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Ridiculous Maps: That Time Everyone Thought California Was An Island · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, the map maker, super producer, mister
0:39
Speaker 1: Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Gobble gabble, He's the map, He's the map, He's the map,
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Speaker 2: He's the map. On Sue us Nick Jr.
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Speaker 1: Ah Nick, everything's going fine. Now. That's mister Noel Brown
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Speaker 1: right there. Uh and that's uh uh. They called me
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Speaker 1: Bullen in this part of the world. Guys, before we
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Speaker 1: get into our history of ridiculous maps yesteryear, I think
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Speaker 1: we owe it to our fellow listeners to talk about
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Speaker 1: a snight kerfuffle. We had a lot of us were
1:19
Speaker 1: tuning into Ridiculous History recently and saw a description of
1:25
Speaker 1: Doc Holiday as a deadly dentist, only to hear a
1:31
Speaker 1: pretty in depth exploration of the ridiculous history of dog food.
1:36
Speaker 2: The classic bait and switch the RHBNS.
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Speaker 1: So we love this, by the way, because guys, we
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Speaker 1: got some We got some hilarious and supportive comments from
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Speaker 1: our fellow ridiculous historians who were weirdly and no offense.
1:53
Speaker 1: Anybody weirdly super on board with that bait and switch
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Speaker 1: you described.
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Speaker 2: I was gonna say, bemused.
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Speaker 1: Bemused is a great word.
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Speaker 2: I'm glad you think so. It again is a great word,
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Speaker 2: and I think it's appropriate here. I certainly was, And
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Speaker 2: you know, it would be not that far out of
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Speaker 2: character for the show to just like start with one
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Speaker 2: idea and then pivot to something completely different.
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Speaker 3: And if I could just jump in here, as as
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Speaker 3: the man who runs the RSS feed, it is very
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Speaker 3: easy to switch an M and a B. That is
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Speaker 3: what happened. No joke in my internal system, the M
2:32
Speaker 3: and the B in November got flipped, which jumped the
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Speaker 3: wrong episode to the top of my queue of uploading things.
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Speaker 2: So it was upspreadsheet kerfuffle.
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Speaker 3: But I liked the idea of we did that intentionally,
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Speaker 3: so let's go with it.
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Speaker 2: Yes, let's just continue the mystery. Hey guys, I have
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Speaker 2: a bit of a pitch. Sure, I'm surprised we haven't
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Speaker 2: seen it. Maybe I've missed it, But what do you
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Speaker 2: think about a Jigsaw esque serial killer with the with
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Speaker 2: the message called the Cartographer who like takes people's skin
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Speaker 2: and turns them into historical maps. I didn't know you
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Speaker 2: reapped my blog. No Ah, man, it was too good
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Speaker 2: to be No, it's original.
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Speaker 1: It's great. As you can tell, we're always pitching. We're
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Speaker 1: always trying to think ahead, you know, we're pitching, closing,
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Speaker 1: drinking coffee, always be cartographing, which is a word we
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Speaker 1: just churchified. Today's episode is the first in an ongoing
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Speaker 1: series about maps. Now, Noel, you know I collect and
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Speaker 1: obsess over maps.
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Speaker 2: Have you?
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Speaker 1: Are you a map guy?
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Speaker 2: I have a map of Skyrim that our buddy Matt
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Speaker 2: Frederick gives to both of us. It is currently in
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Speaker 2: a holding space while I figure out a new place
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Speaker 2: to put it because I had to do a little
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Speaker 2: moving around to some art pieces. But it was hanging
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Speaker 2: in my guest room for some time. No, but have
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Speaker 2: we not done an episode about funky maps? Surely it's
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Speaker 2: come up, man, I love that this. Yeah, okay, so
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Speaker 2: maybe we could you know, retroactively, Grandfather goes into this
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Speaker 2: ongoing series, but for our purposes today, we can call
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Speaker 2: this part. Well, yeah, you don't.
