The Voyage of the Frigate Princesa to Southern California in 1782.
The logs of Juan Pantoja y Arriaga and Esteban José Martínez.
Translated by Geraldine V. Sahyun; Edited by Richard S. Whitehead. Santa
Barbara: The Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, 1982. Preface.
Introduction. Maps. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. 178 pages. $25.00.
Reviewed by Howard O. Welty, Volunteer Curator of Maps, San Diego Historical
Society.
Spain's 18th century outposts along the remote California shore depended on
supplies sent from the naval base at San Blas, on the west coast of Mexico.
The annual resupply expedition of 1782, made by the vessels Princesa
and Favorita, is recounted here, principally in the words of Juan Pantoja
y Arriaga, navigator and cartographer, whose logbook is translated into English
for the first time. Also included is the incomplete log of Esteban José Martínez,
skipper of the Princesa and commander of the expedition. The volume is
fleshed out with background essays, full annotation of texts, a glossary of
nautical terms, and reproduction of eight Pantoja maps.
It was on the 1782 cruise that Pantoja produced his best-known map, a
detailed and reasonably accurate chart of San Diego harbor, surveyed during
a seven-week layover. The map was widely circulated in English and French
versions as well as Spanish, and in 1848 was attached to the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, for use in fixing the western end of the U.S.-Mexican
boundary. Having Pantoja's own account of the survey clarifies events-and
raises a new question, too.
The ships cleared San Blas for San Francisco in March, setting the
customary course far at sea to avoid coastal winds and currents; the
tedious trip north required two months' sailing out of sight of land. (A nice
endpaper chart, showing each day's leg of the cruise, illustrates this.) After
a long stop at San Francisco, the ships called at Monterey; spent extra time
charting the coast in the Santa Barbara Channel area, where the new Santa
Barbara Presidio had just been established; and dropped anchor at San Diego
August 21.
After completing preliminary work ("bearings and demarcations"),
Pantoja outfitted the ship's launch with provisions and a crew "armed for
war"(against possibly hostile Indians), and set out "to investigate
all of this harbor with minute attention." First reconnoitering the
coast to Todos Santos Bay (Ensenada), the party returned and devoted the
afternoon of September 11 (Wednesday) to surveying the broad inlet-("
Spanish Bight") that once separated Coronado and North Island.
The surveyors spent Thursday along the 6-mile strand that encloses the bay
on the west, landing twice- near present Coronado Cays marina to establish a
baseline and make demarcations; and again to obtain the view from a bluff (now
on the grounds of a U.S. Navy radio station). Rounding the head of the bay Friday
morning, the party landed to fill water casks at the mouth of a river (Otay),
then worked up the eastern shore, anchoring that night off the Choyas
Indian rancheria (foot of 32nd Street.) Pantoja completed his
swing around the bay Saturday, reboarding the Princesa at sunset. No
trouble had been experienced with the natives, who came out repeatedly in reed
canoes to look, to engage in trade, and to profess their Christianity.
On September 16, Pantoja began placement of buoys about the harbor for use
in studying tides. He recorded completion of the map on the 28th. During this
period he also was making final drawings of the expedition's coastal surveys
in the Santa Barbara region. All work finished, the Princesa and
Favorita departed for San Blas October 9.
The Pantoja map that received wide distribution in later years
shows the harbor, all of Pt. Loma, and False Bay to the north. Two
versions of this are reproduced in the book. However, the log and the Santa
Barbara charts-now that they can be studied together -establish in this
reviewer's opinion that Pantoja surveyed only the main harbor in 1782 (perhaps
finishing the job on a visit in 1786). The right map for 1782 seems to be an
unpublished manuscript in the Newberry Library, apparently drawn in the same
hand as the Santa Barbara maps, employing the same inverted-triangle cartouche,
and having a place-name arrangement that matches the logbook exactly. This map
omits the seaward side of Pt. Loma, and shows nothing beyond the Presidio to the
north.
The Voyage of the Princesa is a needed and welcome book that inaugurates
a new program at the Santa Barbara institution- the publication of important
manuscripts relating to California history, through financial support from the
Thomas More Storke Memorial Publication Fund.
