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The Terra Australis–A Franciscan Quest (Part II)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
It was into the great unknown that the Spanish expedition of Mendaña sailed in search of the Southern Continent, the Terra Australis. Sharing the perils of this remarkable voyage of discovery were four Franciscan friars. They acted in a dual capacity: as chaplains to the Spaniards and as missionaries to the natives in the newly found lands. Although their missionary work was of necessity restricted because of the hostility of the natives, nevertheless they may claim the honor of being the first missionaries in the South Pacific. Fortunately the missionary experiences of these friars have been preserved in records and narratives, the reading of which, centuries after the events have taken place, is not unlike witnessing the unreeling of some religious drama in a modern picture-theatre. In graphic detail, the writers of these narratives draw picturesque and lifelike portraits of the officers, men and friars, sketching in events that run the whole gamut of human interest. As we read their vivid descriptions the centuries seem to roll back so that we are able to lay hold of, as it were, the elusive past with its throbbing Franciscanism; to catch glimpses of the life and work of these missionary friars, and to recapture for a brief moment the heroic spirit that animated them and inspired others whom they sought to influence for good.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1948
References
1 La Tierra Austral e incognita, cf. Zaragoza, op. cit., II, 77. For origin and use of the name “Australia” see the article by the writer “Catholic Missionaries in the Pacific,” Catholic Review (Auckland, N. Z.), II, 374–381.
2 The sources of the various Franciscan missionary journeys in the South Pacific are derived from official and unofficial relaciones of the Spanish voyages. Even a casual perusal of these narratives indicates that religious faith, no less than the political and social life, was woven into the texture of the Spaniard’s daily existence, so that practically all these relaciones are also sources of Franciscan history. The six known narratives of the Mendaña expedition are:
(i) Narrative of Hernán Gallego, the Chief Pilot (Navigating Officer). There are three copies of this narrative extant: one in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, the second in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, and the third in the British Museum. The Turnbull manuscript was formerly in the possession of Lord Amherst of Hackney and was purchased for the Library by Bernard Quaritch at Sotheby’s sale of the first portion of Lord Amherst’s library held at London, December, 1908. A brief account of this narrative appears in Zaragoza, op. cit., I, 1–22.
(ii) Narrative of Pedro Sarmiento. MS. at Lonja (Seville), copied into the Colección de Documentos inéditos (Pacheco-Cárdenas), V, 210–221.
(iii) First Narrative of Alvaro Mendaña de Neyra, printed also in the Colección de Doc. inéd., V. 221–285. There are several gaps in this Narrative.
(iv) Second Narrative of Mendaña, printed by Zaragoza, op. cit., II, 12–49. An abridgement of the First Narrative, contains additional particulars.
(v) An Anonymous Narrative. MS in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; published by Charron, M. Eduardo, Viajeros Antiguos y Modernos (Ponzano, Editor; Madrid, 1861, 2 vols.) II, 86–96.Google Scholar
(vi) Narrative of Gómez H. Catoira, Chief Purser and official Chronicler. MS. in the British Museum.
All six Narratives were translated by Lord Amherst and published by the Hakluyt Society in 1901 as The Discovery of the Solomon Islands by Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568. Unless otherwise noted the citations given in this study are from this work. To distinguish the various Narratives the following sigla are used:
A—the Anonymous Narrative; 1M—First Narrative of Mendaña;
C—Narrative of Catoira; 2M—Second Narrative of Mendaña;
G—Narrative of Gallego; S—Narrative of Sarmiento.
3 1M, I, 99.
4 2M, I, 164–165.
5 C, II, 387.
6 C, II, 388.
7 G, I, 3, 71.
8 1M, I, 144.
9 1M, I, 102.
10 Capitana and Almiranta mean respectively the ship of the Commander-in-chief and that of the Second-in-command. The Capitana was captured by Francis Drake during his raid on Valparaiso on December 5, 1578. He sailed with the ship up the Chilean coast until February 9, 1579, when he hoisted her sails and cast her adrift. Drake was then nearing Callao. Cf. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake’s Voyage Round the World (San Francisco, 1926), pp. 101, 108.
11 G, I, 5; S, I, 83; 1M, I, 97; A, I, 195; C, II, 217. Gallego says the number of persons chosen was one hundred, including soldiers, sailors, friars and slaves. Sarmiento says “more than 150 men.”
12 A MS Carta al Rey, en que le da cuenta de sus servicios y del suceso del viage que por su industria hizo Alvaro de Mendaña, al descubrimiento de las Yslas de Salomon, by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, dated Cuzco, March 4, 1572, contains six leaves in folio “filled with complaints of Mendaña and justification of himself.” A copy of this MS is in the Lennox Library. Blair, and Robertson, , Bibliography of the Philippine Islands, p. 251 Google Scholar.
13 G, I, 10.
14 1M, I, 103.
15 Descubrimos una isla tan grande que cuando la vimos entendimos que era tierra firme. Zaragoza, op. cit., II, 18; 1M, I, 107. “We were all day and the next day making it,” 1M, I, 108.
