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provide passage across the top of North Amer-
ica to the Atlantic). Nearly all the ventures
ended in disaster. A 1532 expedition com-
manded by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza disap-
peared without a trace. When Cortés sent
ships in search of Mendoza in 1532, the expe-
dition’s abrasive commander, Diego de
Becerra, was murdered in a mutiny led by his
pilot, Fortún Jiménez. The mutineers contin-
ued to search for Mendoza along the eastern
coast of Baja (lower) California. When they
went ashore in the Bay of La Paz, on the south-
eastern end of Baja California, Jiménez and all
but two of his men were killed by Guaycura
Indians.
Cortés himself sailed to the Bay of La Paz in
1535 and founded a settlement called Santa
Cruz, intending to use it as a base for further
northward exploration in search of the
region’s rich oyster pearl beds. The colonists
nearly perished from hunger, however, when
supply ships got lost and failed to arrive at the
hot, unfertile outpost.
Francisco de Ulloa, commander of the last
Cortés-sponsored expedition, sailed north
along the west coast of the Mexican mainland
in 1539. When he reached the northern waters
of the Gulf of California, Ulloa followed the
coastline southward as it continued along the
eastern shores of Baja California. Like other
Spanish mariners, Ulloa was sure that the Baja
peninsula was an island. He searched in vain
for a route through the landmass, eventually
rounding Baja’s tip and continuing north
along its Pacific shore. Some accounts of the
voyage suggest that Ulloa reached 30° north
latitude before turning back due to dangerous
seas.
These voyages were afinancial disaster for
Cortés, who had funded all three expeditions
and profited from none of them. Hoping to
reclaim colonial titles and riches whittled
away by political intrigues, he returned to
Spain in 1540. “I had hoped that the toils of my
youth would have secured me repose in my
old age,” he wrote in a final appeal to Charles
V in 1544. “I have endured all peril, and spent
my substance in exploring distant and
unknown regions, that I might spread abroad
the name of my sovereign, and extend his
sway over powerful nations. This I have done
without aid from home, and in the face of
those who thirsted for my blood. I am now
aged, infirm, and overwhelmed with debt.”
The broken conqueror eventually realized
that his appeals to Spanish royalty would
never be answered. He planned to return to
Mexico, but ruined health prevented him from
leaving Spain. He died on December 2, 1547.
Five years later, his remains were moved to
Mexico for private burial by his son. Cortés’s
conquest remains controversial in Mexico,
and no memorial or statue to the conquista-
dor exists there.
By the time of Cortés’s death, Spain was
entrenched as the main political power in
Central America and Mexico. The Aztec
empire’s grip on the peoples of Mexico had
been destroyed, only to be replaced by a
widening system of Spanish imperial influ-
ence and controls. Seagoing exploration of
California by sea and overland exploration
west of the Mississippi intensified.
Spain’s foothold in the Western Hemi-
sphere would shape its languages and cultural
history for centuries. The immediate effect of
Cortés’s discoveries, however, was their con-
firmation of Columbus’s promise of economic
wealth on the western shores of the Atlantic
Ocean. It was equally clear that the Americas
were a “New World,” not part of Asia as
Columbus had believed. With a major base,
Europeans were about to flood onto the
American mainland.(^64) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
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