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Speaker 1: Cast your memory back fellow human beings. Back in the
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Speaker 1: days where most people lived and died about thirty miles
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Speaker 1: from where they were born. Like in that area, you
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Speaker 1: don't know much about the world around you. Someone comes
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Speaker 1: up to you and says, hey, the world is round,
4:48
Speaker 1: and you're like burn the witch. Or they say hey,
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Speaker 1: the world is flat and you're like, that's a platform
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Speaker 1: I can stand on. Or they say the world shaped
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Speaker 1: like a casadilla and you're like, what the time means?
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Speaker 2: Wrong here?
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Speaker 1: Case the dias aren't.
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Speaker 2: Nothing yet but also delicious in advance.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the issue is that making maps is very difficult.
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Speaker 1: It it's easier now than ever, but we have to
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Speaker 1: acknowledge that all of the photographers of old, let me
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Speaker 1: amend that most of the cartographers of old were doing
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Speaker 1: the best they could with the technology and the information
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Speaker 1: they had.
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Speaker 2: They were doing their level best, you know, yeah, because
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Speaker 2: it's almost like, I mean, now we've got all this
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Speaker 2: satellite imagery and things that can take a much larger
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Speaker 2: overview scanning, you know, bodies of water and land, masses,
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Speaker 2: et cetera. But back in those days, if you didn't
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Speaker 2: if you hadn't actually traversed the thing that you were mapping,
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Speaker 2: you really were guessing. And even if you had traversed it,
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Speaker 2: to fit it all into the jigsaw, puzzle that is,
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Speaker 2: all of the surrounding land masses and have things like
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Speaker 2: borders and all of these other ephemeral concepts. I mean,
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Speaker 2: there's gonna be there's gonna be some misses.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean. That's why we call
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Speaker 1: it the drawing board. That's why we call science and
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Speaker 1: learning a conversation. So with that in mind, we being
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Speaker 1: a supportive crew of absolute bozos, we want to talk
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Speaker 1: about times cartographers bozoed up their maps, specifically the island
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Speaker 1: of California. I'm sorry, what the island of California. This
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Speaker 1: comes to us from old world auctions. This is probably
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Speaker 1: one of the most familiar famous cartographic mistakes. Oh, and
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Speaker 1: we should say cartography is the study of and creation
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Speaker 1: of maps.
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Speaker 2: Oh sorry, yeah, we very the lead there. Our apologies. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm still hung up on this idea of
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Speaker 2: California being an island. Whose idea was that? Right?
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Speaker 1: Take us to the manager, we say, calling Gavin Newsom.
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Speaker 1: This is if you look at the map, it is
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Speaker 1: a vaguely carrot or rocket shaped mass and it's detached
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Speaker 1: from the western coast of North America. So if you
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Speaker 1: look at this map from back in the day, it
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Speaker 1: appears that California is not part of the contiguous United States. Instead,
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Speaker 1: it looks like it's a little floating boy out there
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Speaker 1: on the left.
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Speaker 2: Can we also just name off the insane map that
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Speaker 2: this comes from, Oh the let's see Henricus Hondius as
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Speaker 2: the name of the cartographer, and the work or the
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Speaker 2: piece is entitled Nova totius tarum orbis geographica ac hydrophica tabula.
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Speaker 2: I'm assuming the act is meant to be pronounced, but
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Speaker 2: I'm not one hundred percent sure. It may well be
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Speaker 2: like a you know, a hyphen.
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Speaker 1: Or something like that, like our pal Joe Mikelhanney Mick
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Speaker 1: al Hanny is yeah, okay, well, apologies Joe if we're
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Speaker 1: mispronouncing the name, as our pal is saying here. Joe
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Speaker 1: points out that before California was established as an actual
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Speaker 1: place to the Europeans, it was a fantasy invented by
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Speaker 1: the guy who named the map, Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo.
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Speaker 1: He's a Castilian, and.
