Pedro Fernandes de Queirós

Pedro Fernandes de Queirós was a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain who made two major voyages into the Pacific. Born in Évora, he sailed as chief pilot on Álvaro de Mendaña's expedition of 1595, which reached the Marquesas and Santa Cruz, and he brought the survivors to Manila after Mendaña's death. Convinced that a great southern continent lay to the west, he won royal support for a second expedition and in 1606 reached an island in what is now Vanuatu, which he named Austrialia del Espíritu Santo. He died in Panama around 1614 while preparing another voyage.