16 G, I, 17. For voyage of the brigantine see C, II, 328.
17 Samuel, Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625–1626, 5 books), IV, 1447 Google Scholar. Although the name “Solomon Islands” is nowhere mentioned in the various Relaciones of the voyage, yet on the very morrow of their arrival in New Spain on the return voyage, it is used by the Licentiate Juan de Orosco, in an official letter dated March 20, 1569, to the King. “El licenciado Juan de Orosco, visitador del Nuevo Reino de Galicia, escribió desde Guadalajara al Rey, con fecha 20 de Marzo de 1569, refiriendo el arribo de Alvaro de Mendaña á aquellas costas. Como á 8 de Febrero, decía en su carta, llegaron al puerto de Santiago, que es junto a Colima, jurisdicción de México y muy cerca deste reino (de Nueva Galicia), dos navios maltratados, sin masteles y faltos de bastimentos, los quales partieron del puerto de Lima en el Perú, en demanda de las islas Orientales y de Salomón y de la Nueva Guinea, por la noticia que dellas tenían.…” Zaragoza, op. cit., Ill, 114–115. López Vaz says that these islands were named by “the discoverer,” Mendaña; Arias that Mendaña himself had called them the “Islands of Solomon.” See Markham, op. cit., II, 523; and Zaragoza in his Introduction says: “las islas que en conjunto llamó de Salomón” (L, xxxvi).
18 1M, I, 110; 2M, I, 164.
19 2M, I, 164–165; 1M, I, 111.
20 In these latitudes it is not uncommon to see the planet Venus distinctly as early as two and a half hours before sunset. Cf. Gallego, I, 19f. Mendaña in his First Narrative sets the time at about ten o’clock in the morning.
21 1M, I, 111. Santa Ysabel was the patroness of this voyage. See also A, II, 197.
22 1M, I, 112; 2M, I, 165; C, II, 231.
23 C, II, 381.
24 C. II, 268 et seq.
25 1M, I, 108–109.
26 1M, I, 113.
27 1M, I, 113.
28 1M. I, 117; C, II, 236.
29 C, II, 426.
30 2M, I, 180.
31 1M, I, 117–118.
32 1M, I, 118–119.
33 1M, I, 119.
34 C, II, 248; 255.
35 C, II, 248.
36 C, II, 249.
37 C, II, 252.
38 C, II, 253.
39 C, II, 253. Two centuries later (1769) the Saint Jean Baptiste under the command of Francois Marie de Surville put in at Port Praslin (Solomon Islands). Not recognizing the identity of the group already discovered by Mendaña, Surville named it “lies Arsacides” (Islands of Assassins). Before the French left the Solomons, Father Villefeix, the chaplain, carved a Latin inscription on a tree, which was intended to proclaim the warlike and savage character of the natives, and to be a warning to future travelers. The inscription as recorded in l’Horme’s Manuscript Journal (fol. 176) in the Bibliotheque du Service d’Hydrographie, Paris, reads:
Quoscumque fata hue appullerunt aut degerunt de immani incolarum felicitate (ferocitate) m.… (the rest, of which the first word begins with ‘m’ must have been) monent (monet) viatores navis Sanctus Joannes Baptista qui hue appulit die Octobris anno 1769 atque hos populos sub facato (?) metu proditores esse experta est. (Translation: “The ship Saint Jean Baptiste which called here October 1769, warns travellers and whomsoever the fates drive in here that they will encounter the savage nature of the natives, and that it has found these people under a show of fear to be treacherous.”)
40 C, II, 254.
41 C, II, 255.
42 C, II, 311.
43 C, II, 256.
44 The correct Spanish spelling “Guadalcanal” has been used in this article; “Guadalcanar,” the present name, is a corruption. Pedo de Ortega, the Master of the Camp, was a native of Guadalcanal, Province of Valencia, Spain.
45 A, II, 203. Monneron’s Journal (Surville expedition) also records the unhealthy nature of the Solomons. Of those of the crew that were healthy, “nearly all” became ill; those ill with the scurvy (more than thirty)) got worse there; and several died. Surville then decided to sail for Tasman’s New Zealand to the south. See McNab, Robert, Historical Records of New Zealand (Wellington, N. Z., 1914), 2 vols. II, 251, 255.Google Scholar
46 G, I, 38; C, II, 302.
47 C, II, 303; G, I, 38.
48 C, II, 303; G, I, 39.
49 C, II, 380.
50 C, II, 308–309.
51 C, II, 324.
52 C, II, 324.
53 C, II, 378–381.
54 A, II, 206; C, II, 389–409.
55 C, II, 394.
56 G, I, 92; A, II, 206.
57 A, II, 207.
58 A, II, 207; C, II, 416–419. “Analver” is probably a transcriber’s error for “a Maluco” “to the Moluccas.”
59 A, II, 208; C, II, 421.
60 There is surely nothing in the history of maritime discovery so strange as the story of how the Solomon Islands were discovered, lost and found again. For three centuries ship after ship set out across the trackless Pacific in search of them, but without success and this despite the fact that the Islands stretch across the course of navigators like a net, in an unbroken line for six hundred miles. In time experts began to doubt their existence and they were expunged by cartographers from their world charts, while the narratives concerning them passed into the realm of fiction. But when they were rediscovered in the latter half of the eighteenth century, it was found that these Spanish navigators had brought back to Peru an account of their discoveries so accurate and detailed, that it is possible after almost four centuries to identify every harbour, islet and creek by which they passed or at which they sojourned. See Amherst, op. cit., Introduction, I, i.
