Francisco de Hoces (?, 1526?) was a Spanish sailor who in 1525 joined the Loaísa Expedition to the Spice Islands as commander of the vessel San Lesmes. García Jofre de Loaísa (c 1490&ndash1526 was a Spanish nobleman designated by King Charles I of Spain to command an expedition known as the Loaísa expedition This article covers the historical role of the Maluku Islands as a source of spices since early history when the islands where known as the Spice Islands
On January 1526, the San Lesmes was blown by a gale southwards from the eastern mouth of Strait of Magellan till 56ºS latitude, where the crew thought they saw a land’s end. The Straits of Magellan (rarely referred to as the Magellanic Straits) comprise a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland Chile and north of Isla Grande This is commonly understood as that they saw open waters westward away of a point of land that could be the southeasternmost tip of either Tierra del Fuego (Cape San Diego) or Isla de los Estados (Cape San Juan). Tierra del Fuego ( Spanish for " Land of Fire " in English tiˈɛərə dɛl ˈfweɪgoʊ] Spanish ˈtjerað̞elˈfweɰo is an Archipelago Isla de los Estados (Dutch Stateneiland) is an Argentine island that lies 29 km off the eastern extremity of the Argentine portion of Tierra del Fuego In any of both cases they supposedly had seen an open water connection between Atlantic and Pacific oceans south of Tierra del Fuego, and therefore they preceded Francis Drake in infering the existence of such a connection. The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth 's Oceanic divisions Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c 1540 &ndash 27 January 1595 was an English Privateer, navigator, Slaver, and politician This is the reason why some Spanish, Argentinean and Chilean historians maintain that the so-called Drake Passage should be named Mar de Hoces (Hoces Sea). The Drake Passage or Mar de Hoces -Sea of " Hoces "- is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn,
After Loaisa expedition eventually reached the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan, the whole fleet was dispersed by another gale and San Lesmes was seen for the last time on late May 1526 . San Lesmes final fate has been the subject of a lot of speculation based in some 16th Century European traces later found in different places around South Pacific, which suggest she could have reached Easter Island, any of the Polynesian archipelagos or even New Zealand. Polynesia (from Greek: πολύς many, νῆσος island) is a Subregion of Oceania, comprising a large grouping of over New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island In any of these cases we would be talking about the first European landing in the Polynesian Triangle, and it would bring forward in History such an event by several decades. The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean anchored by three island groups Hawai‘i, Easter Island (Rapa Nui and New Zealand Australian writer Robert Langdon has been the most prominent supporter of these theories in his books "The lost caravel" and "The lost caravel re-explored".
Bibliography
- Landín Carrasco, Amancio. España en el mar. Padrón de descubridores. Madrid: Editorial Naval ISBN 84-7341-078-5
- Oyarzun, Javier. Expediciones españolas al Estrecho de Magallanes y Tierra de Fuego. Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica ISBN 84-7232-130-4.
- Langdon, Robert. The lost caravel re-explored. Canberra: Brolga Press ISBN 0 9588309 1 6
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