Editing Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (section)

==Nationality==
[[File:Monumento a João Rodrigues Cabrilho - Montalegre - Portugal (4657838630) (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|190px|Monument to Cabrillo in [[Montalegre]], [[Portugal]] traditionally considered to be his hometown.]]
Cabrillo's nationality{{spaced ndash}} Spanish or Portuguese{{spaced ndash}} has been debated more recently. He was described as Portuguese by Spanish chronicler [[Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas]]; in his ''Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano'', written 60 years after Cabrillo's death, Herrera referred to Cabrillo as ''Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hererra y Todesillas|first=Antonio de|title=Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las Islas i Tierra firme del Mar Océano|url=http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-8393.html|date=1601–1615|publisher=En la Empr. Real|location=Madrid|access-date=October 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151114051021/http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-8393.html|archive-date=November 14, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Moriarty|first=James Robert|title=Explorers of the Baja and California Coasts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VZULAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Juan+Rodriguez+Cabrillo+Portugues%22|year=1978|publisher=Cabrillo Historical Association|page=52}}</ref> Of the few locations in Portugal who used to claim to be his birthplace, only Lapela de Cabril keeps having some legitimacy to do so. However, the source for Herrera's description is unknown. Certain historians, such as [[Edward Kritzler]], claim that Cabrillo was possibly descended from Jewish [[converso]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kritzler |first1=Edward |title=Jewish pirates of the Caribbean: how a generation of swashbuckling Jews carved out an empire in the New World in their quest for treasure, religious freedom – and revenge |date=2009 |publisher=Anchor Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7679-1952-4 |pages=39–40 |edition=First Anchor Books}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=Kritzler criticized for his lack of evidence and other errors.|date=September 2023}}  Others point to the many flaws in Kritzler's work, including lack of evidence for such claims.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/67518/|title=Edward Kritzler's history of Jewish pirates is uneven|last=Kirsch|first=Adam|date=December 11, 2008|work=Jewish Journal|access-date=September 17, 2023}}</ref>

Some historians have long believed that Cabrillo was from Spain, and a set of documents discovered in 2015 gave strength to that opinion.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sdut-cabrillo-spain-settle-debate-2015sep14-story.html|title=Was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo from Spain?|last=Rowe|first=Peter|date=September 14, 2015|work=San Diego Union Tribune|access-date=December 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920120539/https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sdut-cabrillo-spain-settle-debate-2015sep14-story.html|archive-date=September 20, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> A witness from a 1532 lawsuit, named Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, testified under oath that he was "natural" {{sic}} of Palma de Micergilio, which many misunderstood as if being born or native of now [[Palma del Río]], a town in the [[Province of Córdoba (Spain)|province of Córdoba]] in Spain. As an example of the difference between being born/native and natural/naturalized F. Pizarro himself used to say he was "natural y nacido" (natural and born) in Trujillo, Spain. Other details of the witness's biography match known facts about the explorer.<ref name = SDHC>{{cite journal|last=Kramer|first=Wendy|date=Summer–Fall 2016|title=Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Citizen of Guatemala and native of Palma del Río: New sources from the Sixteenth Century|journal=The Journal of San Diego History|volume=62|issue=3 & 4|url=https://sandiegohistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/V62-3-4-Kramer.pdf|access-date=June 20, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190620180601/https://sandiegohistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/V62-3-4-Kramer.pdf|archive-date=June 20, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> A leader of San Diego's Portuguese community cautioned that the new evidence must be carefully evaluated, and requested that copies of the documents be turned over to the Portuguese government for study.<ref name="was">{{cite news|url=http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/sep/14/cabrillo-spain-settle-debate/|title=Was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo from Spain?|date=September 14, 2015|work=San Diego Union Tribune|access-date=March 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426233513/http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/sep/14/cabrillo-spain-settle-debate/|archive-date=April 26, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

