Alvaro de Mendaña y Neira
Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira (1542 – 1595) is best known for voyages in 1567 and 1595 seeking Terra Australis. Apart from his birthplace, little is known of his early life, but he was Lope García de Castro, Viceroy of Peru's nephew and travelled to Peru as part of his uncle's entourage around 1558.
Prompted by Inca legends of prosperous islands in the Pacific and a Great South Land further to the west, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa proposed an expedition to find land in the Pacific. García de Castro seems to have agreed with the project as a means of removing "restless and disruptive" elements from his domain.
Having approved a two-ship expedition, de Castro put Sarmiento de Gamboa's nose out of joint by appointing his nephew as Captain-General. Sarmiento went along as "Cosmographer" in a command structure with deep divisions before the ships departed from Callao on 20 November 1567.
After sighting a small island in mid-January, they landed on 7 February 1568 at Santa Isabel Island. Mendana named the archipelago they had reached the Solomon Islands, assuming that the islands were the source from which Solomon had got the gold to adorn his temple. At first, relations with the Solomon Islanders were cordial. Still, the expedition required more fresh food and water than the Islanders' subsistence economy could provide. A tendency for the Spanish to help themselves produced tension and, at times, conflict.
The pattern of friendly welcome, misunderstandings, reconciliations, robberies and retaliation repeated as the expedition explored the surrounding islands in a small brigantine. Finally, at a council meeting on 7 August 1568, the consensus was that the expedition should return to Peru. The decision did not suit everyone involved. Mendaña wanted to continue onwards and sail further south. Sarmiento de Gamboa and several others wanted to stay and establish a colony. The long and challenging return journey took them past the Marshall Islands and Wake, and they finally reached the Mexican coast in late January 1569.
Despite an elaborate and glowing description of the Solomon Islands, Mendaña's reports of his discoveries did not generate much interest. It took thirty years of lobbying and courting favour in Madrid and Lima before Philip II approved an expedition to found a settlement in the Solomons.
The four-vessel fleet left Callao in April 1595. Like the previous excursion, there was no shortage of potential sources of discontent. Mendaña was in command with Pedro Fernandez de Quiros as chief pilot and captain of the flagship. Mendaña's wife, Doña Isabel, her three brothers and a sister accompanied the expedition; camp master Pedro Merino Manrique proved to be a disruptive influence before the fleet departed.
After a three-month voyage, the expedition reached the Marquesas Islands in July 1595. Although relations were amicable at first, by the time the Spaniards sailed on around a fortnight later, some two hundred Marquesans were dead.
From there, the expedition continued westward. Despite Mendaña's confidence that the Solomon Islands were nearby when they sighted an island named Santa Cruz on 8 September, they decided to start their colony there. Relations with the Islanders were cordial at first but soon deteriorated. Morale amongst the Spaniards was low; sickness was rife. As internal divisions emerged, Manrique was murdered in front of Mendaña, who had ordered his death.
As the death toll increased, the settlement began to fall apart, and Mendaña died on 18 October 1595. His wife, as his heir, became the new governor. Her brother Lorenzo became captain-general., but less than a fortnight later, on 30 October, they decided to abandon the settlement. When the ships departed on 18 November, forty-seven people had died within the last month.
After a twelve-week voyage without charts, Quiros piloted the flagship into Manila Bay on 11 February 1596. Another fifty people had died along the way, victims of disease, the lack of food supplies and Doña Isabel's alleged refusal to share her private store of food and water with all and sundry. The frigate, with Mendana's body aboard, had disappeared, and the galiot arrived in southern Mindanao several days later.
Of the 378 would-be colonists who sailed from Peru, around one hundred arrived in Manila, and another ten died shortly after. Doña Isabel married the governor's cousin, Don Fernando de Castro, within three months. Quiros was commended for his service and charged with returning the flagship to Mexico with Mendaña's widow and her new husband aboard.
Back in Peru in June 1597, Quiros began his campaign to return to the Solomon Islands, while Doña Isabel continued to agitate to reclaim the rights she had inherited. While Quiros was given the commission for the return voyage to the Solomons, his expedition was also unsuccessful. However, it did result in his pilot, Luis Vaez de Torres' successful passage through the strait between the Cape York Peninsula and New Guinea.
Links to add:
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
Santa Cruz
Santa Isabel
Solomon Islands
