Vizcaíno, Sebastián (1550?-1628?), was a Spanish merchant and explorer who from 1602 to 1603 led an expedition along the California coast in what is now the western United States . Vizcaíno is responsible for the names of such places as Carmel , Monterey , and San Diego , and navigators used maps of his explorations for many years.
Vizcaíno was born in Spain. He served in the Spanish army in Portugal before coming to the colony of New Spain (modern-day Mexico ) in 1583. In the mid-1580’s, Vizcaíno sailed on a trading voyage between New Spain and the recently established Spanish colony in the Philippines . In 1596, he tried to establish a colony in the Baja (Lower) California Peninsula on the west coast of Mexico, but the project failed. In 1599, Vizcaíno was asked to find good natural harbors in Alta (Upper) California (the modern U.S. state of California) where rest and resupply ports could be established for ships returning to New Spain from the Philippines.
Vizcaíno sailed from Acapulco on May 5, 1602, with about 200 crew members aboard the ships San Diego, Santo Tomás, and Tres Reyes. The small fleet slowly worked its way up the Pacific coast of Baja California. The expedition stopped at many places that had been visited in 1542 by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo , the first European to explore the California coast. Vizcaíno and his crew took depth soundings, charted the outline of the land, and gave many places new names.
In November 1602, Vizcaíno stopped at the harbor of San Miguel, which he renamed San Diego after his flagship and the feast day of San Diego de Alcalá. Creeping northward along Alta California, the expedition named Santa Catalina Island , Santa Barbara Island , Point Conception, the Santa Lucia Mountains, and the Carmel River. In December, Vizcaíno entered a wide bay he named Monterey after the viceroy of New Spain, Don Gaspár de Zúñiga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey.
After several months of exploring, many of Vizcaíno’s crew were starving or suffering from scurvy , a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C . On December 29, Santo Tomás was sent back to Acapulco with the sick as well as news of the expedition, but few of the crew survived the journey. Vizcaíno explored to a short distance north of Cape Mendocino before returning aboard San Diego to Acapulco—also with only a few survivors—on March 21, 1603. Tres Reyes, which had been separated from San Diego in a storm, also returned to Acapulco with few survivors.
Vizcaíno recommended Monterey for the establishment of a new port, but Europeans did not settle the area until the 1770’s. Maps made from Vizcaíno’s expedition were used on the California coast in the late 1700’s. Vizcaíno later mapped coastlines and islands in Japan . He died in New Spain.
