[p. 4] Cortes, hearing the report and probably believing the island to be the California of the story, fitted out an expedition to colonize it. With three ships and a number of soldiers and settlers, he landed in May, 1535, at the place where Jiminez was killed, which he named Santa Cruz; but instead of an island peopled with women who lived after the manner of Amazons and whose arms and trappings were made of gold, he found a sterile country inhabited by the most abject and degraded of beings. Disaster after disaster fell upon the unfortunate colony. Some of the ships sent to bring supplies were wrecked and others driven out of their course. Some of the colonists died from starvation before the supplies reached them and others from over-eating afterwards. After two years of struggling against misfortune, Cortes abandoned the attempt and the wretched colonists were brought back to Mexico. Thus ended the first effort to colonize California.
Some time between 1535 and 1537 the name California was applied to the land still supposed to be an island; but whether Cortes applied it in the hope of encouraging his colonists or whether the country was so named in derision, is not known. The name was subsequently applied to all the land along the Pacific Coast northward to 42 degrees, the limit of the Spanish possessions.
The vast unexplored regions to the northward of that portion of Mexico which he had conquered had a fascination for Cortes. He dreamed of finding in them empires vaster and richer than those he had already subdued. For years he fitted out expeditions by sea and by land to explore this terra incognita; but failure after failure wrecked his hopes and impoverished his purse. The last of the parties was the one commanded by Francisco de Ulloa, who in 1539 sailed up the Gulf of California on the Sonora side to its head, and then down the inner coast of Lower California to the cape at its extremity, which he doubled and sailed thence northward to Cabo de Engano (Cape of Deceit.) Here the two vessels of the expedition, after being tossed and buffeted by head winds, parted company in a storm. The smaller returned to Santiago. Of the other which was directly under Ulloa's command, nothing is definitely known-nor of Ulloa's fate. The only thing accomplished by this voyage was to demonstrate that California was a peninsula, although even this fact was not fully accepted for two centuries after this. Cortes returned to Spain in 1540, where after vainly trying to obtain from the King some recognition of his services and some recompense for his outlay, he died-a disappointed and impoverished man.
The next voyage which had anything to do with the discovery and exploration of California was that of Hernando de Alarcon. With two ships he sailed from Acapulco, May 9, 1540, up the Gulf of California. His object was to cooperate with Coronado. The latter, with an army of 400 men, had marched from Culiscan, April 22, 1540, to discover and conquer the "Seven Cities of Cibola," which the romancing friar, Marcos de Niza, "led by the Holy Ghost" [p. 5] and blessed with a fertile imagination, claimed to have seen somewhere in the wilds of what is now Arizona. Alarcon, at the head of the gulf, discovered the mouth of a great river. Up this stream, which he named Buena Guia-now the Colorado-he claimed to have sailed eighty-five leagues. He was probably the first white man to set foot in the territory now included in the State of California.
While Coronado was still absent in search of the Seven Cities, and of Quivera, a country rich in gold, lying somewhere in the interior of the continent, the successor of Cortes entered into a compact with Pedro de Alvarado, Governor of Guatemala, who had a fleet of ships lying at anchor in the harbor of Natividad, Mexico to unite their forces in an extensive scheme of exploration and conquest. An insurrection broke out among the Indians of Jalisco and in trying to suppress it Alvarado was killed. The return of Coronado, dispelled the myths of Cibloa and Quivera and put an end, for the time, to further exploration of the interior regions to the north of Mexico.
On the death of Alvarado, his successor, Mendoza, placed five ships under the command of Ruy Lopez de Villalobas and sent them to the Islas de Poniente (Isles of the Setting Sun-now Phillippines) to establish trade. Two ships of the fleet, under the command of Juan Roderiquez Cabrillo, were sent to explore the northwest coast of the Pacific. He sailed from Natividad June 27, 1542; on August 30th they reached Cabo de Engano, the most northern point of Ulloa's exploration. Continuing his voyage along the coast, he discovered a number of bays and islands. On Sept. 23, 1542, Cabrillo entered a fine bay called by him San Miguel, now San Diego Bay. After three days further sailing he sighted the islands which he named San Salvador and Vitoria, after his vessels, now Catalina and San Clemente. From these islands he crossed to the mainland on Oct. 8th and entered a bay which he named Bahia de los Fumos (Bay of Smokes), now San Pedro Bay. After entering a bight, supposed to have been Santa Monica, he continued northward, passed through the Santa Barbara channel and discovered the islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel. Going on up the coast, he found a long narrow point of land extending into the sea, which from its resemblance to a galley boat, he called Cabo de la Galeria, now Point Conception. November 17th he doubled Point of Pines and entered Monterey Bay, which he called Bahia de los Pinos (Bay of Pines.) Finding it impossible to land on account of the heavy seas, he proceeded northward until he reached 40 degrees, north latitude, as he estimated. On account of cold weather and storms he turned back and ran down to San Miguel, where he decided to winter. Here, from the effects of a fall, he died Jan. 3, 1543, and was buried on the island. His companions renamed the island Juan Roderiguez, after their brave commander; but he did not retain even this small honor. The discoverer of California sleeps in an unknown grave.