**A new historical essay reconstructs the potential impact on the South Pacific Ocean archipelago of an expedition that sailed to establish a trade route ahead of the official discovery of the region by Europeans**
It all started in 1929 on the very distant Amanu atoll, part of the Tuamotu archipelago in what is now French Polynesia. Captain François Hervé had the mission of mapping all the islets, islands and reefs that dotted that part of the South Pacific, since only a few nautical charts from the 18th century had been preserved. So he took a motor schooner and, accompanied by an island chief, set out on his cartographic journey. The Polynesian and the Frenchman spent hours chatting until the island chief told him, to his surprise, that “eight generations ago, a white ship had been shipwrecked and its entire crew had been devoured.”
At the northwest end of the island, among the corals, four cannons once used by the sailors were still visible. Both men went to the site, and along with the stranded naval weapons from the 16th century, they also noticed a pile of stones that were not typical of the Tuamotu archipelago. Hervé brought one of the heavy cannons aboard his little boat, along with some of those round stones.
The Frenchman had come across the remains of one of the most mysterious voyages in the history of exploration, now reconstructed by the writer and historian Luis Gorrochategui in the essay La carabela San Lesmes. El viaje más épico de la historia (or The Caravel San Lesmes. The Most Epic Voyage in History), which recounts the sinking of the San Lesmes in Polynesia and how, 200 years later, Spanish, English, French and Dutch sailors arriving in the area were astonished to discover that many locals had a “typically European” appearance. Some were blond, red-haired and blue-eyed, and used words reminiscent of Spanish.
In July 1525, the neighborhood of Pescadería, next to the port of A Coruña in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, was preparing to launch a fleet made up of four ships, two caravels and a patache. Its mission was to reach the distant and dangerous Moluccas in modern-day Indonesia and establish a spice trade – then in Portuguese hands – with Spain. At the head of the ships, Emperor Charles V placed the best sailors available to the Crown. The Santa María de la Victoria (360 tons) would be captained by the nobleman García Jofré de Loaísa; the Sancti Espiritus, by Juan Sebastián Elcano, famous for having completed the first voyage around the world three years earlier; the Annunciada, by Pedro de Vera; the San Gabriel, by Rodrigo de Acuña; the Santa María del Peral, by Manrique de Nájera, and the San Lesmes by Francisco de Hoces. The patache, the smallest of the ships, would be directed by Elcano’s brother-in-law, Santiago de Guevara. Everything was calculated down to the smallest detail – everything except the strength of the treacherous currents and storms that led the 60 sailors of the San Lesmes to lose the trail of their fellow adventurers in the middle of the immense ocean.
Blue eyes is not rare in Spain… but is not common.
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**A new historical essay reconstructs the potential impact on the South Pacific Ocean archipelago of an expedition that sailed to establish a trade route ahead of the official discovery of the region by Europeans**
It all started in 1929 on the very distant Amanu atoll, part of the Tuamotu archipelago in what is now French Polynesia. Captain François Hervé had the mission of mapping all the islets, islands and reefs that dotted that part of the South Pacific, since only a few nautical charts from the 18th century had been preserved. So he took a motor schooner and, accompanied by an island chief, set out on his cartographic journey. The Polynesian and the Frenchman spent hours chatting until the island chief told him, to his surprise, that “eight generations ago, a white ship had been shipwrecked and its entire crew had been devoured.”
At the northwest end of the island, among the corals, four cannons once used by the sailors were still visible. Both men went to the site, and along with the stranded naval weapons from the 16th century, they also noticed a pile of stones that were not typical of the Tuamotu archipelago. Hervé brought one of the heavy cannons aboard his little boat, along with some of those round stones.
The Frenchman had come across the remains of one of the most mysterious voyages in the history of exploration, now reconstructed by the writer and historian Luis Gorrochategui in the essay La carabela San Lesmes. El viaje más épico de la historia (or The Caravel San Lesmes. The Most Epic Voyage in History), which recounts the sinking of the San Lesmes in Polynesia and how, 200 years later, Spanish, English, French and Dutch sailors arriving in the area were astonished to discover that many locals had a “typically European” appearance. Some were blond, red-haired and blue-eyed, and used words reminiscent of Spanish.
In July 1525, the neighborhood of Pescadería, next to the port of A Coruña in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, was preparing to launch a fleet made up of four ships, two caravels and a patache. Its mission was to reach the distant and dangerous Moluccas in modern-day Indonesia and establish a spice trade – then in Portuguese hands – with Spain. At the head of the ships, Emperor Charles V placed the best sailors available to the Crown. The Santa María de la Victoria (360 tons) would be captained by the nobleman García Jofré de Loaísa; the Sancti Espiritus, by Juan Sebastián Elcano, famous for having completed the first voyage around the world three years earlier; the Annunciada, by Pedro de Vera; the San Gabriel, by Rodrigo de Acuña; the Santa María del Peral, by Manrique de Nájera, and the San Lesmes by Francisco de Hoces. The patache, the smallest of the ships, would be directed by Elcano’s brother-in-law, Santiago de Guevara. Everything was calculated down to the smallest detail – everything except the strength of the treacherous currents and storms that led the 60 sailors of the San Lesmes to lose the trail of their fellow adventurers in the middle of the immense ocean.
Blue eyes is not rare in Spain… but is not common.