The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a locale situated in the south of Mexico, is the briefest distance between the Atlantic and Pacific seas in all the country. Just 220 kilometers separate the two seas. In the main portion of the sixteenth century, Spanish heroes put extraordinary exertion into finding a waterway that would interface the two seas. This meant that during the sixteenth century triumph investigations, this area was used as a link between maritime entry and overland travel.
This data is the consequence of the paper “The Guide of the Coatzacoalcos Stream (1580): The Main Map Making of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,” a review distributed in The Cartographic Diary and led by teacher Manuel Morato Moreno, from the Higher Specialized School of Designing (ETSI), and emeritus teacher José Mara Gentil Baldrich.
The interest of the Spanish government in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
In 1580, the city chairman of Coatzacoalcos got an order from the Spanish crown to find various parts of the foreign regions, for example, the geology, geography, place names, native dialects, plants, and so on. He thusly charged a guide to depict the geology of the locale, showing the geographic elements, towns, and correspondence courses. For this, he had the help of Francisco Gali, a Spanish mariner bridging these grounds en route to the Pacific coast.
The investigation of this area between the “North Ocean” and the “South Ocean” had been, since the victory of Mesoamerica, fixed on the personalities of the Spanish government and their agents. Charles V made this task one of the necessary missions of the pioneers whose goal was to interface the realm of New Spain with the realm of Peru. Hernán Cortés was likewise involved in it in 1520 to move gear, stores, and supplies.
Examination of the guide
An examination of the guide suggests that it was made carelessly. Both the blunders in distance and the various remedies which can in any case be noticed help this guess. It appears to be that Francisco Gali was more intrigued, according to his perspective as a pioneer and pilot, by the main part of the area: the chance of interfacing the North Ocean and the South Ocean through the Waterway of Tehuantepec.
Francisco Gali was a guide, cosmographer, and mapmaker.
Francisco Gali, born in Seville in 1539, is a solitary and cryptic person. Scarcely any data exists about him before his appearance in America. Despite the couple of guides found that were drawn by Gali (two marked and a third credited to him), the memorable records allude to him as a specialist sailor, in addition to as a gifted map maker and cosmographer.
More information: Manuel Morato-Moreno et al, The Map of the Coatzacoalcos River (1580): The First Cartography of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, The Cartographic Journal (2022). DOI: 10.1080/00087041.2021.1995126
