Isabel Barreto

The woman who inherited command of a Pacific expedition by testament. Dying at Santa Cruz in October 1595, the adelantado Álvaro de Mendaña left doña Isabel Barreto universal heir and named her governor, using a royal cédula that let him name whomever he wished; she brought the one surviving ship to the Philippines. Almost everything known about how she exercised that command comes from the party of the chief pilot who quarrelled with her.