LuÃs Vaz de Torres
Luis Vaez de Torres ( * 1565, † 1610) was a navigator and explorer in the service of Spain. Its origin is unknown to date. ( He was either Portuguese or descended from Galicia. )
In the expedition under Pedro Fernández de Quirós in 1605 from Peru Torres commanded the second ship San Pedrico and discovered along with numerous islands Quiros. In October 1606, the paths between Torres and Quiros parted. Torres sailed to the southern coast of New Guinea, he explored first. Another objective was the strait between New Guinea and the northern tip of Australia, which he passed first. The Dutchman Willem Jansz, who sailed about six months before Torres with the Duyfken in this area assumed that the Australian Cape York Peninsula, where he had landed, one of New Guinea. The strait was therefore named in honor of Erstdurchseglers Torres Strait Islands and the Torres Strait Islands.
His collected reports were for a long time by the Spanish colonizers kept secret until the British captured it in 1762 after the conquest of Manila. The Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple realized the importance of documents and published Torres ' discovery in his work on the South Pacific explorations. One reason for the initial failure to comply with Torres ' recent discoveries may have been the fact that he reached in March 1607 Manila, died three years later and never reached, according to the documents Peru and Spain.