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Speaker 2: Can I just say the latin esque sounding name that
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Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier is just one of numerous versions of
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Speaker 2: this thing that exists. It's not like the og but
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Speaker 2: I just had to rattle down right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. So the idea or the name,
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Speaker 1: the concept of California was invented before Europeans and discovered
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Speaker 1: the actual place called California today. Back in fifteen ten,
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Speaker 1: our Buddy Montovo, he published a sort of like a
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Speaker 1: spin off or an addition to chronicles that have been
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Speaker 1: written earlier. And in his description he he just waxes
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Speaker 1: on like he waxes on, waxes off. He goes ham
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Speaker 1: on this idea of an island paradise to the right
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Speaker 1: hand of the endies that was populated only by and
9:35
Speaker 1: there's a quote from him, Amazonian black women who are
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Speaker 1: protected by the mythological creatures the Griffins, and they have
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Speaker 1: a bunch of.
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Speaker 2: Gold Griffin's being the what is it like a lion?
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Speaker 1: It's like a lion eagle.
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Speaker 2: That's right, talent and flighted.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, here we have to mention a previous episode we
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Speaker 1: create way back in twenty eighteen.
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Speaker 2: That's right, the episode that I think I was referencing,
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Speaker 2: or at least working towards referencing, California was named for
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Speaker 2: a fictional island ruled by a black Amazon queen. I
10:12
Speaker 2: think there are a couple others that fit this series
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Speaker 2: as well, but that one was definitely on my mind.
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Speaker 2: So Montvalo's story or Montalvo's story, excuse me, began to
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Speaker 2: circulate and really took on a life of its own.
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Speaker 2: And so the Spanish explorers in New Spain were very
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Speaker 2: familiar with what had become kind of a type of
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Speaker 2: lore and this sort of notion of this promised land,
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Speaker 2: you know, the island of California.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they took it as a matter of fact. It's
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Speaker 1: kind of like if you were an astronaut and all
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Speaker 1: you knew about the moon was science fiction, you would say, oh,
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Speaker 1: of course, this is the stuff from the story earlier.
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Speaker 1: And so our buddy, or many people, particularly Hernan Cortes,
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Speaker 1: they carry over these ideas, this informative, inspirational fiction, and
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Speaker 1: eventually one of Cortes's two ships, the Conception, is taken
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Speaker 1: over by mutiny and it is steered to a site
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Speaker 1: that's kind of near present day Lapause. This means that
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Speaker 1: crew is the first European ship to land in what
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Speaker 1: we call Baja California.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Cortes the killer of Neil Young fame, of course,
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Speaker 2: but before he had an opportunity to write up a
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Speaker 2: you know, an account of this discovery or really survey
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Speaker 2: the area for map making purposes. Yeminez was killed by
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Speaker 2: the locals. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the guy we're referencing here for tune im Andez
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Speaker 1: is the leader of the mutiny and he brings the
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Speaker 1: he rocks up with this awesome weather Warren boat at
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Speaker 1: this point, and he is murdered. Not everybody aboard is murdered.
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Speaker 1: There are surviving crew members and they make it back
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Speaker 1: to their version of you know what they call civilization,
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Speaker 1: and they say, oh wow, there's this crazy island way
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Speaker 1: out to the left of the map. And this catches
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Speaker 1: the attention of vernand Cortes. He starts exploring the Baja
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Speaker 1: California region in May of fifteen thirty five. And at
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Speaker 1: this point, no, we have to we have to note
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Speaker 1: I almost said we have to map. We have to
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Speaker 1: note that if you look at this part of the
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Speaker 1: coast of North America, there is a long peninsular thing.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 1: So if you don't have enough information, it might look
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Speaker 1: like an island to you.
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Speaker 2: That's right. And I really did. It occurred to me
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Speaker 2: when I think of like a peninsula. I guess I
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Speaker 2: always think about Florida, for example, the hole, the way
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Speaker 2: it juts out for Italy or the sea or Italy,
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Speaker 2: of course, and I could see how with a limited view,
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Speaker 2: a limited scope of what was going on along the
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Speaker 2: coast here, that one could, you know, make that mistake.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, we're not here to like criticize the people
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Speaker 2: of the past, because to your point, Ben, you know,
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Speaker 2: sometimes we are. But they did their best with the
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Speaker 2: information that they had. Yeah, Suar Guy Cortes and crew.
