6 Additional Russian Expeditions and the Expedition of Portolá Rovira
This trip by Bering and Tschirikov was followed by several expeditions of companies of Russian merchants in search of furs. In an interesting encrypted letter, written by the Count of Lacy, Lieutenant General and ambassador to the courts of Sweden and Russia, dated in St. Petersburg in March 1773, there is a summary of the different expeditions carried out by the Russians during the second half of the 18th century.[1] The Spanish ambassador tells that during the expedition of Bering and Tschirikov, they arrived up to 60 degrees latitude, “where they found land but came back wondering if it was an island or continent, and that between 55 and 60 degrees they found many islands.” In 1764, Russian Empress Catherine II assigned three boats the same attempt. Captains Estelhacor and Panewbafew commanded the expedition, and they “unanimously stated that from 49 to 75 degrees, everything is dry land but almost always covered with a very dense fog.”
Hispanic authorities called the entire Northwest Coast of the American continent the Coasts of Northern California, and the Russians used the same name for those territories. Thus, we can read in the said encrypted letter that “the mainland, as they say and believe, is California, which in this case extends to 75 degrees.” The same was true of where the Russians merchants have been established by order of their empress, at 64 degrees: “here they do not doubt that it is California,” a land of which they make a pleasant description in terms of its conditions and resources. In April 1773, the Count of Lacy sent two geographical charts with the discoveries of the Russians in Kamchatka and North America, and another in which he narrated his interview with an inhabitant of Kamchatka, named Popow. This interview indicated that the Russians had even thought of making common cause with the Englishmen of the Hudson Company to prevent the Spanish people from approaching those areas. However, because they thought that the Spaniards “had not reached a higher altitude than 48 degrees, the Russians were persuaded that we ignored their establishments that are between 64 and 65 degrees, and therefore did not take other measures.”[2] For that reason they considered that it was not necessary to initiate any alliance with the English.
Thus, Russia had entered an area that the Hispanic monarchy considered its own. Although the Russians’ main purpose was the fur industry, the Spaniards were afraid that their intentions were to expand southwards until they reached New Spain. So, after receiving the Count of Lacy’s correspondence, the Spaniards shared copies of all the information sent from Russia with the Viceroy of Mexico, Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, so that he could take appropriate action in order to prevent a Russian expansion that threatened California and, by extension, New Spain. Due to this, by order of the King, the Secretary of the Navy and Indies, Julián de Arriaga, sent a copy of all the documentation to Bucareli, who, in a letter by the reserved route, dated in Mexico in September 1744, confirmed his possession of “the geographical calendar printed in St. Petersburg for this year and the copy of news given by Count Lazy ( …) to serve the purposes that may be agreed to the service of Your Majesty in explorations of Russian establishments on our northern shores.”[3]
Bucareli also took the opportunity to express his opinion to Arriaga about Count Lacy’s news relating to the commerce established with the English at the Hudson bay:
(…) It may not be difficult from the Kamtschatka Seas if the English have extended their possessions, but to me this seems so distant, that it does not add to our worries, and that it has the same made-up appearance as the intended passage from that bay to our South Sea of which public news spoke so much about.[4]
The viceroy also notified of the departure from the port of Monterrey of an expedition with instructions to sail north to continue with the discoveries of the Californian coast and to take possession, in the name of the King, of all discovered lands, while trying to find Russian establishments on the North American West Coast.
The immediate result of all diplomatic reports on the Russian expansion was that Madrid sounded its alarms, and ordered the authorities of New Spain to take appropriate action to find out if it was true that the Russians had arrived on the American continent. If it was true, New Spain planned to expel them from these settlements in the full conviction that Russian ventures had been carried out illegally, since it was land under the sovereignty of the Hispanic Monarchy. However, the Russians were not the only potential problem, as the French and English had also been trying to find the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
As Ignacio Ruiz Rodríguez indicated in his work: “Las fronteras septentrionales del Pacífico Americano: españoles, rusos e ingleses en la conquista de la Alta California.”[5] it is at this time that a huge and great endeavor began: that of the trips made by sea and land to the north of California. They carried with them a new vision of international law in the Americas, since the content of the famous “Bulls of Donation” from Pope Alexander to the Catholic Kings at the end of the 15th century lacked any meaning for nations unrelated to the pontifical power; nor could the equally famous Treaty of Tordesillas be displayed to other colonizing powers, as was the case with Russia.
EXPEDITION OF GASPAR DE PORTOLÁ ROVIRA
Due to all of the above, a series of expeditions were launched during the second half of the 18th century to certify the presence of the Hispanic Monarchy in the lands of the North American Pacific. The first expedition in the series was carried out by Gaspar de Portolá Rovira in 1769. When Carlos III decreed the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, the viceroy of New Spain, the Marquis de Croix, through the general visitor José de Gálvez, entrusted Portolá with the task of making it effective. To accomplish this, Portolá moved to the Loreto prison in Baja California, from where he dedicated himself to the military organization and administration of the Californian territories. One year later Portolá would receive visitor Gálvez, who stayed for eight months in those territories, organizing the military defense against the Russians and the English from the north.
Thus, in the spring of 1769 Portolá initiated his expedition towards northern California, with the mission to find and take effective possession of Monterrey. The expedition was divided into four groups of soldiers, missionaries, and colonists. Two of them would travel on the San Carlos and San Antonio ships that would sail from the port of La Paz, while the other two groups would go out by land. Portolá would go on one of these expeditions through land, accompanied by his friend and missionary, fray Junípero Serra.
At the beginning of July, the two ships and both land expeditions had already reached San Diego. At the end of October they met in San Francisco and, after a long journey in which they were able to take measurements of the nearby islands, the expedition returned to San Diego without having found the bay of Monterrey. Retrospectively, they must have passed right by it, but the meteorological conditions didn’t allow them to view it. On April 17th, Portolá initiated a new expedition and reconnaissance trip in which the San Antonio ship would go by sea and Portolá would go by land. They arrived at Monterrey on the 23rd of May, finally taking possession of the territory at the beginning of June, 1770. They immediately began constructing the fort of San Carlos de Monterrey to be able to control the territory with the military. Portolá left south towards the port of San Blas on the 15th of June, to later travel to Mexico and inform the Viceroy of everything that happened during the recent travels to Northern California.[6]
While the viceroy of New Spain, the Marquis of Croix, received news of Portolá’s trips, information on the settlements that the Russians had established in the Americas continued reaching the ears of Hispanic authorities via Ambassador Marquis de Almodóvar. It seemed, therefore, that it was the moment to organize new expeditions to those lands, apart from those that were already being carried out. During the following decades, the Spanish ambassadors in Russia, the Viscount of La Herrería, the Count of Lacy, and the Marquis de la Torre continuously received information regarding Russian intentions. Between 1774 and 1793, the Spanish Monarchy would send several expeditions from Mexico to the north, both to strengthen and reaffirm its historical demands as to continue the exploration of the Pacific coast of North America.
