Wasn’t it the Spanish practice to treat geographical knowledge of the Pacific as a state secret, so as to maintain their competitive advantage against the other European maritime powers?
It seems hard to believe that they wouldn’t have stumbled on the Hawaiian Islands at some point.
I don't think that the practice was exclusive to the Spanish, but I think you are correct. The Spanish Admiralty has maintained a lot of archival material dating to this period. Wonder if anybody has checked?
There is an annoying tendency among those of us in the Northern European tradition to demean the Spanish maritime tradition. Ditto the Portuguese and French. These guys were out there. I think it at least possible they knew there were islands there, perhaps visited them, but otherwise had little interest in them. On top of that, they probably didn't want anyone else setting up shop there, either.
Wasn’t it the Spanish practice to treat geographical knowledge of the Pacific as a state secret, so as to maintain their competitive advantage against the other European maritime powers?
It sure was! However it was only the Spanish who had the trade network from the Far East to their ports in Mexico, and South America. Everyone else, particularly the Dutch, were more interested in going toward Europe.