Brigadier Alejandro Malaspina (5 November 1754 – 9 April 1810) was a Spanish Navy officer and explorer. Under a Spanish royal commission, he undertook a voyage around the world from 1786 to 1788, then, from 1789 to 1794, a scientific expedition (the Malaspina Expedition) throughout the Pacific Ocean, exploring and mapping much of the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Alaska, crossing to Guam and the Philippines, and stopping in New Zealand, Australia, and Tonga.
Malaspina, who was born in Italy, was christened Alessandro, the Italian form of Alexander. He signed his letters in Spanish Alexandro, which is usually modernized to Alejandro by scholars.; Malaspina usually spelt his name “Alexandro”, a form which, as well as being standard orthography in his day, would have had the advantage for him of being pronounceable in both Italian and Spanish. On occasion, he also used the forms “Alessandro” or “Alejandro”. When he wrote in English, he signed himself “Alexander”, and when writing in French, “Alexandre”: this was in accord with the convention of the day, where names were translated into the language being used. He used the variant spellings according to the language in which he was writing. Changes in Spanish orthography made since his time by the Real Academia Española have made “Alejandro” the standard form in Spanish, and likewise the orthographic rules of the Accademia della Repubblica Italiana make the modern standard Italian form “Alessandro”. for writers in English, “Alexandro” has the convenience of obviating the need to choose between the exclusively Italian and Spanish versions of his name.
Early life Malaspina was born in 1754 in the town of Mulazzo, in the small principality of Lunigiana on the northwest coast of Italy. Lunigiana, formally dependent on the Habsburgs, was ruled by the extended Malaspina family.Kendrick, Alejandro Malaspina, pp. 6–7. Alessandro's parents were the Marquis Carlo Morello and Caterina Meli Lupi di Soragna. From 1762 to 1765, his family lived in Palermo with Alessandro's great-uncle, Giovanni Fogliani Sforza d'Aragona, the viceroy of Sicily. From 1765 to 1773 he studied at the Clementine College in Rome. In 1773 he was accepted into the Order of Malta and spent about a year living on the island of Malta where he learned the basics of sailing.
Naval service
Malaspina joined the Spanish Navy in 1774 as a guardiamarina. Between 1774 and 1786 he took part in a number of naval battles and received many promotions. In January 1775, aboard the frigate Santa Teresa, Malaspina was part of the expedition to relieve Melilla, which was under siege by Moroccan forces. Shortly after he was promoted to frigate ensign. In July 1775 he participated the failed invasion of Algiers and in 1776 was promoted to ship-of-the-line ensign.
From 1777 to 1779, aboard the frigate Astrea, Malaspina made a round-trip voyage to the Philippines, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in both directions. During the voyage he was promoted to frigate lieutenant. In January 1780 he fought in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent and was promoted to ship-of-the-line lieutenant shortly afterwards. During the Great Siege of Gibraltar, in September 1782, Malaspina served on a floating battery. In December of the same year, aboard San Justo, Malaspina participated in the Battle of Cape Spartel. He was soon promoted once again, to frigate captain.
In 1782 he was suspected of heresy and denounced to the Spanish Inquisition, but was not apprehended. From March 1783, to July 1784, Malaspina was second-in-command of the frigate Asunción during a trip to the Philippines. As with his first trip to the Philippines the route went by the Cape of Good Hope in both directions. In 1785, back in Spain, Malaspina, on board the brigantine Vivo, took part in hydrographic surveys and mapping of parts of the coast of Spain. During the same year he was named Lieutenant of the Company of the Guardiamarinas of Cádiz.
