MIGUEL LOPEZ DE LEGASPI EXPEDITION and SAN LESMES

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aukepalmhof
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MIGUEL LOPEZ DE LEGASPI EXPEDITION and SAN LESMES

Post by aukepalmhof » Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:57 pm

All my searching for information on a vessel in the expedition of Lopez de Legaspi with the name SAN LESMES in 1564 was without result, the following ships were in that fleet.

After successive delays, in 1564 the ships were ready. The Viceroy of Mexico was proud of them. In a letter to Felipe II of February 25, 1564, he told him that they are the best ships that have been launched in the South Sea, and stronger and well rigged. The instructions of the Audiencia de México of September 1, 1564 request that they be delivered to Legazpi. They were the following: the galleon SAN PEDRO (originally called San Felipe), of five hundred and fifty tons, which was the flagship; the galleon SAN PABLO (originally S. Andrés) of 400 tons (according to others of 350); the Patache S. JUAN DE LETRAN from 80 to 100 tons; and the Patache S. LUCAS of 40 tons. To these must be added a small ship, the brigantine ESPIRITE SANTO, which was bought from Captain Juan Pablo de Carrión. The effective delivery will be made by the bachelor Martínez to Legazpi on November 20, 1564. The ships were protected with eight pieces of artillery, made in Spain, from fifteen to twenty-five quintals, with the necessary ammunition and other smaller artillery pieces that were made in Mexico.
All these ships were built in Mexico. The fleet was under the overall command of Legazpi. Maybe that is the reason that the SAN LESMES from 1525 is depicted on the stamp. She was a caravel and the ship depicted on the stamp is not rigged as a caravel. Looks more like a galleon.
Source: //efaidnbmnnnibpcajpc

The SAN LESMES of 1522 was one of the caravels of García Jofre de Loaísa's expedition . https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedici% ... oa%C3%ADsa

SAN LESMES, built as a wooden caravel rigged vessel of 80 tons. The average dim. of a caravel is 20 – 30m, beam 7 – 8m, lateen sails on two to three masts.
Crew 50 – 60 men.
Completed 1522.
In 1525 Francisco de Hoces, commanding the caravel SAN LESMES, separated from the García Jofre de Loaísa Expedition, when they were on the eastern coast of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, discovered the arm of the sea that separates the southernmost part of America from the South Shetland Islands, and was the first to round Cape Horn and discover the passage between Antarctica and America (although he did not enter the Pacific since he returned with the rest of the expedition, which would cross the Strait of Magellan ), all according to the account Andrés de Urdaneta made of the trip, although there are authors who have studied the impossibility of Hoces and SAN LESMES reaching so far south. 1Said passage south of Cape Horn is called " Sea of Sickles " in his honor in Spain, Argentina, and other Spanish- speaking countries. Sixty years later the Englishman Francis Drake crossed it, which is why it is called the Drake Passage or Passage in the Anglo-Saxon world, in international cartography and also in Chile.
After crossing the Strait of Magellan, the "SAN LESMES" became separated from the rest of the expedition and was lost in the Pacific in 1526
In the 20th century, traces of his remains were found on Amanu, one of the islands of the Tuamotu archipelago. Some speculation indicates that the crew survived and either continued on to Australia or stayed on the neighboring Amanu Islands, leaving cultural traces that would reach as far as New Zealand.

History
The caravel was 80 tons. The captain was Francisco de Hoces, although he was replaced by Diego Alonso de Solís. The crew is estimated at fifty to sixty men, half Galician and some Basque and Flemish

Hypotheses about her fate
Roger Hervé was curator of the Department of Maps of the National Library of Paris and in 1982 he wrote Découverte fortuite de l'Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zélande par des navigateurs portugais et espagnols entre 1521 et 1528 . He maintains that the SAN LESMES continued its westward journey, attempting to reach the Moluccas, encountering New Zealand and Tasmania. From here they followed the eastern seaboard of Australia northwards until they were captured by the Portuguese.
There are some indications of Portuguese or Castilian names on old maps of Australia, called "Java la Grande", in a vague Portuguese reference to a lost Spanish ship, whose crew was executed because the Portuguese protected the rights of their dominion over the Moluccas. . This would mean that the Australian east coast was discovered by Spanish and Portuguese navigators 245 years before the British navigator James Cook.

Robert Langdon hypothesis
In 1929 , the administrator of the Tuamotu, François Hervé, who has no relation to Roger Hervé, found four cannons on the reefs of Amanu. He was able to recover one that he took to the Papeete museum, but years later it disappeared. In 1969, when the French set up a military base at Hao , near Amanu, to support nuclear tests at Mururoa and Fangataufa , two more cannons were recovered by Captain Hervé Le Goaziou (the repetition of the Hervé names is purely by chance). The analysis of the cannons, of about 560 kg, does not lead to a definitive conclusion about their origin and age. It seems that they could be Spanish from the 16th century. According to the traditions collected in Amanu, some families are descendants of the survivors of a shipwreck of that time.
Robert Langdon is an Australian researcher at the University of Canberra. In 1975 he wrote The Lost Caravel ("The lost caravel"), which he expanded on in 1988 in The Lost Caravel re-explored ("The lost caravel explored again"). Reviewing all the ships that disappeared, and were shipwrecked in the 16th century in the Pacific, he concludes that the Amanu cannons can only be from the SAN LESMES . Based on cultural and genetic observations, he builds the hypothesis that the crew members of the SAN LESMES survived and that, together with their descendants, they spread to other islands, leaving a marked influence. According to Langdon, the SAN LESMES was diverted from the rest of the expedition by a storm that carried it northwest. She ran aground on the Amanu reefs and the cannons and other ballast were thrown overboard to refloat the caravel. Very damaged, she reaches Anaa , where some crew disembark. They continue to Raiatea, where they settle down for a while to repair the ship or build a new one. Years later, another group tried again to travel west to New Zealand.
Langdon claims that the castaways and their descendants held a pre-eminent position on the islands where they settled. The genetic influence would explain why the first European explorers (Pedro Fernández de Quirós 80 years later, and James Cook 240 years later) found indigenous people with light skin, light eyes and red or blond hair. The spiritual influence would be noted from the religion that arose in Raiatea around the god Oro. It would explain the similarities of the creation of the world with Genesis and the existence of the concept of the Holy Trinity. Another influence would be the construction of the double canoe with lateen sails and the construction of some hulled boats. The cultural influence would explain why, on some islands, they greeted each other by raising their hands or why, in the 16th century, constructions similar to granaries. Galician and Asturian granaries, began to appear in New Zealand.

(Not anything from the SAN LESMES has been found on the coast of New Zealand, also the current and wind direction to sail from the coast of South America to New Zealand are not suitable for a small caravel rigged vessel, so I think it is a legend.) (Also the route on the stamp is not correct for the ship, she sailed from Spain via the Strait of Magellan, and not as given on the stamp from Mexico, The Miguel Lopez de Legaspi
expedition left from Mexico. Many mistakes have been made in the stamp design.)

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lesmes
Norfolk Island 1994 75c sg 567, Scott 557
Attachments
1994 Miguel-Lopez-de-Legaspi-Map-and--San-Lesmes- (2).jpg
1994 Miguel-Lopez-de-Legaspi-Map-and--San-Lesmes- (2).jpg (121.77 KiB) Viewed 588 times

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