Vizcaíno, Sebastián (1548–1623)

Sebastián Vizcaíno (b. 1548; d. 1623), Spanish explorer and cartographer of the Californias. A native of Estremadura, Vizcaíno was a cavalry commander in the invasion of Portugal in 1580. He went to New Spain in 1583 and became merchant-militia commander at Manila in 1586. He conducted explorations in connection with his pearl-fishing monopoly, in the Gulf of California, from June to November 1596, founding La Paz on 13 September. Vizcaíno was general of an expedition that charted and mapped the Pacific coast of the Californias from 5 May 1602 to 21 February 1603; it also gave placenames from Cabo San Lucas to Cabo Blanco (in present-day Oregon). He was chief magistrate of Tehuantépec in 1604 and opened a supply route from Coatzocoalcos to the Pacific in 1606. After being granted an encomienda in the province of Ávalos in 1607, Vizcaíno served as the first European ambassador and cartographer in Japan (March 1611–January 1614). In October-November 1615 Vizcaíno repelled Dutch corsairs led by Joris von Spilbergen in Colima. After serving as chief magistrate of Acapulco (1616), he retired in 1619 to Mexico City, where he died.

See alsoExplorers and Exploration: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

W. Michael Mathes, ed., Californians I: Documentos para la historia de la demarcación comercial de California, 1583–1632 (1965).

W. Michael Mathes, Sebastián Vizcaíno and Spanish Expansion in the Pacific Ocean, 1580–1630 (1968).

Additional Bibliography

Cabezas, Antonio. El siglo ibérico del Japón: La presencia hispano-portuguesa en Japón (1543–1643). Valladolid: Instituto de Estudios Japoneses, Universidad de Valladolid: Secretariado de Publicaciones, Universidad de Valladolid, 1995.

Camino, Mercedes Maroto. Producing the Pacific: Maps and Narratives of Spanish Exploration (1567–1606). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.

Martínez Shaw, Carlos. Spanish Pacific from Magellan to Malaspina. Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Secretaría de Estado para la Cooperación Internacional y para Iberoamérica, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales, 1988.

O'Donnell y Duque de Estrada, Hugo. España en el descubrimiento, conquista y defensa del Mar del Sur. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.

Padrón, Ricardo. The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Torre Villar, Ernesto de la. La expansión hispanoamericana en Asia: Siglos XVI y XVII. México City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1980.

                                          W. Michael Mathes