Naming
Australia
Incorporated
Naming Australia Incorporated
Introduction & Bibliography
A celebration of Spanish contribution to the history and naming of Australia
Introduction
In the second half of the sixteenth century, Spanish expeditions coming from America were the protagonists in the Pacific of some voyages still unknown to the general public. Yet, according to Australian historian Oscar Spate, these voyages can be numbered “among the most remarkable in the whole history of maritime discovery, alike in their geographical results (long misunderstood as they were) and as a story of high ideals, bitter disillusions and sufferings, baseness and grandeur”.
In 2006 we celebrated the fourth centenary of two of those voyages, the ones of Quirós and Torres in 1605-1606, and specifically, of three events that took place then: the naming of Australia; the first sighting of Australia by Spanish sailors, and the first European navigation through the Straits that bear the name of Torres.
Those events are the symbol of the beginning of relations between Australia and Spain and its anniversary are dates to celebrate to further strengthen mutual relations.
On 14 of May 1606, Whitsunday, captain Pedro Fernandez de Quirós, who had landed in Vanuatu taking it for the Southern Continent, took possession of those territories up to the Southern Pole on behalf of the King of Spain. In honor of the royal dynasty (the House of Austria, as the Hapsburgs were called in Spain) and to remember the day, he named that Austrialía del Espíritu Santo, and thus described it:
The size of the newly discovered lands, judging by what I saw, corroborated by the account given to Your Majesty, by my Admiral, Luis Vaez de Torres, would make their length as much as that of all Europe and Asia Minor as far as the Caspian and Persia, together with all the islands of the Mediterranean and the Ocean bordering on these, including both England and Ireland. The hidden part is a quarter of all the globe, and so big that it could contain twice all the kingdoms and provinces at present ruled by Your Majesty.
In 1606 Luis Vaez de Torres sailed through the Straits that bear his name between 1-9 October.
Between 2-3 October he sailed off Cape York; on 4 October he anchored 2 1/4 miles south-east from Cape Cornwall. During his passage he was able to see not only Australian islands but the Continent itself, taking it for an island:
"We went over through the coast to seven and a half degrees and the end of it is in five, we were unable to go through due to the shallows and strong currents that exist all around, so we had to leave back South East through that shallow, up to eleven degrees. There is all around an archipelago of innumerable islands through which we passed and the end of the eleven degrees was the shallowest point. There we very big islands [Prince of Wales] and more could be seen to the South [Wallis ]; they were populated by black people, very sturdy, naked; as weapons they have very thick and long spears, many arrows, very irregular stones, we were unable to handle any of their weapons; I took in all these lands twenty persons of different nations, so as to better give an account to Your Majesty; they give news about other people, though up to now is not possible to understand them correctly."
Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrympel translated into English, around 1765, a memorial about the voyage of Torres, written by Juan Luis Arias de Loyola. One copy was used by Joseph Banks in his voyage with Captain Cook in 1768. It was Dalrympel who named the Torres Strait after the Spanish sailor.
Bibliography
Castelo, Carmen, The Spanish Experience in Australia, Canberra
Fernandez-Shaw, Carlos María, Spain and Australia. Five centuries of History, Madrid 2000.
Hilder, Brett, The voyage of Torres. The discovery of the Southern Coastline of New Guinea and Torres Strait by Captain Luis Baéz de Torres in 1606, St Lucia 1980.
Sanz, Carlos, Australia. Su descubrimiento y denominación, Madrid 1973 (bilingual edition)
Spate, OH.K., The Spanish Lake , Canberra 2004.
