Introduction

Many historians, researchers, and people interested in the history of the American continent share their discontent with the common derogatory recounting of the history of Hispanic people in the so-called New World. As María Elvira Roca Barea points out, the foremost reason why the Hispanic colonization of the Americas is condemned en masse is that the heirs of those most responsible for the disappearance of the Native population, the often-called Anglos or White Americans, have taken interest in concealing their participation in this tragedy as much as possible.^[1] As a result, a historically biased view of the Hispanic presence on the continent has given rise to a misinformed controversy that harms, most of all, Hispanics or Latinos, who assume the widespread criticism or censorship of their past as legitimate. And that, as Professor Roca Barea reminds us, is part of a constant cultural erosion that leaves them in a position of acculturation and weakness.

As part of a new historiography that seeks a more complete vision of the American continent’s conquest and colonization, this study contributes information about the presence of Hispanics on the west coasts to the north and the marks they left. The territorial incorporation of the west zone of the United States, as well as that of Canada and Alaska, into the Hispanic monarchy was fundamentally developed during the last decades of the 18th century, as the voyages in past centuries had basically been ones of discovery and exploration. Moreover, practically until the beginning of that century the peninsula of California was still thought to be an island from which the mythical Anian Strait or Northwest Passage was born, and through which navigation from Europe to Asia was thought possible. Thus, the northern Pacific coast constituted an unknown territory to Europeans  well into the 18th century, when Hispanics, with their explorations of the coast from Mexican ports to Alaska, came in contact with indigenous civilizations yet unknown to the Europeans. This prompted the creation of cities and extensive regional  mapping.

More than potential resources, the Hispanic monarchy was concerned about the presence of the British on the Pacific coasts and the Russian expansion from Siberia towards the American north, the latter insisting that they had more rights to a region formerly populated by inhabitants of Siberia. As the viceroy of New Spain, António Maria de Bucareli y Ursúa, commented in a letter written as a result of his knowledge of Russian presence in the continent, dated in December of 1773:

I judge that any establishment of the Russians on the mainland, or of any other foreign power, should beware, not because the King needs more land—when he has in his domains much more than can be populated in centuries—but to avoid the consequences that having other neighbors than the Indians would bring.^[2]

This study also follows the warning of Simón Bolívar, who noted that people in the Americas had been dominated more by deceit than by force. The only remedy must follow politician and writer Jose Martí’s idea that “being educated is the only way to be free.”^[3]