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Speaker 2: They travel about two hundred miles up both the Gulf
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Speaker 2: and the Pacific coast, and they're originating from Cabo San Lucas.
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Speaker 2: At this point, your buddy Hernand says, oh geez, okay,
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Speaker 2: cheese and crackers. This land is an island. Nothing I
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Speaker 2: have seen so far from the boat, with the information
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Speaker 2: I have, could make the story I read earlier sound incorrect.
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Speaker 2: So this is an island. We're gonna call it California
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Speaker 2: because I'm well read and I remember that from the
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Speaker 2: story I read earlier. Right. Yeah, Well, the funny thing is,
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Speaker 2: even in this day and age, with that aforementioned lack
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Speaker 2: of information, the island myth was, you know, the was
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Speaker 2: debunked pretty quickly, if not nearly instantly. In the following years,
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Speaker 2: a couple of a handful of years after Cortes's journey
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Speaker 2: up the coast, his lieutenant Francisco de Aloa, along with
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Speaker 2: Hernando de Alarcon and Melschar Diaz, took a little bit
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Speaker 2: more of a meticulous look at the survey and decided
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Speaker 2: that it was, in fact a peninsula like I was
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Speaker 2: mentioning earlier, which seems to me to be a more
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Speaker 2: obvious mistake than island, because it's also not a peninsula, right.
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Speaker 1: Well, California has a peninsular feature. That's the issue. And
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Speaker 1: as we're saying, three different people Diaz Alacon, they all
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Speaker 1: confirm that this is not an island. But the game
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Speaker 1: of telephone begins and so the fact gets lost. There
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Speaker 1: are all these rumors going around in a very slow
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Speaker 1: information age, so you hear something from someone who knows
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Speaker 1: someone and now you think it's a fact. What they
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Speaker 1: call the Gulf of California, the rumors go, is actually
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Speaker 1: a straight st r a t connected to the Strait
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Speaker 1: of Onion. But there is one guy credited with popularizing
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Speaker 1: this belief, the belief, the legend, the absolutely juicy story
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Speaker 1: but factually inaccurate lore that California is an island. He
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Speaker 1: is a friar. His name Antonio de Lasentio. Oh and he,
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Speaker 1: by the way, did not speak from authority.
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Speaker 2: That's right, asension was not educated. He had little to
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Speaker 2: no experience. But what he lacked an education experience, he
16:31
Speaker 2: made up for in raw imagination. He was a member
16:36
Speaker 2: of an orderer like I guess I'm a monastic order,
16:40
Speaker 2: the Barefoot Carmelite, where he served as assistant cosmographer in
16:46
Speaker 2: sixteen oh two during an expedition led by Sebastian Vizkindo.
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Speaker 2: His mission was to establish a site for Spanish trade
16:58
Speaker 2: from the Philippines along the route from the Philippines, in
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Speaker 2: order to kind of, you know, take stock and re
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Speaker 2: up on supplies, and also to take shelter in the
17:10
Speaker 2: unfortunate event of an attack from the British privateers that
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Speaker 2: we know so well.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's baus here and think about how ambitious
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Speaker 1: this expansion scheme is. These ships are not very quick.
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Speaker 1: They're going across the Pacific from the Philippines to this
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Speaker 1: island of California, and then they're also navigating their way
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Speaker 1: around the world. That's pretty impressive. Our barefoot carmelite here
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Speaker 1: sends you on he is, he's there, And as you said, Noel,
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Speaker 1: sixteen twos. So we have to remember that he's referencing
17:57
Speaker 1: stuff that was discovered back in the fifteen forties by
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Speaker 1: the span Can I say spaniards on this show.
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Speaker 3: I don't think I think spaniards is the correct phrase.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's keep all of this in as
18:10
Speaker 2: long as you don't say dirty Spaniards.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, those sex driven Spaniards or something like.
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Speaker 2: That, swarthy spaniards.
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Speaker 1: We're keeping it all in. So we're keeping it all in.
