Esteban Gómez

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Esteban Gómez, also known as Estevan Gómez and Estêvão Gomes (c. 1483-1538), was a Spanish cartographer and explorer, of Portuguese origin.

[edit] Biography

Gómez was born in Porto, northern Portugal, and probably sailed in Portuguese ships during his youth. In 1518, he moved to Spain, where he was appointed a pilot in the Casa de Contratación in Seville.

In 1519, Gómez sailed with Magellan in the First Circumnavigation of Earth, as the captain of the San Antonio. Before reaching the Strait of Magellan, though, he deserted the expedition, returning to Spain in May 1521. He was immediately jailed, but when the remaining ship reached Spain, and the surviving crew related their terrible experience, he was freed.

Gómez was able to convince the Emperor Charles to allow and finance a new exploration trip to find a passage to the Spice Islands, this time through the North. A 50-ton caravel, La Anunciada, was built for the purpose.

The expedition sailed in September 1524 from Corunna, with 29 men forming the crew. He reached the Cabot Strait and Cape Breton (in today's Nova Scotia province of Canada) in February 1525, and spent the winter there. As soon as he was able to restart the trip, and probably thinking that an even Northern passage would not present much better conditions than what he remembered from the Strait of Magellan, he decided to sail South. He passed through Maine, where he thought the estuaire of the Penobscot River to be the passage. He entered the New York Harbor and the Hudson River (which he named the "San Antonio River"), and eventually reached Florida in August 1525, when he decided to go back to Spain.

As a result of his expedition, the 1529 Diego Ribero worldmap outlines the East coast of North America almost perfectly. For a long time, the Northern half of the current US coast was named on maps as Tierra de Esteban Gómez.

Nineteenth Century hand-drawn detail of the American coast from a world map by Diego Ribero (1529), where the Northern Half of the East coast of the current US is named as Tierra de Esteban Gómez
Nineteenth Century hand-drawn detail of the American coast from a world map by Diego Ribero (1529), where the Northern Half of the East coast of the current US is named as Tierra de Esteban Gómez

In 1535, Gómez joined Pedro de Mendoza's expedition to Río de la Plata. During the expedition, he was killed in he Paraguay River by Indians (1538).

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