Pérez, Juan (1775)
Pérez, Juan (1775)
Juan Pérez (d. 1775), Spanish explorer. Juan Pérez, a native of Mallorca, was already an experienced pilot when he first sailed as part of the Manila Galleon before participating in the founding of California in 1769. In 1773, Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli of Mexico ordered him to lead a maritime expedition to explore the northern coast of California to check on Russians rumored to be in the area. Departing from the Pacific coast port of San Blas on the frigate Santiago on 24 January 1774, he reached San Lorenzo (present-day Vancouver Island) in August, as well as Nootka Sound and Cerro Nevado de Santa Rosalía (Mount Olympus). His expedition, the first to sail to 55 degrees north latitude, led to the subsequent Spanish exploration of the area as far as the Alaska Peninsula by the 1790s and formed the basis for its claims to that area. Pérez died of scurvy while piloting the Santiago along the California coast.
See alsoCalifornia .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Joseph P. Sánchez, Spanish Bluecoats: The Catalonian Volunteers in Northwestern New Spain, 1767–1810 (1990).
David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (1992).
Additional Bibliography
San Pío, María Pilar de. Expediciones españolas del siglo XVIII: El paso del noroeste. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.
Joseph P. SÁnchez