18:23
Speaker 1: And look, the timing is important. So, like Noel was saying,
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Speaker 1: sixteen oh two, this expedition by this kind of In
18:34
Speaker 1: this you can find a journal that is written at
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Speaker 1: the time and it's published several years after the end
18:42
Speaker 1: of the mission. In this you will see the argument
18:46
Speaker 1: that the Gulf of California goes on to communicate with
18:51
Speaker 1: the Ocean of the North by the strait of on
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Speaker 1: the island. So Ascension has no first hand evidence about
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Speaker 1: California being an islands, but he is not gonna let
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Speaker 1: the facts get in the way of a very good story.
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Speaker 1: And we have a quote from it. Yeah, let's call
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Speaker 1: this a quick summation of that story. Sincion wrote, I
19:16
Speaker 1: hold it to be very certain and proven that the
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Speaker 1: whole Kingdom of California, it's a kingdom now discovered on
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Speaker 1: this voyage is the largest islands known or which has
19:25
Speaker 1: been discovered up to the present day. Ben Is this
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Speaker 1: all in the service of a bit of self aggrandizement,
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Speaker 1: perhaps of the of the explorer himself, and also, you know,
19:35
Speaker 1: the crown. You know, I think about that a lot, Noel,
19:38
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like, to put it in modern context,
19:45
Speaker 1: it's kind of like how a friend comes back from
19:48
Speaker 1: a trip abroad and becomes momentarily insufferable, and you know,
19:54
Speaker 1: and so now this guy's like, oh, I went out,
19:57
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, what have you done to
19:59
Speaker 1: other barefoot carmelites. Well, I saw the Kingdom of California
20:04
Speaker 1: and it's the biggest island ever.
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Speaker 2: So that's my trip one hundred percent. Doesn't it also
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Speaker 2: just sound like a little bit like a big fishtail,
20:12
Speaker 2: you know, like this is certain and proven, the whole
20:16
Speaker 2: of the Kingdom of California discovered on this voyage. My thing,
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Speaker 2: the largest island. No man that has or ever will
20:22
Speaker 2: be discovered. Yeah, he doesn't saying that he does stay
20:24
Speaker 2: up to the present day. But it just I don't know.
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Speaker 2: It's got a certain rhetorical panache to it. Maybe the
20:30
Speaker 2: smacks of like, he does he really believe this or
20:32
Speaker 2: is he just talking a big game.
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Speaker 1: It's a bit self aggrandizing, uh diplomatically put and it
20:38
Speaker 1: is wild conjecture. However, it captures the public imagination, and
20:44
Speaker 1: starting in sixteen twenty two, so decades and decades after
20:48
Speaker 1: everybody said California is not an island, it starts to
20:53
Speaker 1: appear as an island on maps. You can find well
20:59
Speaker 1: over two hundred fifty examples of maps from the time
21:04
Speaker 1: period and shortly after it that appear to depict California
21:10
Speaker 1: as an island. Starting as we said back in sixteen
21:14
Speaker 1: twenty two, I.
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Speaker 2: Think that's the one I referenced with the really long
21:21
Speaker 2: Latin novo What is it nova novo totius trorum terrarum
21:29
Speaker 2: orbis sounds like a Harry Potter spell geographica ac or
21:32
Speaker 2: ac hydrographica tabula a classic. I've been watching the Harry
21:38
Speaker 2: Potter movies recently for the first time ever, not as
21:41
Speaker 2: bad as I thought, kind of entertaining. So also, like
21:43
Speaker 2: Harry Potter Gills on the Brain, how far are you
21:45
Speaker 2: into it? I am on the The Deathly Hallows Part two.
21:49
Speaker 2: I know you're gonna love it. Man good, I'm not joking. Man,
21:52
Speaker 2: I poo pooed them for years, and I actually think
21:55
Speaker 2: the movies get better. Actually they get much as the
21:58
Speaker 2: story gets more adult. But obviously JK. Rowling not a
22:02
Speaker 2: great person, No, not a favorite.
22:05
Speaker 1: And this is why we decided to make an episode
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Speaker 1: about our favorite maps that are incorrect. Starting with this,
22:14
Speaker 1: the game of telephone begins. All right, it's sixteen twenty two.
