Francisco de Hoces

Who was Francisco de Hoces?

Francisco de Hoces was a Spanish sailor who in 1525 joined the Loaísa Expedition to the Spice Islands as commander of the vessel San Lesmes.

On January 1526, the San Lesmes was blown by a gale southwards from the eastern mouth of the Strait of Magellan to 56ºS latitude, where the crew thought they saw a land’s end. This is commonly understood as that they saw open waters westward away of a point of land that could be the southeasternmost tip of either Tierra del Fuego or Isla de los Estados. In any of both cases they supposedly had seen an open water connection between Atlantic and Pacific oceans south of Tierra del Fuego, and therefore they preceded Francis Drake in inferring the existence of such a connection. This is the reason why some Spanish, Argentine, and Chilean historians maintain that the so-called Drake Passage should be named Mar de Hoces.

After Loaisa expedition eventually reached the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan, the whole fleet was dispersed by another gale and San Lesmes was seen for the last time in late May 1526.