Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño
Cermeño was a Portuguese merchant-adventurer, known as a dependable and experienced sailor. He sailed out of Manila aboard the San Agustín on July 5, 1595, his ship filled with crates of china and other valuable cargo. Cermeño reached the California coast in early November and anchored in Drake's Bay. On November 30, powerful winds from the southeast drove the San Agustín aground and pounded it to pieces in a few hours. Soon the beach was littered with cargo, provisions, and shattered timbers.
To the consternation of his crew, Cermeño insisted on continuing his exploration of the coast in a small open boat. The local Coast Miwok people outfitted the sailors with a supply of acorns. Thus the expedition continued. Cermeño described accurately many points along the California coast before returning to the port of Navidad in late January 1596.
Cermeño's Encounter with the Coast Miwok
In the Archives of Seville are several records of the voyage of Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño to California in 1595. Cermeño's own account was translated by historian Henry R. Wagner and published in the California Historical Society Quarterly, 3:12-15 (April 1924).
The following portion contains Cermeño's description of his encounter with the Coast Miwok people at Drake's Bay on the Point Reyes Peninsula in Marin County:
"[The Indians here] are well set up and robust with long hair, and go entirely naked, only the women wearing skirts of grass and deerskins.... Having anchored in this bay on the 6th, shortly an Indian, one of those living on the beach, came out in a small boat made of grass which looks like the bulrushes of the lake of Mexico. The Indian was seated in the middle of this, and he had in his hand an oar with two blades with which he rowed with great swiftness. He came alongside the ship, where he remained a good while, talking his language without anyone understanding what he was saying. Being addressed with kind words, he came closer to the ship, and there we gave him things such as pieces of silk and cotton and other trifles which the ship carried, and with which he returned to shore very contented. The next day, the 7th, four other Indians came out to the ship in the same kind of boats. They came aboard and did the same as the first one."
Sebastián Vizcaíno led the last in a long series of Spanish expeditions to explore the California coast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His specific mission was to find a safe harbor for the Manila galleons. If Vizcaíno succeeded, he was promised the future command of a galleon.
Vizcaíno's voyage of 1602 set off from Acapulco and headed north. He explored the coast of California, renaming many places that had been described by earlier Spanish explorers. On December 16 he entered a bay that he renamed for the viceroy of New Spain, the Count of Monterey. The bay had been visited seven years earlier--and described more accurately--by Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño. Vizcaíno reported that the bay was a safe harbor "sheltered from all winds," a claim that was fraudulent. Monterey Bay, in fact, is open the sea and includes no proper harbor.
After nearly a year, Vizcaíno returned to Acapulco. The viceroy, pleased that a fine new port would bear his name, awarded Vizcaíno the command of the next Manila galleon. Unfortunately for Vizcaíno, a new viceroy soon arrived in New Spain. The new viceroy doubted Vizcaíno's veracity and revoked the award of the galleon.
Vizcaíno's Account of the Ohlone
Sebastián Vizcaíno wrote a letter to the King of Spain on May 23, 1602, reporting on his voyage of exploration along the California coast. In the following excerpt, Vizcaíno describes the Ohlone Indians whom he encountered around the shores of Monterey Bay:
"[This region] is thickly settled with people whom I found to be of gentle disposition, peaceable and docile, and who can be brought readily within the fold of the holy gospel and into subjection to the crown of Your Majesty. Their food consists of seeds which they have in abundance and variety and of the flesh of game, such as deer which are larger than cows, and bear.... The Indians are of good stature and fair complexion, the women being somewhat less in size than the men and of pleasing countenance. The clothing of the people of the coast consists of the skins of the sea-wolves abounding there, which they tan and dress better than is done in Castile; they possess also, in great quantity, flax like that of Castile, hemp and cotton, from which they make fishing-lines and nets for rabbits and hares. They have vessels of pine-wood very well made, in which they go to sea with fourteen paddle-men on each side, with great dexterity--even in very stormy weather...."