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Speaker 1: There's a guy who publishes a map. In sixteen twenty two.
22:23
Speaker 1: We know Pacific maritime trade is already a thing. So
22:28
Speaker 1: if you go as far as the early nineteenth century
22:35
Speaker 1: in Japan, you will see maps that argue California is
22:40
Speaker 1: an island, like all the way up to eighteen sixty five,
22:45
Speaker 1: well after California has become a state in the United
22:50
Speaker 1: States of America. Like everybody who lives there knows it's
22:55
Speaker 1: not an island, but everybody has heard from someone who
23:00
Speaker 1: is heard from someone who has it on a good
23:03
Speaker 1: authority that this place is an island, so the maps
23:07
Speaker 1: don't agree with the facts on the ground.
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Speaker 2: So part of the problem here was that the area
23:12
Speaker 2: in question was incredibly difficult to explore by either land
23:17
Speaker 2: or sea, which, as we mentioned at the top, is
23:19
Speaker 2: a key part of making maps correctly. Explorers in the
23:22
Speaker 2: region would often face really really harsh conditions, nasty weather,
23:28
Speaker 2: you know, running short on supplies, starvation, and of course disease.
23:34
Speaker 2: And this was a tall order because I mean there
23:37
Speaker 2: was a lot of hardship being faced for not a
23:41
Speaker 2: lot of return.
23:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the issue. They were selling a pretty wild pitch, right,
23:48
Speaker 1: And it turns out gold is not just falling in
23:50
Speaker 1: your hand rolling off a hill. It is still the
23:54
Speaker 1: real world and there are real problems. And there's one
23:59
Speaker 1: guy we want to introduce into the stage now. He's
24:03
Speaker 1: our protagonist for this episode, Max If we could get
24:07
Speaker 1: a drum roll, that's right, folks, the Jesuit missionary explorer
24:13
Speaker 1: and cartographer Lusimio Guino or causing for a cloth. All right, everybody,
24:23
Speaker 1: case sit down. Our guy, Keino is the dude or
24:29
Speaker 1: the European dude who definitively proves that California has a peninsula.
24:36
Speaker 1: It is not an island. And get this, folks, for
24:40
Speaker 1: the first like well more than one hundred years after
24:44
Speaker 1: he proves this, everybody is like, ah, shut up, you Jesuit,
24:49
Speaker 1: sit down, It might be an island.
24:59
Speaker 2: So this fellow arrived in Bahai in sixteen eighty one
25:03
Speaker 2: believing that California as a whole was a peninsula. This
25:08
Speaker 2: is what many folks in this guy generation were taught
25:13
Speaker 2: there in Ingle stopt But soon after he got to
25:17
Speaker 2: Mexico he saw with his own eyes something that indicated
25:23
Speaker 2: to him that it was in fact an island.
25:26
Speaker 1: He went back and forth right and then what did
25:29
Speaker 1: he see?
25:30
Speaker 2: His laughter.
25:34
Speaker 1: He had a conversation with a very charismatic guy, like
25:38
Speaker 1: the slap Chop guy or something.
25:40
Speaker 2: Maybe so yes, yes, the showtime.
25:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so the thing is, our buddy Keno sticks
25:47
Speaker 1: around the area, and the more he sees of the region,
25:52
Speaker 1: the more he starts to say, I don't know, doesn't
25:55
Speaker 1: look like an island to me. And because he is
26:00
Speaker 1: a Jesuit, he is deeply disciplined. He is of a
26:06
Speaker 1: religious school of thought that does not eschee science. So
26:11
Speaker 1: you have to learn the facts, is what he's thinking
26:15
Speaker 1: as a jesuit. So from sixteen ninety eight all the
26:20
Speaker 1: way up to seventeen oh one, he keeps building this
26:24
Speaker 1: case that California is indeed a peninsula. And we have
26:29
Speaker 1: a quote from him in this regard.
