Model of Bruno de Hezeta's Flagship, Santiago

This model in the Oregon Historical Society maritime collection was commissioned by Edmund Hayes, Sr. and completed by Lloyd McCaffery in 1975. It is a replica of the Santiago, one of two Spanish ships that visited the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 1775.

In late March 1775, a Spanish exploratory expedition under the command of First Lieutenant Bruno de Hezeta departed from San Blas, a port city on the west coast of Mexico. The expedition’s objective was to travel to 650 N latitude (present-day Fairbanks, Alaska), then explore the Pacific Coast southward to Spanish California. Leaving the supply ship, the San Carlos, in North California,  Hezeta’s flagship the Santiago, and a smaller vessel, the Sonora, set out for the North Pacific in the summer of 1775. The Sonora subsequently explored regions as far north as Sitka Sound in present-day Alaska, while the Santiago ventured along the Pacific Coast from the Olympic Peninsula to Northern California. On August 17, 1775, Hezeta wrote in his diary “I discovered a large bay that I named Bahia de la Asunción [Assumption Bay] . . . the currents and seething of the waters have led me to believe that it may be the mouth of some great river or some passage to another sea.”

Although the Spanish government’s policy of official secrecy prevented news of Hezeta’s expedition to reach the European public, he is now recognized as the first European explorer to have sighted the mouth of the Columbia River. Bruno de Hezeta’s flagship, the Santiago, was one of numerous Spanish, British, Russian, French, and American vessels that ventured to the Pacific Northwest in the late 18th century.

Further Reading:
Beals, Herbert K, ed. For Honor & Country: The Diary of Bruno de Hezeta. Portland, Oreg., 1989.

Cook, Warren. Flood Tide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest, 1543-1819. New Haven, Conn., 1973.

Written by Melinda Jette, © Oregon Historical Society, 2003.