61 A, II, 208; S, I, 93.
62 A, II, 209; 2M, I, 186; C, II, 441. “Pusimosle nombre San Francisco, porque se descubrió véspera de su fiesta”, Zaragoza, II, 42.
63 A, II, 210.
64 G, I, 71. “The wind came upon us with such fury,” wrote Gallego, “as I have never before seen from the north-east, although I had been forty-five years at sea, and thirty of them a pilot. Never have I seen such heavy weather, although I have seen storm enough.” The perils of the October storm were very real. That the Capitana, which was only a clumsy tub of 250 tons, survived the terrific winds and mountainous seas of the storm, was something of a miracle; this is all the more evident when we recall that in modern times even ships of steel are severely damaged by the impact of Pacific hurricanes. A news item published in the daily papers states in part that on June 5, 1945, “units of the United States Third Fleet serving in the Pacific suffered extensive damage during a severe typhoon. At least twenty-one warships were damaged. The storm was so severe that the cruiser Pittsburgh had 100 ft. torn off her bows. The wind reached a velocity of 120 knots and the Third Fleet was battered by seas of mountainous proportions.”
65 C, II, 443.
66 A, II, 210.
67 2M, I, 187; also Zaragoza, op. cit., II, 43; C, II, 448.
68 A, II, 211; C, II, 448.
69 C, II, 447.
70 C, II, 446; 2M, I, 188–189.
71 C, II, 446. With the defective instruments of the time, the nautical observations were often incorrect. Gallego on the outgoing voyage underestimates the distance between Jesus Island and the Candelaria Reef (Ongtong Java). By dead reckoning he fell short of the actual distance between Callao and Ongtong Java, by 1,600 miles; and in the last fifteen days, when he was battling with squalls and headwinds, his dead reckoning of 167 leagues must have been the merest guess. Cf. Gallego, I, 14f.
72 C, II, 448.
73 C, II, 448.
74 A, II, 212.
75 C, II, 449.
76 C, II, 451.
77 C, II, 460 has these brief references: “Fray Pedro Maldonado and Fray Pedro de Laguna remained”; “Juan López, servant of the General, to become a monk”; “Myn de Aguirre, soldier, with leave to become a monk.” The port of Colima was probably the most convenient for the people of New Galicia, of which Guadalajara was the most important town. There was a convent of the Franciscan Order at Guadalajara (Herrera, Novus Orbis, Fol. 14).
78 Quirós mentions that there was a convent of the Franciscan Order at Acapulco. See Markham, op. cit., I, 309.
79 C, II, 457.
80 Amherst, op. cit., Introduction, lxxxiii.
81 G, I, 4.
82 “Habiendo descubierto trienta y tres islas,” cf. Zaragoza, op. cit., II, 4.
83 Markham, op. cit., II, 523.
84 Dalrymple, Alexander, An Account of the Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean Previous to 1164 (London, 1767), pp. 69–71.Google Scholar
85 Greenwood, Gordon, Early American-Australian Relations from the Arrival of the Spaniards in America to the Close of 1830 (Melbourne: University Press, 1944), p. 16.Google Scholar
86 Zaragoza, op. cit., III, 114–115.
87 G. I, 40.
88 S, I, 88, 92, 93. “Martín Alonso, hombre experimentado en las minas de oro, dice que había mucha cantidad de oro” (Pacheco-Cárdenas, Colección de Doc. inéd., V, 220. I am indebted to Father Jean Maria Boudart, S.M., Solomon Island missionary of thirty years, for information regarding the discovery of gold there in recent years. It was first found by Australian prospectors about the year 1932 at Suta along the Sutakana River; later another group of prospectors found a gold ridge in the mountains by the Berande River. In the beginning the prospectors experienced great difficulty in extracting gold from the quartz, but with the introduction of machinery, rich yields have resulted. In 1937 while excavating a drainage channel on the Burns Philip and Company plantation near Tina (Berande River), the manager unearthed a nugget of pure gold about the size of a pigeon’s egg. The rivers have frequently changed their course and most of the alluvial diggings have been made in the old beds of rivers.
89 “Mas esto no obstante, me parece que estoy ya mirando en V. M. un descubridor no menos insigne y famoso que aquellos” (Cf. Suárez de Figueroa, op. cit., p. 240).
90 Zaragoza, op. cit., I, Introduction, xxxvi.