# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo - A Voyage of Exploration

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition that explored what is now the west coast of the United States. Cabrillo departed from the port of Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542. Three months later he arrived at "a very good enclosed port," which is known today as San Diego Bay. Historians believe he anchored his flagship, the San Salvador, on Point Loma's east shore near the land that becomes Cabrillo National Monument. Cabrillo later died during the expedition, but his crew continued on, possibly as far north as Oregon, before thrashing winter storms forced them back to Mexico.

Cabrillo National Monument, established in 1913, remembers Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo's voyage of exploration. It was the first contact between the coastal California Indigenous tribes, like the Kumeyaay, and men from Europe. Though the San Salvador stayed only six days in San Diego harbor, this journey and future Spanish journeys to the area would shape southern California's complex history.

Cabrillo's Early Life

Born in Spain, Cabrillo was a conquistador in his youth. The term "conquistador" is the name applied to the mostly Spanish soldiers who explored, conquered, and settled in the New World. We know little of Cabrillo's early years until 1519, when his name appears in the ranks of those who served in the army of famous conquistador Hernan Cortes. In the terrible battles between the Aztecs and the Spanish, Cabrillo fought as a captain of crossbowmen.

Metal weapons and effective tactics made the conquistadors formidable opponents. The Aztecs, however, were also very brave and they greatly outnumbered the Spanish. Ultimately, smallpox tipped the scales in favor of the Spanish. . The disease, previously unknown in the New World, swept through Aztec defenders and killed perhaps a quarter of their population. Everywhere the Spanish went, advanced disease went before them making it possible for a relatively few Europeans to conquer the New World. After the defeat of the Aztecs, Cabrillo joined other Spanish military expeditions in what is today southern Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Eventually Cabrillo settled in Guatemala.

A Businessman in the Spanish "Encomienda" System

By the mid-1530s, Cabrillo established himself as a leading citizen of Guatemala's primary town, Santiago. Cabrillo was one of the Spanish-born men who benefited from the "encomienda" system in the New World. In this system, the king of Spain granted long term leases for land that often came with the right to use forced Indigenous labor. In Spanish society, this was viewed as a reward for services to the crown, and it also served as a way to keep Spanish landowners in power. In Cabrillo's case, he was granted the right to farmlands and mines. Cabrillo's businesses on land and at sea - and so his resulting wealth - depended on slave labor. Indigenous Guatemalans were enslaved by the Spanish and forced to work not only on his farms and in his mines, but also in his shipyards and on his vessels.

After establishing himself, Cabrillo traveled to Spain in 1532 to marry his business partner's sister, Beatriz Sanchez de Ortega. Cabrillo had a previous relationship and children with an Indigenous Guatemalan woman, but his children from this union could not inherit his wealth because Spain required landowners to be white Spaniards. Beatriz had two sons who inherited much of Cabrillo's wealth.

Cabrillo was also known for his shipbuilding operations. Using a port on Guatemala's Pacific Coast, Cabrillo imported and exported goods in the developing trade between Guatemala, Spain, and other parts of the New World. The ships he used for this trade were constructed in Guatemala by skilled laborers from Spain and Indigenous Guatemalans forced into hard physical labor. Some of these ships were used for trade and others were used in Spain's early exploration efforts.

Why Explore California?

The Governor of Guatemala, Pedro de Alvarado, selected Cabrillo to build and provision ships to explore the Pacific because of his skills as a leader and businessman. Alvarado planned to use the ships to establish a trading route between Central America and the Spice Islands (modern day Indonesia) . When Alvarado died during an Indian uprising, his business partner, the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, prompted Cabrillo to lead one of two expeditions to explore the Pacific. Cabrillo accepted and soon set out to explore the coast north and west of New Spain (Mexico). Meanwhile, the other expedition, led by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, sailed directly across the Pacific to the Philippines. While this expedition did reach its Philippine destination, Villalobos was killed in a mutiny, and the hungry, disheartened crew eventually surrendered to a Portuguese garrison in the Spice Islands.

The Cabrillo expedition sailed out of the port of Navidad, near modern day Manzanillo, on June 27, 1542 with three ships. Accompanying Cabrillo were a crew of sailors, soldiers, enslaved people, merchants, a priest, livestock, and provisions for two years. The expedition was also seeking the seven fabulously wealthy cities known as Cibola that some believed were near the Pacific coast beyond New Spain, and the possibility of a route connection from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic - the Straits of Anian.

Exploring California

One hundred and three days into the journey, Cabrillo's ships entered San Diego Bay. He probably landed at Ballast Point (visible from the Visitor Center) where he claimed the land for Spain, though no Europeans settled in the area at that time. Cabrillo described the bay as "a closed and very good port," which he called San Miguel. The name San Miguel was changed to San Diego 60 years later by another explorer, Sebastian Vizcaino. The Kumeyaay tribes had already lived in the area for thousands of years and would continue to be the primary human shapers of the landscape until the Spanish established a fort in San Diego in 1769.

The expedition continued north to Monterey Bay and may have reached as far north as Point Reyes before storms forced the ships to turn back. The expedition failed to sight the entrance to San Francisco Bay, which remained undiscovered until 1769. Discouraged by foul weather, Cabrillo decided to winter in the Channel Islands. There, after a fall suffered during a brief skirmish with an Indigenous tribe , Cabrillo shattered a limb and died of complications on January 3, 1543. Following Cabrillo's death, the disheartened crew again sailed north, this time under the leadership of Bartolome Ferrer. The expedition may have reached a latitude as far north as the Rogue River in Oregon, but thrashing winter winds and spoiled supplies forced them to return to Mexico.

