Pedro Fernández de Quirós

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Sculpture by Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in Canberra, Australia.

Pedro Fernández de Quirós (in Portuguese: Pedro Fernandes de Queirós; Évora, 1565 – Panama, 1614) was a Portuguese sailor and explorer. service of Spain.

Biography

Early years

Quirós was born in Évora, Portugal. At a very young age he joined the Spanish Navy (at that time the current Portugal and Spain belonged to the same Crown, the Spanish one) and became an experienced sailor and navigator. In 1595 he served as a pilot in Álvaro de Mendaña de Neyra's explorations of the southwest Pacific.

As a devout Catholic, he visited Rome in 1600, where he gained support from Pope Clement VIII to continue further explorations.

Expedition in search of Terra Australis

The light-coloured expedition is the first trip of the Spanish Mendaña to the Pacific (1568), who discovered Solomon Islands. The dark expedition is the journey of Quirós in 1606, who discovered Vanuatu. The point line represents Torres' journey after he separated from Quirós, which passed through the strait that today bears his name.

In 1603 he left Peru with the intention of finding the Terra Australis Ignota, the "great mythical land of the south", and conquering it for Spain and the Church. Quirós's expedition, with the three ships Santos Pedro y Pablo, San Pedro and Los Tres Reyes, left Callao on December 21, 1605 with 300 sailors and soldiers. In 1606 the expedition reached the Tuamotu and the islands later called the New Hebrides (now, as an independent nation, Vanuatu). He discovered Ducie Island on January 26, 1606, naming it the "Incarnation."

Quirós landed on a large island that he believed was part of the southern continent, and called it the "Australia of the Holy Spirit" (combining the words "Austral" and "Austria", the reigning dynasty in Spain and Portugal). The island still bears the name of Espiritu Santo. There he founded a colony that he called "New Jerusalem", but it was later abandoned due to disagreements between the components of the expedition, and due to the hostility of the Ni-Vanuatu indigenous people.

Mapmundi by Hessel Gerritsz of 1612 including the discovery of the "Austrian Holy Spirit" by Quirós.

A few weeks later Quirós went to sea again. Bad weather separated him from the other ships and he would not (or so he later said) make it back to shore. He then set course for Acapulco in Mexico, where he arrived in November 1606. His second in command, Luis Váez de Torres, after searching for Quirós, headed back to Espíritu Santo, discovering that it was an island, and continued searching. the Terra Australis until he abandoned the search and headed to Manila.

Death in Panama

Quirós returned to Madrid in 1607. Taken for madness, he spent the next seven years in poverty, writing numerous memorials recounting his trip and asking King Philip III for money for a new trip. They sent him to Peru with letters of recommendation, but the king had no real intention of financing another expedition. Quirós died in Panama in 1614.

Theory of the discovery of Australia by Queirós

The name of Pedro Fernández de Queirós is remembered today mainly in Australia. Many authors attribute to him the invention of the word "Australia" in the belief that he named his islands "Australia del Espíritu Santo", while in reality the called "Australia of the Holy Spirit." Among those who defended the theory that Quirós discovered Australia long before Willem Janszoon, Abel Tasman or James Cook, was the archbishop of Sydney from 1884 to 1911, Patrick Francis Moran, and this was taught in Catholic schools for many years. ensuring that Quirós' New Jerusalem was near Gladstone in Queensland.

Based on this belief, the Australian poet James McAuley (1917-76) wrote an epic poem called Captain Quiros in 1964, in which he depicts Quirós as a martyr for the cause of Catholic Christian civilization, which was received with great coldness at a time when Australia had a strong Protestant bias.

The investigations of José María Lancho with the support of astronomer Tomás Alonso of the Royal Astronomical Observatory of Madrid, were able to determine that Quirós did not reach Australia, resorting, at Lancho's suggestion, to a method that would serve to reconstruct the longitude reached by the Queirós ship at the moment it recorded a lunar eclipse. The study of the pilots' diaries by Lancho and Alonso allowed for a scientific answer to one of the most important doubts regarding European contacts with Australia. The conclusions of this work were also presented at the Naval Museum of the Navy. in Madrid on December 11, 2015.

Australian writer John Toohey also published a novel, Queirós, in 2002.

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