Circumnavigation
From 15 September 1786 to 18 May 1788 Malaspina made a commercial circumnavigation of the world on behalf of the Royal Company of the Philippines. During this voyage he was in command of the frigate Astrea.Dario Manfredi, Il Viaggio Attorno al Mondo di Malaspina con la Fregata di S.M.C.«Astrea», 1786–1788, Memorie della Accademia Lunigianese di Scienze, La Spezia, 1988. His route went via Cape Horn and, returning, the Cape of Good Hope. In February 1787, the Astrea called at Concepción in Chile, whose military governor, the Irish-born Ambrosio O'Higgins, had six months before recommended that Spain organize an expedition to the Pacific similar to those led by Lapérouse and Cook.Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid), Estado, legajo 4289. Also at Archivo Nacional de Chile, Fondo Vicuña Mackenna, vol.304, D, ff.5–26. Published in Revista chilena de historia y geografía, no.107, 1946, pp.387–401. O'Higgins had made this recommendation following the visit of the Lapérouse expedition to Concepción in March 1786, and presumably discussed it with Malaspina while the Astrea was at Concepción. Following the Astreas return to Spain, Malaspina, in partnership with José de Bustamante and advised by Francisco Muñoz y San Clemente, produced a proposal for an expedition along the lines set out in OHiggins's memorandum. A short time later, on 14 October 1788, Malaspina was informed of the government's acceptance of his plan. José de Espinoza y Tello, one of the officers of the Malaspina expedition, subsequently confirmed the importance of the information sent by O'Higgins in stimulating the Government to initiate an extensive program of exploration in the Pacific."Noticia de las principales expediciones hechas por nuestras pilotos del Departamiento de San Blas al reconocimiento de la costa noroeste de America, desde el año de 1774 hasta el 1791, extractada de los diarios originales de aquellos navegantes", Novo y Colson, Viaje, p.428; cited in Warren L. Cook, Flood Tide of Empire, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1973, p.115, and in Robert J. King, "Ambrose Higgins and the Malaspina Expedition", presented at the International Conference of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA 99), La Trobe University, Melbourne, July 1999. At: The prompt acceptance of Malaspina's proposal was stimulated by news that the Russian government was preparing the Mulovsky expedition to the North Pacific, which had as one objective the claiming of territory around Nootka Sound that was also claimed by Spain (see Nootka Crisis and Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest).Pedro Normande to Floridablanca, St. Petersburg, 16 February 1787, Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid), Estado, legajo 4289; copy held at Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Foreign Copying Project Reproductions; quoted in Anthony H. Hull, Spanish and Russian Rivalry in the North Pacific Regions of the New World, University of Alabama PhD thesis, UMI microfilm, pp.113–7; and in Warren L. Cook, Flood Tide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest, 1543 1819, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973, p.116.
Expedition of 1789–1794
In September 1788, Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra approached the Spanish government. The explorers proposed a scientific-political expedition that would visit nearly all the Spanish possessions in America and Asia. The Spanish king, Charles III, a promoter of science in the Spanish Empire, approved.
Two corvettes were built under Malaspina's direction specifically for the expedition: Descubierta and Atrevida (meaning "Discovery" and "Daring" or "Bold"). Malaspina commanded Descubierta and Bustamante Atrevida. The names were chosen by Malaspina to honor James Cook's Discovery and Resolution. The two corvettes were constructed by the shipbuilder Tómas Muñoz at the La Carraca shipyard. They were both 306 tons burden and 36 metres long, with a normal load displacement of 4.2 metres. They were launched together on 8 April 1789.
The expedition was under the "dual command" of Malaspina and Bustamante. Although in time the expedition became known as the Malaspina's, Bustamante was never considered subordinate. Malaspina insisted on their equality, yet Bustamante early acknowledged Malaspina as the "chief of the expedition."
The expedition sailed from Cádiz on 30 July 1789. The bohemian naturalist Thaddäus Haenke missed the boat, but joined in 1790 in Santiago de Chile after crossing South America by land from Montevideo.
The expedition had explicitly scientific goals, as had the recent voyages of James Cook and Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Some of the leading scientists of the day accompanied Malaspina. The scientific data collected during the expedition surpassed that of Cook, but due to changed political circumstances in Spain Malaspina was jailed upon return and the reports and collections locked up and banned from publication. The expedition and its findings remained obscure and nearly unstudied by historians until the late 20th century.
Malaspina stopped at Montevideo and Buenos Aires, investigating the political situation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. After rounding Cape Horn, the expedition stopped at Talcahuano, the port of Concepción in present-day Chile, and again at Valparaíso, the port of Santiago. Continuing north, Bustamante mapped the coast while Malaspina sailed to the Juan Fernández Islands in order to resolve conflicting data on their location. The two captains reunited at Callao, the port of Lima. There investigations were made into the political situation of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The expedition then continued north, mapping the coast, to Acapulco, Mexico. A team of officers was sent to Mexico City to investigate the archives and political situation of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
By the time Malaspina reached Mexico it was 1791, and there he received a dispatch from the king of Spain, ordering him to search for a Northwest Passage in the region of latitude 60 degrees N, newly thought to have been discovered many years previously. Malaspina had been planning to sail to Hawaii and Kamchatka, as well as the Pacific Northwest.; online at Google Books Instead, he sailed from Acapulco directly to Yakutat Bay, Alaska (then known as Port Mulgrave), where the rumored passage was said to exist. Finding only an inlet, he carefully surveyed the Alaskan coast west to Prince William Sound.
At Yakutat Bay, the expedition made contact with the Tlingit. Spanish scholars made a study of the tribe, recording information on social mores, language, economy, warfare methods, and burial practices. Artists with the expedition, Tomas de Suria and José Cardero, produced portraits of tribal members and scenes of Tlingit daily life. A glacier between Yakutat Bay and Icy Bay was subsequently named after Malaspina. The botanist Luis Née also accompanied the expedition, during which he collected and described numerous new plants.
Knowing that Cook had previously surveyed the coast west of Prince William Sound and found no passage, Malaspina ceased his search at that point and sailed to the Spanish outpost at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island.