Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery – A Biography of the POC Navigator Spain Sentenced to Death for His Greatest Achievement

by Andrés Reséndez

The story of an uncovered voyage as colorful and momentous as any on record for the Age of Discovery—and of the Black mariner whose stunning accomplishment has been until now lost to history
 
It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal’s monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific—and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the  vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martín, a  mulatto  who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships—and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet’s flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrés de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martín to achieve the  vuelta  as well. It was he who now basked in glory, while Lope Martín was secretly sentenced to be hanged by the Spanish crown as repayment for his services. Acclaimed historian Andrés Reséndez, through brilliant scholarship and riveting storytelling—including an astonishing outcome for the resilient Lope Martín--sets the record straight.

 

Genres: History

304 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2022

About the author

I grew up in Mexico City where I worked in various capacities--the best job I ever had was as a historical consultant for telenovelas (soap operas). After getting a PhD in history at the University of Chicago, I taught at Yale, the University of Helsinki, and UC Davis. I have written about the history of border regions (Changing National Identities at the Frontier--Cambridge University Press, 2005), early European exploration (A Land So Strange--Basic Books, 2007), and the enslavement of Native Americans (The Other Slavery--Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). More recently, I have focused on the "Columbian moment" in the Pacific, beginning with the first expedition that went from America to Asia and back (1564-1565), instantly transforming the Pacific into a vital space of contact and exchange (Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery--Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021). These days I am researching the fallout from that venture. Just as Columbus's voyages triggered a major transfer of plants, animals, and germs across the Atlantic, so did the opening of the Pacific created a biological corridor across the largest ocean on Earth with very significant but little-understood consequences for the world.

Reviews

[Sam Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

One wearies of Reséndez’s monotonous application of superlatives, in particular the word “extraordinary,” to events, skills, and especially to Lope Martín, a figure about whom almost nothing is known. The author’s rather desperate—and unconvincing—efforts to canonize Martín suffer from a lack of documentation: there is very little reason to reckon him anything but a typical pilot of the day. The book is thin, the historical questions it poses uninteresting, and the contribution it offers to our knowledge of Spanish exploration trivial.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of early efforts of the Spanish to cross the Pacific from Mexico, and then again from west to east.. Specifically, the book focuses on the role of a Black navigator and his contributions that have been ignored by history. Good read using the source material available, but the story (and history) lacks the rich details on the sea voyages.

[Brian McDonnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. It had a fairly simple premise, that due to wind patterns and ocean currents, making the return journey across the Pacific, back to the Americas from the Far East, was a major challenge for the Spanish empire, and tells the story of the captain that solved the problem of, "la Vuelta" the return. The author explains the context for why this is such a big deal, explains the competition between the Spanish and the Portuguese empires, and brings the reader right into a story at the heart of the Age of Exploration.

Fairly short, the author knows exactly the message they want to communicate, and they do so without extra embellishment that often slows these stories down.

I'm looking forward to reading what else this author has written, and undoubtedly learning much more in the process.