26:32
Speaker 2: Yes we do, and I am going to give you
26:34
Speaker 2: that quote. I have discovered, he says, with minute certainty
26:38
Speaker 2: and evidence, got another big game talker with mariners, compass
26:43
Speaker 2: and astrolabe in my hands, that California is not an
26:46
Speaker 2: island but a peninsula or an isthmus, which is a
26:50
Speaker 2: favorite geographical word of mine. And that in thirty two
26:53
Speaker 2: degrees of latitude there is a passage by land to California,
26:57
Speaker 2: and that only two about that point comes ahead of
27:00
Speaker 2: the Sea of California.
27:02
Speaker 1: All right, So after this guy says this, the European
27:05
Speaker 1: world still doesn't want to admit it. If you go
27:09
Speaker 1: to the big time publishers and map makers of the day,
27:13
Speaker 1: folks like Herman mal Moll, you'll see that they just
27:18
Speaker 1: dismiss it. This guy, who is by the way, incorrect
27:25
Speaker 1: in this quote. In seventeen eleven, he says, I've had
27:30
Speaker 1: my office mariners who have sailed around it, meaning the
27:35
Speaker 1: island of California, which cannot be accurate because California is
27:40
Speaker 1: not an island, and the colleagues, like his fellow Jesuits
27:46
Speaker 1: of Quino, they shrugged off his findings too. Eventually, some
27:51
Speaker 1: other Jesuits follow up on his work. One of these guys,
27:56
Speaker 1: Juan de Ugarte, travels up the Gulf of California as
28:01
Speaker 1: far as he can make it in seventeen twenty one,
28:05
Speaker 1: and then another Jesuit named Fernando consag he surveys the
28:10
Speaker 1: gulf completely in seventeen forty six. This is all before
28:15
Speaker 1: the United States is a thing. Now it becomes like
28:20
Speaker 1: a culture war, as weird as it is to say,
28:24
Speaker 1: King Ferdinand the seventh issues a royal decree to shut
28:29
Speaker 1: everybody up in seventeen forty seven.
28:32
Speaker 4: Quiet, quiet you, and he said, look officially, as the
28:38
Speaker 4: king with God given authority, California is not an island.
28:44
Speaker 4: So everybody you know, sit down, knock it off with
28:49
Speaker 4: all your yammer and get in line my kingly perspective.
28:54
Speaker 1: So this guy, the King Ferdinand, he is on the
29:00
Speaker 1: right side of history in only this respect. And the
29:05
Speaker 1: problem is people are still making maps and most of
29:09
Speaker 1: photography at this point in time, so far as we
29:13
Speaker 1: know is one person seeing a map and then copying
29:18
Speaker 1: that and making their own tweaks.
29:21
Speaker 2: And speaking of the game of telephone, I mean telephone
29:23
Speaker 2: is almost like too advanced of analogy here, because it
29:27
Speaker 2: was like word of mouth and things had to spread,
29:30
Speaker 2: you know, through written correspondence, and it would take a
29:33
Speaker 2: long time for the incorrect information to get filtered out.
29:36
Speaker 2: There is no real time response and like retractions, I
29:40
Speaker 2: mean you'd have like maybe you'd have isolated areas that
29:43
Speaker 2: like wouldn't even get the memo for many years, right exactly.
29:49
Speaker 1: You know, And that's why I think you nailed it.
29:53
Speaker 1: The legend of a thing will often out sell the
29:59
Speaker 1: u truth of the thing, right, That's the way to
30:02
Speaker 1: put it. So, this concept of California as an island
30:07
Speaker 1: is long gone. You can travel there now, Maxnoll and
30:11
Speaker 1: yours truly have often go on to California, and we
30:16
Speaker 1: love it. We have a studio out in La We
30:18
Speaker 1: have a ton of friends all throughout that state. However,
30:23
Speaker 1: now the idea of California as an island, since it
30:27
Speaker 1: was so widely published, now it is a fascinating thing
30:33
Speaker 1: for map collectors and fellow cartography nerds.
30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like misprinted currency. Like a lot of times,
30:40
Speaker 2: those kind of things are the holy grail for collectors, right,
30:45
Speaker 2: So that would make sense that this would definitely be
30:47
Speaker 2: highly collectible. And W. Michael Maths, who is a cartography historian, agrees.
