Juan de Fuca

For other uses, see Juan de Fuca (disambiguation).

Ioánnis Fokás (Greek: Ιωάννης Φωκάς), better known as Juan de Fuca (born 1536 on the Ionian island of Kefallonia; died there 1602), was a Greek maritime pilot in the service of the Spanish king Philip II, best known for his claim to have explored the Strait of Anián, now known as the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Family and early life

Fokás's grandfather, Emmanouíl Fokás (Gk: Εμμανουήλ Φωκάς), fled Constantinople at its fall in 1453, accompanied by his brother Andrónikos (Gk: Ανδρόνικος). The two settled first in the Peloponnese where Andrónikos remained, but in 1470 Emmanouíl moved to the island of Kefallonia. Iákovos (Gk: Ιάκωβος), our subject's father, established himself in the village of Valeriáno (Gk: Βαλεριάνο) on the island, and came to be known as "the Valeriáno Fokás" (Gk: ο Φωκάς ο Βαλεριάνος) to distinguish him from his brothers.

It was in this village of Valeriáno that Fokás was born in 1536; little to nothing is known about his life before he entered the service of Spain, apparently some time around 1555.

Name

The name of the man known to history as Juan de Fuca is the source of some confusion. While Juan de Fuca is clearly a Spanish rendering of Ioánnis Fokás (Gk: Ιωάννης Φωκάς), some sources cite Apóstolos Valeriános (Gk: Απόστολος Βαλεριάνος) as his "real" name. It is possible that Fokás was baptized Apóstolos and later adopted the name Ioánnis/Juan (i.e., John) because Apóstol is not much used as a name in Spanish. Given that Fokás/Fuca was the family name borne by the seafarer's father and grandfather, Valeriános is likely to be a nickname used on the island which would have been quite meaningless in the Spanish Empire.

Early career

Fokás's early voyages were apparently to the Far East, and he claimed to have arrived in New Spain in 1587 when, off Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, the English privateer Thomas Cavendish seized his galleon Santa Ana and deposited him ashore.

Voyages to the north

According to Fokás's account, he undertook two voyages of exploration on the orders of the viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco, marqués de Salinas, both intended to find the fabled Strait of Anián which would lead to the Northwest Passage, a northern sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The first voyage saw 200 soldiers and three small ships under the overall command of a Spanish captain (with Fokás as pilot and master) assigned the task of finding the Strait of Anián and fortifying it against the English. This expedition failed when, allegedly due to the captain's malfeasance, the soldiers mutinied and returned home to California. (Note that in this period, Spanish doctrine divided control of ships and fleets between the military commander, who was an army officer, and the sailing and navigation commander, who was a mariner.)

In 1592, on his second voyage, Fokás apparently enjoyed success. Having sailed north with a caravel and a pinnace and a few armed marines, he returned to Acapulco and claimed to have found the strait, with a large island at its mouth, at around 47° north latitude. In his account, he spent twenty more days exploring the many islands in the strait — which he (unsurprisingly) described as not only fertile but also richly endowed with "gold, silver, pearls, and other things like Nova Spania" — before the savagery of the natives compelled him to return his men to safety.

Despite Velasco's repeated promises, however, Fokás never received the great rewards he claimed as his due. After two years, and on the viceroy's urging, Fokás travelled to Spain to make his case to the court in person. Disappointed again and disgusted with the Spanish, the aging Greek determined to retire to his home in Kefallonia but was in 1596 convinced by an Englishman, one Michael Lok, to offer his services to Spain's archenemy, Queen Elizabeth. Nothing came of Lok and Fokás's proposals, but it is through Lok's account that the story of "Juan de Fuca" entered English letters.

Controversy

Because the only written evidence for Fokás's voyages lay in Lok's account — researchers being unable to find record of the expedition in Spanish colonial archives — there was long much controversy over his discovery and, indeed, whether he had ever even existed as a real person; several scholars have dismissed "Juan de Foca" as entirely fictitious, and the illustrious Captain Cook strongly denied that the strait Fokás claimed to have discovered even existed. With the later English exploration and settlement of the area, however, Fokás's claims seemed less incredible.

Finally, in 1859, an American researcher, with the help of the U.S. Consul in the Ionian Islands, was able to demonstrate not only that Fokás had lived but also that his family and history were well known on the islands. While we may never know the exact truths which lay behind the account published by Lok, it must be considered unlikely that the man himself was a fiction.

Legacy

When the English captain Charles William Barkley (re)discovered the strait Fokás had described , he named it for the Greek navigator (but using the Spanish form of his name, as recorded by Lok).

The Juan de Fuca Plate, a tectonic plate underlying much of the coastline he explored, is also named for Fokás.