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Uncharted Waters: The Explorations of José Narváez (1768-1840) (Ronsdale $24.95)
José narváez, was born in Cadiz, the great port city of Spain, in 1768. Much like Captain James Cook and explorer/mapmaker David Thompson, Narváez was an exceptionally intelligent boy and so he was accepted into the Spanish Royal Naval Academy for Midshipmen at the age of fourteen.
By the ripe old age of twenty-three, Narváez had served on a battleship during prolonged battles with the English Navy for control of Gibraltar; spent three years based in Havana, serving on supply vessels bound for Spanish military outposts like New Orleans, Campeche, Mexico and Trujillo, Honduras; and exchanged "a barrel of wine, some chocolate and other things to get them to tell us more"; with Russian traders on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
According to biographer Jim McDowell in Uncharted Waters: The Explorations of José Narváez (1768-1840), Narváez was the first Spaniard to engage in face-to-face contact with the feared, fur-trading Russians in the Alaskan Northwest. He was also a crucial contributor on a Spanish team which explored and mapped Clayoquot Sound, Barkley Sound and the Southern Gulf Islands, all for the first time.
Narváez was then directed to venture into fog-shrouded Juan de Fuca Strait to map its entirety and, most particularly, to ascertain whether any great river flowing from the east into a fabled inland sea could be claimed by Spain in its quest for the Northwest Passage. So it was that José Narváez became the first European to reconnoitre the interior of Juan de Fuca Strait in 1789 and, two years later, he was the first European to sail across the northern inland gulf of what we now know as the Salish Sea-as well as the first to map it.
In doing so, José Narváez was indisputably the first European to set eyes upon the site of the present day city of Vancouver.
The description of the first contact between the Musqueum and Narváez near Chitchulayuk aka Punta de Langara-now known as Point Grey-is emblematic of our colonial history.
Armed not with bows and arrows, the Musqueam brought the pale strangers "several kinds of fish"; including freshly caught salmon, deer and elk meat, edible wild plants, berries and fruits, fresh water and firewood.
In exchange, they "received scraps of copper, pieces of iron and barrel hoops."; Not to mention having their home renamed and claimed out from under them, it almost goes without saying.
The artist aboard, José Cardero, would make preparations for his subsequent portrait of Musqueam leader Qeyupulenuxw.
Captain George Vancouver would arrive a full year later and declare himself "mortified"; to discover Narváez had already mapped the region.
Skilled cartographers and hardy navigators/pilots like Narváez were highly valued by the Viceroy for New Spain, based in Mexico City, because Spain had competitors.
Spanish navigators and their largely Mexican crews were conducting explorations and making maps of the West Coast as far north as 60 degrees 18' North latitude and as far east as 152 degrees 39' West longitude, well before the British arrived. But we all know that history is written by the victorious.
Fortunately for Jim McDowell-and now us-history is also remembered and documented by the survivors, including a direct descendant of Narváez living in California. Luis Marmolejo-Meillon gave the author generous access to Narváez family history and genealogy, including maps and charts, as did UBC's Rare Books and Special Collections, a treasure trove of early B.C. exploration history, among many other archives in Mexico, America and Spain.
In this lively yet painstakingly researched book, McDowell offers a seemingly effortless synthesis of facts, political context and biographical particulars to present the first fully realized biography of the achievements of José Narváez. The generous number of illustrations, including hand-drawn maps and early drawings of First Nations leaders, enhance the narrative as do the appendices and footnotes, many of which are fascinating reading by themselves.
For example, Appendix E is a translation by one of three Spanish translators McDowell worked with while researching Narváez. It is the 'Manifest of the Santa Saturnina,' showing the numbers and ranks of the people on board, accounting for every sail, anchor, cannon and firearm (130 bags of grapeshot, fyi), 24 barrels of water and the dimensions of the schooner itself.
The only element missing from this ship's manifest is the supply of foodstuffs, which this reviewer was keen to learn about, knowing of the Spanish fondness for red wine and chocolate. (Had I been disguised as the single servantor as one of the two boys on board, I would certainly have gravitated to the galley.) The manifest declared that the Santa Saturnina was commanded by "Second Piloto Don José Narváez, when he sailed from this Port of the Holy Cross of Nootka.";
Once again, the anchorage known as Cala de Los Amigos (aka Friendly Cove) on Nootka Island was at the centre of the action as the Europeans jostled for trading and religious supremacy and claim-staking territory for their respective thrones.
Historians and other writers about New World history must be relentless detectives with access to a bevy of translators, adept at Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Russian and English, rendered in medieval dialects. For any maritime book, it also helps immensely to have actual experience or good advice from sailors in the challenging conditions of the north Pacific. Handwriting analysis is a critical skill as well.
McDowell has been able to distinguish when Narváez had made a map and when another person had copied it. He alerts us to ambitious skullduggery or short-sighted navigational decisions by discreetly inserting the word "inexplicably"; before recounting the act of another piloto bolting from the rest of the team prematurely in order to present maps to an impatient commander or the latter making a particularly stunned navigational error, all with a scholarly straight face.
Among Jim McDowell's six books is a briefer 1998 book on Narváez that was published by Arthur H. Clark Co., based in Spokane, WA. There were obviously too many tantalizing questions raised by researching and writing the earlier book which led to this fully-documented biography that should give Narváez his rightful place among Malaspina, Quadra, Galiano, Valdes and Vancouver.
The book is dedicated to the memory of John Crosse, sailor, researcher, writer and friend of the author, whose own unpublished manuscript on Narváez is held in UBC's Special Collections.
Once the British had gained ascendancy in the Pacific Northwest, hundreds of Spanish and First Nations place names were erased. McDowell's biography is an eloquent and informed contribution to cultural diversity and accurate colonial history in what is now British Columbia and will appeal to sailors, scholars, and armchair historical detectives alike.
