1543 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo dies in early January off the coast of northern California from complications of a broken leg suffered while landing on an offshore island (see 1542); his pilot Bartolome Ferrelo returns to New Spain April 14 after discovering a bay that will later be called San Francisco (see Drake, 1579).

A ship from Peru arrives at Santiago in September with clothing, iron goods, and military supplies to relieve the Spanish encampment headed by Pedro de Valdivia (see 1541). Inés de Suárez has raised thousands of pigs and chickens to feed the city's inhabitants, and although most of the first year's wheat crop has been used for seed grain, the new crop harvested in December is large enough to provide abundant supplies of bread (see 1549; first viceroy, 1544).

Courtier Jean-François de La Rocque sieur de Roberval abandons his plan to establish a colony in New France and returns home with his party after a brutal winter (see 1542); he brings what turns out, like Cartier's "treasure," to be fool's gold and mica. Sadly disappointed, the French will make no further expeditions to North America until 1600.