THE RUY EXPEDITION LOPEZ OF VILLALOBOS TO THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA OF THE SOUTH AND OF THE WEST. STUDY HISTÓRICO-JURÍDICO

Abstract

The Adelantado of Guatemala, Pedro de Alvarado, had obtained two Agreements with the Spanish Crown to discover and to conquer in the South Sea and, following the west coast of Mexico and rising towards the north, to discover the strait towards Europe across the north of the South Sea. In the second Agreement Alvarado associated with the Virrey of Nueva España, Antonio de Mendoza. Alvarado had prepared in his shipyard of Guatemala a magnificent fleet and he continued constructing ships. But Alvarado died fighting against the Indians in the Nueva Galicia on June 24, 1541. His associate, the Virrey of Mexico, took the reins of the expeditions and he sent towards the Islands of the South Sea and de Poniente six ships supervised by the General Lopez de Villalobos and towards the north of California, he sent other two ships supervised by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.
Villalobos’s expedition had to find the route of return from the Islands of Poniente (the West Islands) to the Indias, in what the tornaviaje used to be called.
This expedition leaves the bay of Christmas, in Jalisco, on November 1, 1542. They came to the current island of Mindanao on February 2, 1543. They baptised the
archipelago as the Philippines, in honour of the still prince Felipe. From a small island of the Philippines, the island of Sarangani, Villalobos sends the ship San Juan
de Letrán towards Mexico but this attempt of discovering the tornaviaje failed. The Portuguese diplomatic conflicts began soon. The Portuguese supported that all those islands belonged to the King of Portugal, by virtue of the Agreement among this one and Carlos I of Spain on April 22, 1529. This conflict worsened when the Spanish expedition ends in the island of Tidore, in the archipelago of the Moluccas.
The second attempt of tornaviaje of the ship San Juan de Letrán was also a failure. Villalobos resolved to come to an Agreement of peace with the Portuguese for which this will take the Spanish expedition to Lisbon and Spain for the route of
India. The Spanish who were staying in Tidore embarked, less some, in a Portuguese ship that would take them to Lisbon. There came to this city in 1548 only hundred forty Spanish of the three hundred seventy who had gone out of the Nueva España.