The Voyage's Impact

While Cabrillo's contemporaries considered the expedition a failure, it left behind our first written glimpse of the west coast of North America from a newcomer's perspective. There was no known lasting Spanish impact on Kumeyaay culture until the fort and mission system was established in 1769.

Future Spanish explorers used Cabrillo's records to better navigate the Pacific. They learned that a wide, slow current flows from north to south along the Pacific coast of North America. It is a quick route to return from Asia, but nearly impossible to travel north as Cabrillo and his crew found out.

References

Cabrillo National Monument Foundation. An Account of the Voyage of Juan Rodríquez Cabrillo. San Diego, CA: Cabrillo National Monument Foundation, 1999.

Kelsey, Harry. Juan Rodríquez Cabrillo. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1986.

Kramer, Wendy. "Juan Rodríquez Cabrillo: A Voyage of Rediscovery." Mains'l Haul: A Journal of Pacific Maritime History 55, 1-4 (2019): 16 - 85.

Lemke, Nancy. Cabrillo: First European Explorer of the California Coast. San Luis Obispo, CA: EZ Nature Books, 1991.

Other National Park Service Areas relating to early Spanish Explorers

Coronado National Memorial
DeSoto National Memorial
Pecos National Historical Park

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo - Cabrillo National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition that explored what is now the west coast of the United States. Cabrillo departed from the port of Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542. Three months later he arrived at "a very good enclosed port," which is known today as San Diego Bay.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4th Grade Lecture: Early European Exploration of California

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Saving the Bay - Discovering San Francisco Bay: The Portolá Expedition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Life of Kahuia Indians of Southern California

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California Indians talk about historical perspectives of the Mission era.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About the Images

California has always been a place of cultural interaction. Early California evolved and changed with each new group of settlers. These images depict the developing interconnectedness of California's early cultures. They also underscore the importance of movement and later settlement of peoples in California. Some of the modern images underscore the contested and often romanticized nature of California's Spanish and Mexican heritage.

Overview

In the late 18th century, the Spanish in California were joined by other European groups. Russian settlements in northern California (shown in the two images of Fort Ross) connected Russia to its other sea otter trade routes, were places to grow food for their Alaskan settlements, and served as bases for trade with Californians. Before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the French controlled much of what would border both Spanish territory on the West Coast and the newly formed United States to the east. The ink drawing shows a French diplomat being received at Mission Carmel in 1786.

Early European images of California show these settlers' interest in Native Americans already inhabiting the area. The engraving of Captain Rogers' men being received by Native American men on the shores of California in the early 1800s depicts the two groups shaking hands and the Native Americans guiding the newcomers to shore. The engraving underscores the newness of the interaction, with the Native American men inspecting the explorers' hair and clothing. The numbers of European and Native American men appear relatively equal in this early engraving; but the ravages of disease from exposure to Europeans would decimate Native American populations by the mid- to late 19th century. The Russian sketch of mules and an Indian boy, and the illustration of the padrone and the Indian boy, show the cultural contact and adaptations underway by the early 19th century.

Natural harbors and waterways made San Francisco an early site for the rapid influx of people and settlements. The series of three images of San Francisco illustrates the city's expansive growth in less than 40 years. The 1815 painting shows the view toward the San Francisco Presidio with the Bay and one ship in the far distance. As late as 1837, the print of the view towards the San Francisco Presidio from the ships entering the Bay still show very few settlements in the distance. By the time of the lithograph dated 1851 (one year after California joined the United States, and two years after the Gold Rush), San Francisco is teeming with buildings, tents, people, and livestock, and the Bay is clogged with arriving ships.

Military presence was central to the success of each new settlement. It is depicted in both Spanish presidio images and in American fortifications like Sutter's Fort, shown here in a book illustration. Each shows the walls and soldiers meant to provide shelter and protection to the surrounding farms.

The images in this topic tend to show California's rapid transition from exploration to settlement from a European viewpoint. The sketches and paintings by early 19th-century Russian artist Ludwig Choris show his interest in Native American arms and utensils, dance performances, and portrait heads. But as the Spanish mission system expands, and immigrants from the Gold Rush crowd California, artists begin to reflect the power of Manifest Destiny. Their emphasis shifts to documenting "modern" progress in the construction of buildings, forts, and migration routes like the Overland Route. By 1866 (nearly fifteen years after California's statehood and heavily influenced by the ideas of Manifest Destiny), a certificate from the Society of California Pioneers uses a series of images to mark major historical transitions within California's history leading up to and glorifying United States control.

Into the 20th century and today, the legacy of California's early exploration and settlement is apparent in daily life. By exploring the many place markers of Spanish exploration (shown in the 1960s AAA map of California's Spanish heritage), modern Californians may continue to engage with the region's unique past. The 1979 Chicano mural depicting a fight between a Spanish conquistador and an Aztec eagle knight underscores the central role European conquest played in shaping California.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Early California Exploration and Settlement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California has always been a place of cultural interaction. Early California evolved and changed with each new group of settlers. These images depict the developing interconnectedness of California's early cultures. They also underscore the importance of movement and later settlement of peoples in California.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the Age of Exploration and Discovery of the European Renaissance including Henry the Navigator, Columbus, Portugal, and Spain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the biography and life of English explorer Sir Francis Drake. Privateer and pirate sailed around the world and conquered the Spanish.