Spain would not revisit the area until 1769, returning with soldiers and missionaries. Along the way, the expedition visited numerous coastal villages, recording their names and population counts. Six days later the fleet sailed north along the uncharted California coast, visiting an array of islands that included Santa Cruz, Catalina and San Clemente. Four days later, the expedition reached “a very good enclosed port” Cabrillo named “San Miguel” (later known as San Diego Bay) after one of his ships. On June 24, 1542, Cabrillo sailed out of Navidad (near modern-day Manzanillo, Mexico) with his flagship and two other ships, the La Victoria and the San Miguel. Historians believe Cabrillo may have also taken an Indigenous woman as his mistress and sired several children. Cabrillo broke up Indigenous families by sending the men to work in the mines and turning over the women and girls to his soldiers and sailors, presumably as enslaved people. He benefited greatly from the encomienda system, an economic practice where Indigenous inhabitants of specific areas of land were highly subjugated and expected to pay tribute to Spanish authorities. From a port on Guatemala’s Pacific coast, Cabrillo facilitated the import and export of items to Spain and other regions of the New World. In the 1530s, Cabrillo made his fortune in gold mining. She returned to Guatemala with him and the couple had two sons. In 1532, he traveled to Spain where he met and married Beatriz Sanchez de Ortega, from Seville. Eventually, Cabrillo settled in Guatemala.
After the defeat of the Aztecs due to the decimation of the population from disease, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo joined Pedro de Alvarado's military expeditions into modern-day southern Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.
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