Acapulco and the Other Discoveries

In January of 1569, Acapulco welcomed the travellers who had set sail from Lima a year before with Alvaro de Mendana y Neira. They visited the Solomon Islands and then returned to America. In June of 1595 the same Alvaro de Mendana set out again for the South Seas from Paita, Peru. He fell victim to an epidemic and died on the island of Santa Cruz, to the north of the New Hebrides.

His command was taken over by his wife, Isabel Barretos, who was fully equipped with the titles of provincial governor, and this brave lady reached Manila in February of 1596. After six months, and following the course established by Urdaneta, she set out on the return voyage. Dona Isabel, by this time, had married the captain of one of the Manila Galleons, Fernando de Castro, but it was she, demonstrating her exceptional firmness of character, who commanded the expedition and on December 11 her three vessels at last anchored in Acapulco.

Another South American expedition to reach Acapulco arrived under the command of Pedro Fernandez de Quires, a Portuguese in the service of Spain. He had set out to sea from Lima, on December 21, 1605, and reached the Philippines on November 21, 1606. Before returning to Peru he touched shore at Acapulco. Quiros was an able navigator, having served on the China Clipper, and he was of great use to Dona Isabel Barretos as a pilot on Mendana’s important second expedition.

Previously, under orders from the Fifth Viceroy in Mexico, Don Lorenzo Suarez de Mendoza, Francisco Gali left Acapulco for the Philippines and Macao, in 1582. On the return voyage he tried unfruitfully to establish that the coast of China extended to the Upper California shore, and he sailed too far north, finding himself on the coast of Canada.