Fortún Ximénez Bertandoña (; died 1533) was a Spanish sailor of

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

origin who led a mutiny during an early expedition along the coast of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

and is the first

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an known to have landed in

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. Ximénez was the pilot of a ship, the ''Concepción'', sent by

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

and captained by Diego de Becerra. The ship set out November 30, 1533, to travel north along the coast of

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...

from present-day

Manzanillo, Colima Manzanillo () is a city and seat of Manzanillo Municipality, in the Mexican state of Colima. The city, located on the Pacific Ocean, contains Mexico's busiest port, responsible for handling Pacific cargo for the Mexico City area. It is the large ...

, in search of two ships that had been lost without a trace on a similar voyage the previous year. The previous voyages had been in search of the "Strait of Anián" (the western end of the much-hoped-for

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the ...

) and the Island of California, named for the mythical places in the romance novel, '' Las sergas de Esplandián'' previously published in Spain and popular among the

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...

s. The fictional California was a terrestrial paradise populated only by dark-skinned women. During the voyage, Ximénez led a revolt in which the captain was killed. The mutineers then landed near present-day

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the third-most populous city in Bol ...

, on the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, which the mutineers believed to be the Island of California. Ximénez was killed in a clash with the local

natives Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. The survivors returned to New Spain with the story of having black

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

s, which prompted further exploration of the "Island" of Santa Cruz, as Cortés named the peninsula. The stories of the survivors prompted several follow-up expeditions by Cortés in the following years, which resulted in very short-lived pearl fisheries.

Notes

Sources

*Caughey, John W. ''California'', second edition (Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1953), 45-46. *Chapman, Charles E. ''A History of California: The Spanish Period'' (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1921), 50-51. * 1533 deaths History of Baja California Spanish explorers of North America Spanish sailors 16th-century Spanish people Explorers of Mexico Year of birth unknown Etymology of California Basque sailors {{NewSpain-stub

See also

Notes

Sources