them from Acapulco under the command of Ulloa. One of these was soon wrecked in a severe storm, and the other two proceeded to Santa Cruz bay and then coasted along Lower California and Mexico, completely around the gulf that lies between them, failing, however, to notice the mouth of the great Colorado river. This voyage settled many geographical questions, and the gulf was named by Ulloa the Sea of Cortes, though it was generally marked on Spanish maps as the Vermilion sea, and on those of other nations as the Gulf of California. On the twenty-ninth of October, of the same year, Ulloa again sailed from Santa Cruz, whither he had returned at the conclusion of his last voyage, and sought to examine the coast westward as he had to the east. Passing around the cape, now called San Lucas, he sailed slowly northward until about the first of February, 1540, he reached an island near the coast in latitude 28°, which he named Isle of Cedars. Headwinds and sickness held him here until April, and then the same causes, coupled with a lack of provisions, compelled him to abandon his purpose of proceeding further northward.

This voyage attracted but little attention, so absorbed were the mercenary adventurers in Mexico in the report of Friar Marcas de Niza of the wonderful things discovered by him and his companions in the new region whither they had been sent by Mendoza.

From these accounts, as contained in the letter addressed to the viceroy by Father Marcas, and from other evidence, it is probable that the reverend explorer did really penetrate to a considerable distance into the interior of the continent, and did find there countries partially cultivated, and inhabited by people possessing some acquaintance with the arts of civilized life; though as to the precise situation of those regions, or the routes pursued in reaching them, no definite idea can be derived from the narrative. The friar pretended to have discovered, northwest of Mexico, beyond the thirty-fifth degree of latitude, extensive territories, richly cultivated, and abounding in gold, silver, and precious stones, the population of which was much greater, and further advanced in civilization, than those of Mexico or Peru. In these countries were many towns, and seven cities, of which the friar only saw one, called Cevola or Cibola, containing twenty thousand large stone houses, some of four stories, and adorned with jewels ; yet he was assured, by the people, that this was the smallest of the cities, and far inferior, in extent and magnificence, to one called Totonteac, situated more towards the northwest. The inhabitants of Cibola had, at first, been hostile to the Spaniards, and had killed the Negro ; but they had, in the end, manifested a disposition to erabrace Christianity, and to submit to the authority of the King of Spain, in whose name Friar Marcas had taken possession of the whole country, by secretly erecting crosses in many places.

Such was the account of the worthy friar, but the reverend gentleman drew entirely too long a bow. That such a civilization could have existed there in the sixteenth century and have completely disappeared from view by the eighteenth, is too improbable to be credited. The ancient ruins of Arizona and New Mexico and the customs and traditions of the Zuni and Moquis Indians, confirm the opinion that a serai-civilized race inhabited that region centuries ago ; but nothing has been discovered pointing to such dense population, cities of " twenty thousand large stone houses," or such wealth and civilization as the friar claimed to have observed. The probability is that, encountering a semi-civilized race, and desiring to spread among them the beauties of the Christian religion, he told these exaggerated stories to the viceroy in order to induce him to invade and subdue this new country, for in those days the pathway for the bible was hewn by the sword. Related by a respectable priest who claimed to have himself witnessed the wonders he portrayed, the story was fully credited, and Mendoza sent a combined land and sea expedition to reconnoitre and open the way for a complete conquest of this great nation.

The marine portion, under the command of Fernando de Alarcon, sailed from Santiago May 9, 1540, and discovered and entered the Colorado river in August, which was then named Rio de Nuestra Sofiora de Buena Guia, in honor of the viceroy, whose shield bore the above inscription. Alarcon ascended the stream in boats a distance of eighty leagues, inquiring diligently for the seven great cities. From the Indians he received many confusing accounts of wonderful riches and remarkable objects to be found in the interior, accounts no doubt similar to those which had been the foundation of Friar Marcas' wonderful tale. Completely baffled he returned to Mexico.

The land forces, consisting of cavalry, infantry and priests, a perfect complement for the conversion of stubborn heathen, were under the command of a resolute soldier named Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a man intensely practical and unaccustomed to drawing upon his imagination when relating facte. After traversing many miles of desert and mountain they reached a country for which Cibola appeared to be the general name, though it was found to be entirely devoid of the refinement and riches reported by Friar Marcas. The seven cities proved to be seven small villages, thinly inhabited by a race but little removed from a savage state. The climate was agreeable and the soil very fertile. Large stone houses, rudely built and unornamented, were found, which were later called cases grandes de los Azteques (great houses of the Aztecs) by the Spanish settlers, upon the theory that they had been erected by the Aztecs while living in that region prior to their invasion of Mexico. Coronado left Cibola in disgust and proceeded further towards the northwest, wandering for two years hither and thither in search of the many fabulously rich countries the Indians were constantly informing him were to be found somewhere else. Quivira in particular was the object of great solicitude because of the reported wealth of its monarch ; but when he reached it in latitude 40°, it proved to be a buffalo country and its inhabitants simply a race of hunters. If the latitude is correct, he must have penetrated as far north as the Platte or headwaters of the Arkansas. He returned to Mexico in 1543 with his faith in Indian stories shaken to its foundation stones.

The next effort to explore the western coast was made in 1542, when Mendoza dispatched Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo with two vessels in search of the Straits of Anian. Cabrillo examined the coast as far north as the 38th degree of latitude, when he was driven back by a storm and forced to take refuge in a harbor called by him Port Possession, in the island of San Bernardino, in latitude 34°. Here he died January 3, 1543, and the pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo, took command and resumed the voyage northward. He discovered near latitude 41° a cape which he named Cabo de For tunas (Cape of Perils), being no doubt the one subsequently named Mendocino in honor of the viceroy, Mendoza. The furthest point northward reached by Ferrelo on the first of March, 1540, is given by some authorities as 44° and others 43°, either of which would be off the coast of Oregon ; and to this little vessel-load of adventurous men, half clothed, living upon short allowance of food, and afflicted with scurvy, must be given the credit of making the first discovery of the coast of Oregon, the prize for which great nations disputed for centuries.