Talk:Alessandro Malaspina

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Assessment comments

[edit] Vancouver Island and Puget Sound

This page claims: "In addition to making the first European circumnavigation of Vancouver Island and exploring Puget Sound, the expedition ..."

According to the book Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest: Maps of exploration and Discovery by Derek Hayes, it was Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and crew who first circumnavigated Vancouver Island. Also, the Spanish never explored Puget Sound, according to this book and other sources I've read. Spanish maps included Puget Sound thanks to collaboration with George Vancouver, is my understanding. Is that right? Pfly 07:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, it depends on who was writing the history. In 1789, Dionisio Alcalá Galiano was sent to America with the Malaspina expedition. Galiano had better press later in his life and did not have the same political difficulties that Malaspina faced. It would be good refer to Galiano in the article however. WBardwin 01:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The book mentioned (which I'm not sure is a definitive source or not) does describe the Malaspina expedition, with Galiano and Valdes as officers, reaching far north to the coast of Alaska in 1791, then stopping at Nootka Sound for a while, where more exploration and charting was done (apparently mainly of the Nootka Sound area itself). The book goes on to describe another exploration voyage from San Blas, Mexico, to the Pacific Northwest, in 1792. Of this voyage the text says "It was originally intended to have been commanded by Francisco Antonio Mourelle, who had first been to the northwest coast in 1775 with Bodega y Quadra, but he became ill and so command was given to two of Malaspina's officers, Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdes." It goes on to describe their voyage in some detail, their meeting with George Vancouver and collaboration on circumnavigating Vancouver Island (with Vancouver not quite qualifying as one of the first to circumnavigate since he hadn't sailed the bit of coast between Nootka and Juan de Fuca). But in any case, I'm only just learning about these Spanish expeditions, and this book is probably not the ideal source. Mainly I'm just trying to learn. To that end, I suppose my point is that a citation on Malaspina's circumnavigation and Puget Sound exploration would be useful. Pfly 04:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)