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Cabo San Lucas History
Hernan Cortez had been told that a island only a few days away had been found and was rich with gold. To Cortez it sounded like the island he had heard of called California. So, he thought it a good idea to check it out.
In 1535, with three boats and over 600 men and women, Cortez landed on what is now called Playa Santa Cruz. Cortez quickly realized there was no gold and shortly after he sailed south.
Not long later one of Cortez's navigators found Cabo San Lucas, it was in 1537. They found pearls in the water and they promptly set up a pearl fishing colony. Cortez's navigator thought he was going to become a rich man but, that didn't happen. It turns out there weren't that many pearls. He did however find lots of Indians. Cortez's navigator did however get the chance to well document the Mar de Cortez. During that period, the Spanish had found a route that they were using to transport goods. The pirates had started to take their gold and silver when they went by Cabo San Lucas. There are many pirate stories around in Los Cabos. Some are true. One that is true is that Thomas Cavendish beat the ship Santa Ana off Cabo San Lucas in 1587.Joris van Spilbergen was the most famous of the privates of this time, although he was originally thought just to be an explorer for the Dutch. He would sail up and down the coast line raiding every ship that went by. The Spanish we obviously not very happy about what was going on with their ships, so they had Jesuit group head to what they called California, and asked them to try and convert these people to Christians. They figured that if the Jesuits could convert everyone this would calm down all the pirates. The Spanish thought for sure this would work. Unfortunately it didn't, the Indians were not happy, the pirates were still doing their thing and nothing had changed. Eventually in 1734 people got annoyed and they chased the Jesuits from the Cabo San Lucas area.
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Then there was a time in which the Mexicans and the Americans were fighting over this area. In the end the Americans basically told them to keep it because there were no resources and no gold. Now today we have the areas of Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo and in between the Tourist Corridor and in short this is their history.