Libraries

Historiography has many paths marked out, but there are still new paths to draw. In the same way that historiography emphasizes some actors, it also forgets others. This is the case of the Pacific exploration:  at the same time, as the crews lived the adventure of crossing the Pacific Ocean by the north of the Mexican coasts to reach Asia, there were Peruvian expeditionaries who wanted to have knowledge about Polynesia for the Spanish Empire. That was the case of Alvaro de Mendaña and many other men of his crew who bequeathed reports and diaries about the two-year crossing that began in 1567, almost at the same time with those destined to occupy the archipelago of the Philippines. This documentation was published in Spanish as well as in English. This latest version is freely available on the Internet.