Lapela, in the parish of Cabril and a municipality of [[Montalegre]] (Portugal), is the region where allegedly the nickname "Cabrilha" originated. It became the surname Cabrilho and was pronounced at the time ''Cabrilhe'' in Galician and ''Cabrillo'' in Spanish, according to the historian João Soares Tavares, biographer of João Rodrigues Cabrilho. The name still exists in Portugal as a surname, and several localities named Cabril in [[Beira Alta Province|Beira Alta]] and neighboring regions such as Castro Daire, Viseu or Pampilhosa da Serra have been claimed as Cabrillo's birthplace. In Lapela there is an ancient house where local tradition claims he was born. Local people, and alleged local descendants of branches of his ancient family with the same surname ("Rodrigues Cabrilho"), call the house ''Casa do Galego'' (''House of the Galician'') and ''Casa do Americano'' (''House of the American'').<ref>[http://bibliotecas.cm-porto.pt/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=133X8551502NK.40541&profile=bmp&uri=link=3100018~!247144~!3100024~!3100022&aspect=subtab13&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!horizon&term=Tavares%2C+Jo%C3%A3o+Soares&index=] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511015951/http://bibliotecas.cm-porto.pt/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=133X8551502NK.40541&profile=bmp&uri=link=3100018~!247144~!3100024~!3100022&aspect=subtab13&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!horizon&term=Tavares%2C+Jo%C3%A3o+Soares&index=|date=May 11, 2013}} João Rodrigues Cabrilho : Um Homem do Barroso? / João Soares Tavares</ref><ref>[http://diarioatual.com/?p=37512] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619054432/http://diarioatual.com/?p=37512|date=June 19, 2013}} Diário do Alto Tâmega e Barroso, João Soares Tavares (in Portuguese)</ref>  

In January 2023, a new preprint (now peer reviewed and published in the Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies)<ref name = BSPHS>{{cite journal|last=Afonso|first=Paulo|date=December 2023|title=The double nationality of João Rodrigues Cabrilho, Portuguese-born, naturalized Castilian. Part I – A much needed review|journal=The Journal of the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. |volume=48|issue=1 article 1|url=https://asphs.net/article/the-double-nationality-of-joao-rodrigues-cabrilho-portuguese-born-naturalized-castilian-part-i-a-much-needed-review/|access-date=March 6, 2024}}</ref> announced new documents about a Rodrigues family living in São Lourenço de Cabril around 1520.
<ref>{{cite web |url=https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/5255 |title=The double nationality of João Rodrigues Cabrilho, Portuguese-born, naturalized Castilian. Part I – A much needed review|last=Afonso |first=Paulo |publisher=Scientific Electronic Library Online, SciELO Preprints |date=January 27, 2023 |access-date=March 6, 2024}}</ref>

Alvar Nunes, a Portuguese pilot, was the co-owner of the ship Santa María de Buena Esperança, which was very likely rebaptized as Santa María de La Victoria, Cabrilho's fleet's second largest ship. As a result, it is likely that the two largest ships in the fleet that discovered California were property of Portuguese seamen. António Fernandes, another Portuguese also living in Nicaragua, was the possible owner of the ship ''Anton Hernandez'', indicated alternatively as the second largest ship in Cabrilho's fleet.

According to Cabrilho's elder son, his father was one of the first settlers of Nicaragua. In November 1529, Juan Rodríguez portugués and Alvar Nuñez portugués were in Léon de Nicaragua, paying for the gold mines of Santa María de Buena Esperança defence garrison, suggesting Cabrilho was Portuguese. Bartolome Ferrer, Cabrilho's pilot major, was not Spanish-born but from Albissola, Savona, near Genoa.

Carbon-14 data validates the early 1530s as the time when Cabrilho offered a crucifix to his Rodrigues family in Lapela de Cabril, in agreement with their ancestral family tradition.<ref>[http://bibliotecas.cm-porto.pt/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=133X8551502NK.40541&profile=bmp&uri=link=3100018~!247144~!3100024~!3100022&aspect=subtab13&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!horizon&term=Tavares%2C+Jo%C3%A3o+Soares&index=] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511015951/http://bibliotecas.cm-porto.pt/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=133X8551502NK.40541&profile=bmp&uri=link=3100018~!247144~!3100024~!3100022&aspect=subtab13&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!horizon&term=Tavares%2C+Jo%C3%A3o+Soares&index=|date=May 11, 2013}} João Rodrigues Cabrilho : Um Homem do Barroso? / João Soares Tavares</ref>

The 2023 preprint also presents a 1604 California Spanish-based map, made by the Florentine cartographer Matteo di Jacopo Neroni da Peccioli, where the toponym Cabrilho's Bay (B. de Cabrilho) shows at nearly 40 degrees north. The navigator's name is written in the Portuguese form (with lh) for the first time in any known map of that period. Since the 1604 map dates from around the same time as Herrera's statement (around 1615) about Cabrilho being Portuguese, the appearance of Cabrilho's name in this old map provides support to Cabrilho's Portuguese nationality.

Other than Cabrilho's Bay in California, the preprint also presents a 1758 document showing that Mount Cabrilho was located nearby Lapela de Cabril, thus proving that Cabrilho indeed existed as a name in Portugal.