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Explorers of the Pacific: European and American Discoveries in Polynesia

[introduction]

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Introduction

After the settlement of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia in prehistoric times, the exploration of the Pacific had to wait for untold centuries before ships and navigators reached a stage of development that would admit of venturing out of sight of land. The inhabitants of the Asiatic coast and the islands along the western boundary of the great ocean evinced no curiosity as to what lay beyond their eastern horizon. They were probably sufficiently occupied with their coastal and inter-island trade to be satisfied. The Indian tribes along the eastern boundary formed by the Pacific coast of the two Americas took no interest in the sea beyond inshore fishing, and they developed neither the vessels nor the maritime curiosity to venture beyond sight of land.

The East Indies

1486 to 1521

The later exploration of the Pacific was left to daring adventurers from the continent of Europe. However, east or west, the undiscovered Pacific was a long way from Europe and much preliminary discovery had to be made before even the shores were reached. In 1486 Bartholomeo Diaz discovered the southern limit of the continent of Africa. Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese navigator, followed up the discovery by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope and reaching Calicut on the Malabar coast of India on May 20, 1498. The Portuguese were quick to realize the prospects of trade with the East, and by 1510 they had established a trading port at Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. Moving farther east, they set up trading posts in the Moluccas (Spice Islands) at Ternate, Tidore, and Banda in 1521. Thus by working east from Europe, Europeans were established on the western fringe of the Pacific, but trans-Pacific exploration did not come from that direction.

America

1492 to 1513

The eastern shores of the Pacific were also reached by a preliminary series of expeditions. Christopher Columbus, imbued with the startling theory that the world was round and that the continent of Asia stretched much farther to the east than it did, held that he could reach Cipangu, or Japan, in the East by sailing west from Europe. The aid of the Spanish royal family was, at length, obtained and Columbus, after a voyage of two page 2months and nine days, reached an island in the West Indies on October 12, 1492. The island, which is one of the Bahamas, he named San Salvador. It is now known as Watlings Island. Other islands were discovered during this expedition and three subsequent expeditions, but Columbus never reached the mainland. The first Spanish settlements were thus established in the West Indies.

Various expeditions explored the neighboring mainland coast. Among the explorers was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who assisted in establishing a settlement at Darien in the Gulf of Uraba. Learning from a friendly cacique that there was a great sea on the other side of the range, he set out with an expedition on September 1, 1513. Within twenty-five or twenty-six days, they reached the top of the range, and Balboa "silent upon a peak in Darien" gazed on the great ocean. When, on September 29, the expedition reached the American shore of the Pacific, Balboa waded into it and claimed the "Great South Sea" in the name of the King of Spain.

1518 to 1521

Though Balboa discovered the Pacific for Spain, the men who spread Spain's conquest of the mainland were Cortez and Pizarro. In 1518 Juan Grijalva discovered Mexico, but made no attempt at settlement. On November 18, 1518, Hernando Cortez was sent from Santiago with ten vessels and 600 to 700 Spaniards to occupy the country. By diplomacy, deceit, and hard fighting, he finally defeated the Mexicans on the plain of Otumba on July 7, 1520, and on August 13, 1521, he captured Mexico City, Montezuma's capital. He became the first Viceroy of Mexico, which later was expanded into the viceroyalty of New Spain, the main Pacific coast ports of which were Navidad and Acapulco.

1522 to 1537

Francisco Pizarro, who had accompanied Balboa's expedition to the Pacific, became a cattle farmer in Panama. In 1522 he entered into a partnership with a priest and a soldier named Diego de Almagro, for the exploration of the west coast of South America and the sharing of any fortune they might make. Pizarro explored the coast as far south as latitude 9° S. and obtained authentic information regarding the Peruvian empire and its wealth. In 1528 he sailed to Spain and won the support of Charles V for his plan of conquest. According to an agreement executed in Toledo in 1529, he was to be made Governor and Captain-General of the province of New Castile which was to extend 200 leagues along the newly discovered coast. He was to raise an equipped force of 250 men to conquer the territory. Unable to raise the full force, Pizarro left Panama in January 1531 with three ships, 180 men, twenty-seven horsemen, and some artillery. His subsequent activities form part of the history of Peru. Suffice it to say that he conquered the country and that in 1537 the last effort of the Incas to recover their captured city of Cuzco was defeated by forces under the command of Pizarro's partner, Diego de Almagro. Pizarro and de Almagro subsequently quarreled about their page 3respective fields of jurisdiction, and de Almagro was defeated and executed. Pizarro was assassinated in 1541, after he had extended the possessions of Spain well south of the equator. The Peruvian ports of Payta and Callao offered facilities for the exploration of the southern Pacific, but the initial exploration of the Pacific had already come from Europe.