Island of California
The Island of California (Spanish: Isla de California) refers to a long-held global misconception, dating from the 16th century, that the California region was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known as the Gulf of California.
One of the most famous cartographic errors in history, it was propagated on many maps during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite contradictory evidence from various explorers.[1] The legend was initially infused with the idea that California was a terrestrial paradise, like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis. This mapping error was not a one-off event. From the mid-1500s to the late 1700s[2] great controversy surrounded the geography of California. For instance, a Spanish map from 1548 depicts California as a peninsula,[3] while a 1622 Dutch map depicts California as an island.[citation needed] A 1626 Portuguese map depicts the land as a peninsula,[citation needed] while a 1630 British map depicts it as an island.[4] A French map from 1682 only shows the tip of the Baja Peninsula.[citation needed] There are slightly over 1,000 maps in Stanford's Glen McLaughlin Collection of California as an Island, the largest collection of such maps in the world.[5]
History
The first known mention of the legend of the "Island of California" was in the 1510 romance novel Las sergas de Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo—the sequel to Montalvo's more famous tales of Amadís de Gaula, father of Esplandian. He described the island in this passage:
Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons.[6]
It is thought that, because of the widespread popularity of Las sergas de Esplandián at the time of European exploration of California, that it is reasonable that the book inspired the naming of California.
In 1533, Fortún Ximénez, a mutineer on an exploring expedition sent by Hernán Cortés, discovered the southern portion of Baja California, around present-day La Paz. He was killed by natives but his men returned to New Spain and reported on their find. In 1535, Cortés arrived in the bay there and named the area Santa Cruz; he attempted to start a colony but abandoned his efforts after several years due to logistical problems. Cortés' limited information on southern Baja California apparently led to the naming of the region after the legendary California and to an initial but short-lived assumption that it was a large island.[8][9]
In 1539, Cortés sent the navigator Francisco de Ulloa northward along the Gulf and Pacific coasts of Baja California. Ulloa reached the mouth of the Colorado River at the head of the Gulf, which seemed to prove that the region was a peninsula rather than an island.[10] Ulloa was quoted as having described the land he saw on his expedition as, "High and bare, of wretched aspect without any verdure."[5] An expedition under Hernando de Alarcón ascended the lower Colorado River and confirmed Ulloa's finding. Maps published subsequently in Europe during the 16th century, including those by Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, correctly showed Baja California as a peninsula.
Rather than many cartographers independently making the same mistake, it is thought[11] that maps of California as an island spread due to copying in the early 1600s, since it is known that cartographers of the time frequently made copies of other maps. Interestingly, the first maps depicting California as an island originated after a series of correct maps.[5] Carmelite friar Antonio De La Ascension, a priest at the top of the Spanish church, was the first known person to depict California as an island in 1603.[12]
On the return voyage to Acapulco, Mexico, Friar Antonio's ship was overtaken by Dutch pirates who found and confiscated a map drawn by him that depicted California as an island, effectively leaking state-secret information.[13] Spain was not in the habit of willingly sharing information about their expeditions— in fact, maps produced by Sebastián Vizcaíno, the leader of the expedition that brought Fray Antonio De La Ascension to California, were not published until 1802, two hundred years after the expedition occurred.[14] Shortly after the map was confiscated from Friar Antonio's ship, Dutch maps were published depicting California as an island. At the bottom left corner of a British map from 1630 drawn by Henry Briggs is scribbled "California, sometimes supposed to be a part of the western continent, but since by a Spanish chart taken from Hollanders, it is found to be a goodly island". This stolen map was Friar Antonio's,[12] and this quote provides evidence for the spread of knowledge of California as an island. As the Dutch were reputable cartographers,[2] it is thought that word of California as an island began to spread, as the majority of maps depicting California as an island were published after 1622. Throughout the 1600s, the Dutch, Japanese, French, Germans, British, and more all drew California as an island.
