PADRES AND SWAMPLAND
By Gordon O’Hara Robbins

Franciscan or Dominican padres on our coast before Columbus’ time and a Banderas Bay that was swampland less then 500 years ago? There is evidence contained in the journals of Francisco Cortés de San Buenaventura, the nephew of Hernan Cortés who led an expedition exploring this region as far north as Mazatlan from 1523 to 1531, indicating both these assertions are true.
Not true, say historians who acknowledge that Columbus was not the first to discover the New World but maintain that earlier European-based voyagers made the discovery.
Not true about the bay, say geologists and scientists who have studied the topography of the ocean floor and the sea life here. There was an upheaval here, they say, but not that recently.
Both true, say others, including descendants of the Indians who have inhabited this region for over 2,000 years.

Walk to Yelapa in one day? Impossible! Yet this writer has been told the journals of Cortés de San Buenaventura detail a 1531 trek from the area of Punta de Mita to Yelapa across swampland and bogs in just that—one day!

Cortés de San Buenaventura’s journals are preserved in a special collection at Bancroft Hall at the University of California library at Berkeley and, while this writer has not seen them, others who have assure me this is true. The journals supposedly record that Cortés de San Buenaventura and his fellow Spaniards were guided by horseback across this swampland by Indians wearing the brown robes and sporting the haircuts of Franciscan or Dominican padres. When the Indians were asked why they were dressed like that, the journals report that they explained, “ . . . In the time of our forefathers pale skinned men dressed like this came here and told us that if we ever encountered pale skinned men in the future that if we were dressed like this we would not be harmed.” Carlos Mungia, Puerto Vallarta’s official historian for several years, confirms one aspect of this: in earlier times the Indians along the coast south of here were nicknamed “The Franciscans” because of their garb and friar-like haircuts. However, the time period in which they were given this nickname is uncertain.

The Indians led the Cortés expedition to the bay at Yelapa and then inland along the El Tuito River to El Tuito, 46 kilometers south of here on the Pan American Highway and today the principal city of the Municipio de Cabo Corrientes. There Cortés was allowed to set up headquarters and his soldiers began searching for the huge gold and silver deposits believed plentiful in the vast mountain ranges of the Municipio.
I have talked with natives of the remote villages of the Cabo Corrientes coast who express surprise that the rest of the world is not aware that the padres were here, probably as early as the 1360s. That is when authenticated records show that Portuguese Dominicans launched Pacific Ocean exploratory vessels from Indonesia. Some of these ships did not return and any Pacific sailor will tell you that the prevailing easterly winds and currents would carry such small vessels south through the straits of Borneo and eastward, directly to the Cabo Corrientes coast.

Elders in one remote village, Aquilles Serdan, also told this writer of icons and gold statues brought by the padres which have now been hidden away because of a robbery from one of their churches seven years ago. The elders believe the thieves were from Guadalajara.
If one lays out a map of our bay one fact becomes obvious. The actual straight-line distance from Punta de Mita to Yelapa is only 16-18 kilometers, an easy day’s march for mounted riders!
In the neighborhoods south of the Rio Cuale huge mangrove trees hundred of years old can be found growing as far as 10 blocks inland, lending further credence to the swampland assertion. Scuba divers will tell you that the “islands” offshore here are really the peaks of mountains that, at some point in the past, dropped below sea level.

There is additional evidence that some type of cataclysmic event occurred in this region in the 1500s, although this applies to land further inland.
Mascota, a mountain pueblo on a plateau high in the Sierra Madres some 100 kilometers due east of Puerto Vallarta, was originally founded in the early 1520s, according to documents in the possession of Dr. Alberto Velasco in Tomatlan. Dr. Velasco says, and two Mascota residents from old families have confirmed, that the first pueblo was destroyed by a volcanic eruption and the pueblo relocated in the early 1540s. This writer has visited the region several times and viewed evidence of ancient lava flows.
North of here and somewhat inland in the state of Nayarit there is an area known as “Ceboroco” where massive lava flows from a 1915 volcanic eruption can be viewed, according to local ecologist and businessman Ron Walker.

Geologists and scientists do acknowledge that there is a “hot spot” in the ocean inside the bay just 200 meters off Esteladeros beach near Punta de Mita where University of Guadalajara scientists have recorded water temperatures two degrees below boiling on the centigrade scale, indisputable evidence of undersea thermal activity. At Ixtapa on the northeastern edge of Puerto Vallarta there are hot springs, further evidence of underground thermal activity here and at Compostella, on the “old” road to Guadalajara, a “dead” volcano is a tourist attraction.

The history of the Cortés exploration has been distorted by myths and legends presented as truth in six books written by Friar Antonio Tello in the 1560s about early Spanish exploration of this region. Modern historians, including the well-known Herbert Mountjoy, criticize Tello for overlooking factual information available in the letters and journals of the explorers themselves. Yet much of what Tello has written is accepted as truth today; whereas, the factual records gather dust in libraries and archives here, in the U.S.A. and in Spain.