Pantoja y Arriaga, Juan

Plano del Puerto de San Diego Situado en la Costa Septentrional dela California, y en la Lat[itu]d N[orte] de 32 g[rados] 42 m[inutos] y en la Long[itu]d de 12 g[rados] 31 m[inutos] al Oeste de San Blas: Levantado y Delineado por Juan Pantoja y Arriaga, Seg[un]do Piloto dela R[ea]l Armada, por Septiembre de este presente año de 82, en la Ynvernada, que hizimos en el de vuelta del Socorro de los Presidios y Missiones de toda esta Costa desde esta hasta S[a]n Fran[cis]co. [California, September 1782]



Manuscript map in pen-and-ink with grey wash and red ink for settled areas, scale: "6 maritime miles in 60 degrees" [ca. 1:103,000], oblong folio (11 3/8 x 14 1/4 in.; 290 x 362 mm; image size including drawn frame: 270 x 361 mm) plus attached caption leaf; folded, tiny tears in lower margin. Red half-morocco slipcase, gilt-stamped title on spine. [With:] R.L. Silveira de Braganza, The Pantoja Map of San Diego. San Diego: Friends of the UCSD Library, 1979 laid in.

Lowery, Descriptive List of Maps of the Spanish Possessions (1912), no. 650 (printed version); F. Fuster Ruiz, El final del descubrimiento de América (1998), p. 251; H.R. Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast (1937), no. 687 cites the original in the Archivo General, Mexico; R.S. Whitehead, ed., The Voyage of the frigate Princesa to southern California in 1782, as recorded in the logs of Juan Pantoja y Arriaga and Esteban José Martínez (1982), Plate V

"The first reliable chart of the Bay ... Pantoja's chart was not only the first to show the Bay's 'true appearance' but ... was the most prolific of imitation, with and without attribution, by English, Spanish, French, Mexican, German, Russian, and American nationals for the next sixty years" (Harlow, Maps of the Pueblo Lands of San Diego 1602–1864, pp. 61-62).

This map is one of several fruitful results of a voyage to supply Spanish settlements in California in 1782. Under the command of Esteban José Martinez, two vessels, the Princesa and the Favorita, were instructed to search for the newly founded mission of Santa Barbara. Two journals of this voyage are extant, one by Martinez, and the other by Juan Pantoja y Arriaga, his pilot. The ships first landed in San Francisco Bay and proceeded southwards, stopping at Monterey, Point Concepçion, Santa Barbara, and arriving at San Diego Bay on 21 August. While some of the crew were set to work on the mission church, Pantoja set out to survey San Diego Bay, before the ships began their return to San Blas on 8 October. Pantoja kept a journal of this voyage, now in Mexico City (Archivo General), containing seven maps including a plan of San Diego Bay (reproduced in Whitehead, p. 137). Another, messier version of this map is in Madrid (Museo Naval, reproduced in Fuster Ruiz).

The present map differs from the versions in Mexico City and  Madrid, in that it is oriented with north to the left, and the scale is slightly larger "6 maritime miles in 60 degrees"(ca. 1:103,000), while in these others, the scale is 5 (ca. 1:136,800). These characteristics are similar to those of a version presented by the explorer Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra to the Viceroy of Mexico, the Conde de Revilla Gigedo, now in San Diego (UCSD, Hill Collection, no. 1298). The Hill Collection map is described as "This unique Spanish manuscript map of the San Diego region, the only version of the Pantoja map to depict the Coronado Islands and the projected Fort Guijarros on Point Loma ..." two features which also appear on the present map (at letters Q and B respectively). It is reproduced in H. P. Kraus, Catalogue no. 144: The American West Coast and Alaska, no. 42.

The title of the Hill Collection map is: "Plano del Puerto de San Diego situado en la latitud N. de 32o 40 [minutos] Longitud 12o al O. de S. Blas descuvierto por Sebastian Vizcayno el ano de 1603."  When compared with the Hill Collection map, the present version shows much more detail, giving 22 place-names with key letters (the Hill version giving only 3), and drawing two settlements ("rancherias") in small red squares (the Hill version giving none).

[A tracing of the present version is in Chicago (Newberry Library, Ayer MS map 246) attributed to Irving Berdine Richman. The size is identical, and even the elaborate lettering has been reproduced (our thanks to Robert Karrow, Curator of Special Collections & Maps, for supplying this information). Richman wrote California under Spain and Mexico 1535–1847 (1911) using map tracings done by H.E. Bolton who actually visited the Archivo General in Mexico City, but there is no mention of the Pantoja map in his book.]

The original version of the map was copied and distributed to Spanish sea captains, and some were passed to English captains as well. This is not surprising as there was a need in both navies for the most accurate maps, particularly those marking shoals and soundings in harbors (the two powers were not currently at war, and the information was not secret). While possession of the region was then in dispute, captains shared information, and there was a well-organized group of cartographers in San Blas, creating copies for distribution to naval officers.

The original version's publication chronology is given in the Hill catalogue (nos.1297, 1299, 1300): Alexander Dalrymple (1789), Dalrymple's translation of the diary of Miguel Costanso (1790), La Pérouse (1797), Vancouver's Atlas (1798), and José Espinosa y Tello, Relación del viage ... en el año de 1792 (Madrid: 1802), no. 5. The present version does not appear in print.