ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 44 | April 2000
The voyage of Alvaro de Mendana
Alvaro de Mendana
from Historia de la Marina Real Espanola (Madrid, 1849)
From 1567 to 1568, Alvaro de Mendana, the 25-year-old nephew of the Governor of Peru, led the first European expedition into the South West Pacific. Previous Spanish navigators had sailed west from Mexico, following courses north of the Equator towards Asia. Mendana, by contrast, sailed from Callao in a south-westerly direction, searching for islands believed to exist 600 leagues from the Peruvian coast. Incas were said to have visited the islands and brought back gold and silver, a throne made of copper, a multitude of black slaves and the skin of an animal like a horse.
In February 1568, after a voyage of three months, the Capitano and the Almirante reached islands that the Spaniards were later to name the Solomon Islands. Mendana and his crew, together with 70 soldiers and four Franciscan friars, used as their base the island of Santa Ysabel, named after the patron saint of the voyage. They spent several months exploring the islands, including San Christoval, Malaita and Guadalcanal, as well as bartering and fighting with the islanders. Mendana had orders to form a Spanish settlement and, had he done so, it is likely that the Australian coast would soon have been discovered. However, in August 1568 he decided to return to Peru. He sailed northwards through the Gilbert Islands and eastwards to the Californian coast, eventually reaching Callao in July 1569. Two centuries were to elapse before another European, Louis de Bougainville, re-discovered the Solomon Islands.
In 1595 Mendana made a second Pacific voyage, discovering the Marquesas Islands. He died at Santa Cruz and command of the expedition then passed to the pilot, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros.
Mendanas original report to the Governor of Peru is lost, but two transcripts are held in Spanish archives. The National Library has now acquired another transcript of the report, dating from the eighteenth century. Written in Spanish in a clear hand on good paper, it is 34 pages in length. It describes the voyage from Callao to Santa Ysabel and ends abruptly in early May 1568. It differs slightly from the other transcripts in its use of nautical terms and in other ways; for instance, Mendanas name is spelt correctly, whereas one of the other transcripts refers to him as Davendana. It is a detailed narrative and an important source on the earliest contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the South Pacific.
The manuscript was at one time in the possession of Lord Kingsborough. In 1860 it was purchased by Sir Thomas Phillipps, probably the greatest collector of manuscripts in British history. Phillipps died in 1872 but the dispersal of his vast collection extended over the next century. There are manuscripts from Phillippss collection in other Australian libraries, but the Mendana transcript is believed to be the first Phillipps manuscript acquired by the National Library.
Above: A page from the Library's recent acquisition, an eighteenth-century transcript of Medana's report of his journey
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: tford@nla.gov.au