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Spanish Exploration
The Age of Exploration for the Spanish began with visits to the Americas, including Panama and South America. The Spanish and Portuguese arrived in South America at semi-different times, and while known as the Papal Line of Demarcation, negotiations did not involve the Pope of the times. The Papal Line of Demarcation divided South America into two parts Portuguese Brazil and Spanish everywhere else.
The first people to document Kosrae, were of course, the first inhabitants known as the Kosraeans who remained and retained the information for their use; however, the Spanish noted the island on their maps as they passed on to Fais, Ulithi, and Yap, which are part of contemporary Federated States of Micronesia. Today's island of Kosrae was first placed on a European map as San Barthelemeo de Loyala in 1526, according to Adelbert von Chamisso (Beardsley 2003:26; Ritter and Ritter 1982).
In 1529, the Spanish Captain Alvaro de Saavedra of the ship the Florida recorded the island's location and did not name it.
Beardsley, Felicia
2003 Safonfok, Kosrae: Emergency of Complexity. University of California, Riverside.
Ritter and Ritter
1982 the European Discovery of Kosrae Island: Accounts by Louis Isidore Duperrey, Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont D'Urville, Rene Primevere Lesson, Fyedor Lutke, and Friedrich Heinrich von Kittlitz. Micronesian Archaeological Survey Report Nr. 13. Historic Preservation Office, U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Saipan.