Another contributing factor may have been the second voyage of
A key role in changing ideas about California seems to have been played by an overland expedition led by the founding governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, Juan de Oñate. The expedition descended the Colorado River in 1604 and 1605, and its participants believed that they saw the Gulf of California continuing off to the northwest (presumably behind the Sierra de Los Cucapah into the Laguna Salada Basin and Lake Cahuilla, but was more likely due to the California Superflood of 1605, in which the flooded Central and Indio Valley basins did essentially appear to extend the peninsula hundreds of miles northward).
Reports from Oñate's expedition reached Antonio de la Ascención, a
The
Jesuit missionary-explorers in Baja California who attempted to lay the issue finally to rest included
See also
- Mapping California
- Origin of the name California
Notes
- ^ "History". California as an Island in Maps - Spotlight at Stanford. February 7, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
- ^ a b Leighly, John, Robert Grabhorn, and Andrew Hoyem. California As an Island: An Illustrated Essay. San Francisco, [Calif.: Book Club of California, 1972. Print.
- ^ Gastaldi, Giacomo (1548). Map of California. Glen McLaughlin Collection of California as an Island. McLaughlin map number 1189. Green Library, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
- ^ Briggs, Henry (1625). Map of California. Glen McLaughlin Collection of California as an Island. McLaughlin map number 2. Green Library, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
- ^ a b c d McLaughlin, Glen. Glen McLaughlin Collection of California as an Island, Stanford Libraries. Accessed 15 Feb. 2023.
- ^ Rodríguez de Montalvo, Garci (1526) [1496]. Las sergas de Esplandián [The Adventures of Esplandián] (in Spanish).
Sabed que a la diestra mano de las Indias ovo una Isla llamada California mucho llegada a la parte del paraiso terrenal la qual fue poblada de mugeres negras sin que algun varon entre ellas oviesse: que casi como las amazonas ...
(The first mention of "California" occurs on the unnumbered (verso) page after page CVIII, in the right column.) - ^ OCLC 51235174.
- ISBN 978-0-8032-8741-9.
Cortés Believes Baja California to be an Island
- ISBN 9788432121890.
Sin embargo, es indudable que Cortés, el envidiado, habló de una isla de riqueza fantástica." ["However, it is clear that Cortés, with envy, spoke of a fantastic island of wealth."]
(The 1944 edition was the author's doctoral thesis.) - ^ Wood, Mark (March 11, 2014). "The Island of California". Pomona College Magazine. Pomona College. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
- ^ "::: World and Regional Maps Collection, 16th to 19th Centuries :::". content.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
- ^ a b The Biggest Mapping Mistake of 𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘, retrieved March 1, 2023
- ^ Bolton, Herbert. "Brief Report of the Discovery in the South Sea". American Journeys. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
- OCLC 494554476.
- OCLC 50717269.
- ^ Cook, James (1784). A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean: Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, to Determine the Position and Extent of the West Side of North America, its Distance from Asia, and the Practicability of a Northern Passage to Europe, ... Vol. 2. London: W. and A. Strahan. p. 263. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
References
- Laylander, Don, 2004. "Geographies of Fact and Fantasy: Oñate on the Lower Colorado River, 1604–1605". Southern California Quarterly 86:309–324.
- León-Portilla, Miguel. 1989. Cartografía y crónicas de la antigua California. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
- McLaughlin, Glen, with Nancy H. Mayo. The Mapping of California as an Island: An Illustrated Checklist. Saratoga, CA: California Map Society, 1995 .
- Tooley, R. V. 1964. California as an Island: A Geographical Misconception Illustrated by 100 Examples from 1625–1770. Map Collectors' Circle, London.
Further reading
- MacDonald, Gregory (2019). Isle of the Amazons In the Vermilion Sea. Kansas City, MO: 39 West Press. ISBN 978-1-946358-14-1. An anthology of writings that describe Baja California, and the Gulf of California, from sources dated from the mid-sixteenth century to present.
External links
- California as an Island in Maps online exhibit of Glen McLaughlin collection