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Present-day Baja California of Mexico was misrepresented in early maps as an island.This example c. 1650. Restored. The first European explorers, flying the flags of Spain and of England, sailed along the coast of California from the early 16th century to the mid-18th century, but no European settlements were established.
The 1562 map of the Americas, created by Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez, which applied the name California for the first time.. California was the name given to a mythical island populated only by beautiful Amazon warriors, as depicted in Greek myths, using gold tools and weapons in the popular early 16th-century romance novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián) by ...
The Caribbean islands became less central to Spain's overseas colonization, but remained important strategically and economically, especially the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. Smaller islands claimed by Spain were lost to the English and the Dutch, with France taking half of Hispaniola and establishing the sugar-producing colony of St ...
The Province of Las Californias (Spanish: Provincia de las Californias) was a Spanish Empire province in the northwestern region of New Spain.Its territory consisted of the entire U.S. states of California, Nevada, and Utah, parts of Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado, and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur.
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as Nueva California ('New California') among other names, [a] was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula , it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias , but was made a separate province in 1804 (named Nueva California ). [ 1 ]
Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias (California). In the last decades of the 18th century a series of Spanish expeditions were undertaken along the north-west coasts of North America, including Oregon , Washington , British ...
Soromenho was followed in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno, whose coastal explorations in 1602 surveyed several California locations for future colonization, including San Diego, the California Channel Islands and Monterey. Vizcaíno sailed north from Mexico (as Cabrillo had done), a much more difficult undertaking because of the prevailing winds ...
Expansion came through exploration and colonization expeditions led by Portolá (1769), his successor Pedro Fages (1770), Juan Bautista de Anza (1774–76), the Franciscan missionaries and others. Independent Mexico retained the division but demoted the former provinces to territories, due to populations too small for statehood.