Your surmise is correct, Eric. The Indigenous peoples of the Baja California peninsula over thousands of years had become expert at living off the land, whether foraging, fishing or hunting. The early Spanish settlers, unfamiliar with the region, not so much. Even after the Jesuits had established agriculture on the peninsula, they were still reliant on supply ships to survive. As to the Manila-Acapulco galleons, some of the cargo went to markets in Mexico and some was sent overland to Veracruz and on to Spain. Exactly how much stayed and how much went to Spain is still debated. Thanks for reading!

In your article it says that Cortes lost 23 men to starvation, yet the Peninsula supported a population of 50,000 Pericu. It doesn’t seem like the Peninsula would support a large population of game animals, so would it be safe to assume that the Pericu were primarily fishermen, and possibly gatherers, and that Cortes, et al, were lousy fishermen and didn’t learn about the local edible plants?

On a different subject, when the Spanish galleons arrived in Acapulco, was their cargo offloaded and moved overland to Vera Cruz where it was reloaded and sent to Spain? Imagine the difficulties of keeping the cargo intact and salable after all that!