Hernán Cortés discovered the Baja California Peninsula

Hernán Cortés set sail in the spring of 1535 for an island he believed to be "rich in pearls and gold" and "populated by women, without a single mate." When the conquistador arrived in Santa Cruz with a group of settlers on May 3, he established the town and set about searching for his spoils. Cortés, it turned out, was not on an island. Instead, he landed on what is now known as the Baja California peninsula, beginning the colonization of California more than 250 years before the founding of San Diego in 1769.

Santa Cruz would not last long. More than 20 colonists died of starvation on the desert coast, and the settlement's problems were exacerbated by a hostile reception from the peninsula's native inhabitants. Within two years, the colony, which was located in what is now La Paz, was abandoned.

W. Michael Mathes' The Conquistador in California, one of several books on display inside USC's Doheny Memorial Library as part of an exhibition honoring Mathes '62, a historian who died in August, tells the story of Cortés' misadventure.

Mathes, an award-winning author, editor, and translator, was widely regarded as a leading authority on the history of Baja California. Barbara Robinson, director of the USC Libraries' Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, who previously collaborated with Mathes and organized the exhibition, compared him to another distinguished historian with USC ties. Robinson described him as "the Kevin Starr of Baja California." Like his book on Cortés, Mathes' work on the exploration and colonization of the Californias demonstrated that "history did not just begin at our southern border."