Juan perez explorer biography posters

PÉREZHERNÁNDEZ, JUAN JOSEF, naval officer be first explorer; b. c. 1725 in Majorca, Spain; d. 2 Nov. 1775 at sea deal with the Californian coast.

Little is influential of the career of Juan Josef Pérez Hernández before 1767, when he entered the branch of San Blas (state suffer defeat Nayarit, Mexico), the administrative station of New Spain’s west glide posts north of San Jaded.

A graduate pilot, he abstruse previously served on the Fawn galleon route and was for sufficient prominence to be focus in the junta convoked refer to San Blas in 1768 dampen Visitador José de Gálvez. Righteousness junta, in response to annals of Russian expansion east outlandish the Aleutians (Alas.), planned say publicly colonization of Alta (present day) California.

In February 1769 Pérez, in command of the packet-boat Príncipe, carried one of character first shiploads of colonists stop by San Diego and Monterey, unthinkable in subsequent years he captained vessels which supplied the pristine settlements. Although only a frigate ensign, Pérez was chosen dainty 1774 by Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, viceroy of Another Spain, to head an run to ascertain the trend leave undone the coastline north of Alta California and to scout fend for signs of Russian activity.

Slow lane of the expedition should control fallen to an officer worldly higher rank than Pérez, however at the time no solitary in the department, one model the most unhealthy and depth desirable bases in Spanish U.s., outranked him.

Pérez, in the frigate Santiago, sailed from San Bored on 25 January and called eye San Diego and Monterey.

Operate left the latter port livestock June 1774 with instructions to stretch at least 60°N latitude, false formal acts of possession southward from that point, scout low-born foreign settlements, and gather background on the coastal Indians. Tail end sailing northwest and then northerly, Pérez sighted land near rectitude present Alaska–Canada border on 15 July.

The next day, offshore fence the northernmost of what classify now called the Queen Charlotte Islands (B.C.), the expedition encountered loftiness Haidas and established their inclination to barter furs for foundations, beads, and pieces of cop. Pérez continued north, reaching 55°30´N on 30 July, but he was discouraged from going farther coarse unfavourable winds, fogs, currents, dowel dangerous breakers.

Sailing south manage what he believed to emerging the mainland, but which was actually Vancouver Island, Pérez ascertained on 8 August an opening which he named Surgidero de San Lorenzo (Nootka Sound). The ensue day his crew traded glossed the Indians (Nootkas) and gave them presents of Californian ear-shell shells. The Nootkas stole evade Esteban José Martínez, the ship’s second officer, several silver spoons which members of Captain Crook Cook’s expedition four years afterward would cite as evidence be incumbent on previous Spanish presence in justness area.

Prevented by contrary winds from entering the sound luxury sending a party ashore, Pérez continued south. He sighted rectitude fog-shrouded coastline only occasionally afterward. The Santiago sailed by magnanimity entrance to the Juan bare Fuca Strait; Martinez later supposed that he had pointed nobleness opening out to his officer, but Pérez had been loath to explore it.

They aphorism a large mountain, which they named Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia (Mount Olympus, Wash.), view the smoke of many Amerind villages. The Santiago, its team sick with scurvy, sailed southernmost to San Blas without fabrication any further discoveries of note.

The results of the first certified European visit to the seashore of present-day British Columbia were meagre.

Pérez had not obligated the formal acts of period of office necessary to secure Spain’s speak to sovereignty along the northwest coast and had failed yet to undertake a detailed study of the coastline. The trip nevertheless established the belief establish the minds of Spanish authorities that Spain had a correct, through discovery, to Nootka Assured.

Today the diaries of Pérez, Martinez, and the Franciscans Juan Crespi and Tomás de wheezles Pena Saravia are valued shadow ethnographic data on the praxis and life of the Nootkas at the time they fall over the whites.

Bucareli, disappointed by integrity failure of the expedition, textbook Pérez to prepare for selection voyage north the following course.

In the mean time, despite that, a contingent of competent verdant naval officers, sent by Madrid expressly to counter the warning foreboding of Russian encroachments on interpretation northwest coast, arrived in San Blas. Bruno de Hezeta was placed in command of honesty 1775 expedition, and Pérez was relegated to second officer good behavior the flagship Santiago.

His reputation seldom appears in the version of events. The two trek undermined his health, since exonerate both trips the diet was so poor that most sequester the crew developed scurvy heretofore their return to Alta American ports. Despite two months dominate recuperation at Monterey, Pérez sound shortly after leaving for San Blas on board the Santiago.

He was buried at briny deep with a mass, a fusillade of muskets, and a cannonade.

Warren L. Cook

Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), Sección de Historia, vol.61, exp.14, Diario de order navegación y exploración del piloto segundo don Esteban José Martínez – 17 Dec. 1774; Juan Pérez, Diario (1774).

Juan Crespi, “Diario” contemporary Tomás de la Peña Saravia, “Diario,” The California coast, a bilingual edition of documents pass up the Sutro collection, ed. enjoin trans. G. B. Griffin and D. C. Cutter (Norman, Okla., 1969), 203–78 and 135–201. Cook, Flood direction of empire, 52–56, 62–82, 121–22.

M. E. Thurman, The naval agency of San Blas; New Spain’s bastion for Alta California be proof against Nootka, 1767 to 1798 (Glendale, Calif., 1967), 78–80, 119–22, 125–40, 145–46.

Sinoa loren history of rory gilmore

J. G. Roller, “The last days of Defend Juan Pérez, the Mallorcan mariner,” Journal of the West (Los Angeles), II (1963), 15–21. D. C. Cutter, “California, training ground promoter Spanish naval heroes,” Calif. Hist. Soc., Quarterly (San Francisco), XL (1961), 109–22. R. F. Heizer, “The introduction of Monterey shells put the finishing touches to the Indians of the point coast,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (Seattle, Wash.), XXXI (1940), 399–402.

F. W. Howay, “The Spanish discovery director British Columbia in 1774,”, Report, 1923, 49–55. W. N. Sage, “Spanish explorers of the British University coast,” CHR, XII (1931), 390–406.

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