978-1-55380-434-5
By the ripe old age of twenty-three, Narváez had served on a battleship during prolonged battles with the English Navy for control of Gibraltar; spent three years based in Havana, serving on supply vessels bound for Spanish military outposts like New Orleans, Campeche, Mexico and Trujillo, Honduras; and exchanged "a barrel of wine, some chocolate and other things to get them to tell us more"; with Russian traders on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
According to biographer Jim McDowell in Uncharted Waters: The Explorations of José Narváez (1768-1840), Narváez was the first Spaniard to engage in face-to-face contact with the feared, fur-trading Russians in the Alaskan Northwest. He was also a crucial contributor on a Spanish team which explored and mapped Clayoquot Sound, Barkley Sound and the Southern Gulf Islands, all for the first time.
Narváez was then directed to venture into fog-shrouded Juan de Fuca Strait to map its entirety and, most particularly, to ascertain whether any great river flowing from the east into a fabled inland sea could be claimed by Spain in its quest for the Northwest Passage. So it was that José Narváez became the first European to reconnoitre the interior of Juan de Fuca Strait in 1789 and, two years later, he was the first European to sail across the northern inland gulf of what we now know as the Salish Sea-as well as the first to map it.
In doing so, José Narváez was indisputably the first European to set eyes upon the site of the present day city of Vancouver.
The description of the first contact between the Musqueum and Narváez near Chitchulayuk aka Punta de Langara-now known as Point Grey-is emblematic of our colonial history.
Armed not with bows and arrows, the Musqueam brought the pale strangers "several kinds of fish"; including freshly caught salmon, deer and elk meat, edible wild plants, berries and fruits, fresh water and firewood.
In exchange, they "received scraps of copper, pieces of iron and barrel hoops."; Not to mention having their home renamed and claimed out from under them, it almost goes without saying.
The artist aboard, José Cardero, would make preparations for his subsequent portrait of Musqueam leader Qeyupulenuxw.
Captain George Vancouver would arrive a full year later and declare himself "mortified"; to discover Narváez had already mapped the region.
Skilled cartographers and hardy navigators/pilots like Narváez were highly valued by the Viceroy for New Spain, based in Mexico City, because Spain had competitors.
Spanish navigators and their largely Mexican crews were conducting explorations and making maps of the West Coast as far north as 60 degrees 18' North latitude and as far east as 152 degrees 39' West longitude, well before the British arrived. But we all know that history is written by the victorious.
Fortunately for Jim McDowell-and now us-history is also remembered and documented by the survivors, including a direct descendant of Narváez living in California. Luis Marmolejo-Meillon gave the author generous access to Narváez family history and genealogy, including maps and charts, as did UBC's Rare Books and Special Collections, a treasure trove of early B.C. exploration history, among many other archives in Mexico, America and Spain.
In this lively yet painstakingly researched book, McDowell offers a seemingly effortless synthesis of facts, political context and biographical particulars to present the first fully realized biography of the achievements of José Narváez. The generous number of illustrations, including hand-drawn maps and early drawings of First Nations leaders, enhance the narrative as do the appendices and footnotes, many of which are fascinating reading by themselves.
For example, Appendix E is a translation by one of three Spanish translators McDowell worked with while researching Narváez. It is the 'Manifest of the Santa Saturnina,' showing the numbers and ranks of the people on board, accounting for every sail, anchor, cannon and firearm (130 bags of grapeshot, fyi), 24 barrels of water and the dimensions of the schooner itself.
The only element missing from this ship's manifest is the supply of foodstuffs, which this reviewer was keen to learn about, knowing of the Spanish fondness for red wine and chocolate. (Had I been disguised as the single servantor as one of the two boys on board, I would certainly have gravitated to the galley.) The manifest declared that the Santa Saturnina was commanded by "Second Piloto Don José Narváez, when he sailed from this Port of the Holy Cross of Nootka.";
Once again, the anchorage known as Cala de Los Amigos (aka Friendly Cove) on Nootka Island was at the centre of the action as the Europeans jostled for trading and religious supremacy and claim-staking territory for their respective thrones.
Historians and other writers about New World history must be relentless detectives with access to a bevy of translators, adept at Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Russian and English, rendered in medieval dialects. For any maritime book, it also helps immensely to have actual experience or good advice from sailors in the challenging conditions of the north Pacific. Handwriting analysis is a critical skill as well.
McDowell has been able to distinguish when Narváez had made a map and when another person had copied it. He alerts us to ambitious skullduggery or short-sighted navigational decisions by discreetly inserting the word "inexplicably"; before recounting the act of another piloto bolting from the rest of the team prematurely in order to present maps to an impatient commander or the latter making a particularly stunned navigational error, all with a scholarly straight face.
Among Jim McDowell's six books is a briefer 1998 book on Narváez that was published by Arthur H. Clark Co., based in Spokane, WA. There were obviously too many tantalizing questions raised by researching and writing the earlier book which led to this fully-documented biography that should give Narváez his rightful place among Malaspina, Quadra, Galiano, Valdes and Vancouver.
The book is dedicated to the memory of John Crosse, sailor, researcher, writer and friend of the author, whose own unpublished manuscript on Narváez is held in UBC's Special Collections.
Once the British had gained ascendancy in the Pacific Northwest, hundreds of Spanish and First Nations place names were erased. McDowell's biography is an eloquent and informed contribution to cultural diversity and accurate colonial history in what is now British Columbia and will appeal to sailors, scholars, and armchair historical detectives alike.
978-1-55380-434-5
Submitted on November 9, 2015 in By David.