30:55
Speaker 2: He refers to this depiction of California as possibly the
30:59
Speaker 2: most attractive phenomenon in the history of cartography, due entirely
31:04
Speaker 2: to its bizarreness, its connection with the romantic nature of exploration.
31:11
Speaker 2: And I think what it represents just in terms of
31:13
Speaker 2: like how outlandish speculation could thrive in this point in history.
31:20
Speaker 2: The perie Rees map has entered the chats, but we
31:23
Speaker 2: have your back, Mike. W. Mike, if we may be familiar,
31:28
Speaker 2: this calls back to this idea of outlandish speculation, take
31:33
Speaker 2: it as truth as long as enough people are repeated it.
31:39
Speaker 2: And maybe it's due to the fantastical writings of early
31:44
Speaker 2: European interloopers, California still has this mythical air about it
31:50
Speaker 2: to this day. If you look at it, like if
31:54
Speaker 2: we exercise empathy and we imagine we're back in the
31:57
Speaker 2: fifteen hundreds or the sixteen hundred, and we see every
32:02
Speaker 2: single map of this part of the world showing California
32:06
Speaker 2: as an island. Then it's not a bridge too far
32:11
Speaker 2: to think that. Hey, maybe that's true.
32:16
Speaker 1: And this is the beginning of a long journey because
32:20
Speaker 1: we've talked about maps on stuff they don't want you
32:23
Speaker 1: to know. We've talked about maps. When we were lost
32:26
Speaker 1: in the National Radio Quiet Zone. We desperately talked about
32:33
Speaker 1: maps on that road trips.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, we desperately. We were desperately seeking maps to load
32:39
Speaker 2: on our phones, but we couldn't. Luckily, I think our
32:41
Speaker 2: buddy Scott had like an old school Garman that did
32:46
Speaker 2: give us a little bit of relief in that case.
32:48
Speaker 2: It just goes to show you know, we rely on
32:51
Speaker 2: these little devices in our hands quite a.
32:54
Speaker 1: Lot, and we also know that there are more maps
32:59
Speaker 1: in the future. Sure, big, big things to you, fellow
33:01
Speaker 1: Ridiculous historians for tuning in. Big thanks to our super
33:05
Speaker 1: producer and research associate for this episode, mister Max Williams,
33:10
Speaker 1: who else, Noel?
33:11
Speaker 2: Who else? Who else? Well, Alex Williams who composed our theme,
33:15
Speaker 2: Chris Frasciotis and he's Jeff goes here in spirit Ualathu
33:17
Speaker 2: Strickland the quiztor. Hey j mohammas Jacobs the Puzzler.
33:22
Speaker 1: Now, I'm gonna let you slide on that nice thank
33:25
Speaker 1: you to the Quist.
33:27
Speaker 2: You know he knows what he did. He does know
33:29
Speaker 2: what he did. It's true, just like you say, any
33:31
Speaker 2: sort of insists upon himself, but we insist upon him
33:33
Speaker 2: as well.
33:34
Speaker 1: And we can't wait for you to insist upon your
33:38
Speaker 1: local podcast platform of.
33:40
Speaker 2: Please can't quit the quistor man, you can't quit the Quist.
33:43
Speaker 1: And if you find yourself on ye old internets, please
33:48
Speaker 1: feel free to give us a little rating, give us
33:52
Speaker 1: a little five star review if you feel in generous.
33:55
Speaker 1: I don't know how much people charge for stars these days,
34:00
Speaker 1: but we sure would appreciate it. Now we've got our
34:03
Speaker 1: super producer Max popping in on the chat to make
34:06
Speaker 1: some remarks.
34:07
Speaker 2: I imagine, gobble gobble.
34:10
Speaker 3: This is Thanksgiving episodes that I was gonna keep saying.
34:12
Speaker 1: Gobble gobble, and and with you as and with you
34:19
Speaker 1: as well, folks.
34:20
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. Yes, we'll see you next time,
34:23
Speaker 2: folks in Happy yeah, happy holiday season. Tough you. For
34:33
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