USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 14
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*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. III-144.
CHAPTER XI. REVOLUTIONS-THE HIJAR COLONISTS.
M ANUEL VICTORIA was appointed governor in March, 1830, but did not reach California until the last month of the year. Victoria very soon became un- popular. He undertook to overturn the civil authority and substitute military rule. He recommended the abolition of the ayunta- mientos and refused to call together the ter- ritorial diputacion. He exiled Don Abel Stearns and José Antonio Carrillo; and at dif- ferent times, on trumped-up charges, had half a hundred of the leading citizens of Los An- geles incarcerated in the pueblo jail. Alcalde Vicente Sanchez was the petty despot of the pueblo, who carried out the tyrannical decrees of his master, Victoria. Among others who were imprisoned in the cuartel was José Maria Avila. Avila was proud, haughty and over- bearing. He had incurred the hatred of both Victoria and Sanchez. Sanchez, under orders from Victoria, placed Avila in prison, and to humiliate him put him in irons. Avila brooded over the indignities inflicted upon him and vowed to be revenged.
Victoria's persecutions became so unbearable that Pio Pico, Juan Bandini and José Antonio Carrillo raised the standard of revolt at San Diego and issued a pronunciamento, in which they set forth the reasons why they felt them- selves obliged to rise against the tyrant, Vic- toria. Pablo de Portilla, comandante of the presidio of San Diego, and his officers, with a force of fifty soldiers, joined the revolutionists and marched to Los Angeles. Sanchez's pris- oners were released and he was chained up in the pueblo jail. Here Portilla's force was re- cruited to two hundred men. Avila and a num- ber of the other released prisoners joined the revolutionists, and all marched forth to meet Victoria, who was moving southward with an armed force to suppress the insurrection. The two forces met on the plains of Cahuenga, west of the pueblo, at a place known as the Lomitas de la Canada de Breita. The sight of his per- secutor so infuriated Avila that alone he rushed upon him to run him through with his lance. Captain Pacheco, of Victoria's staff, parried the lance thrust. Avila shot him dead with one of
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his pistols and again attacked the governor and succeeded in wounding him, when he himself received a pistol ball that unhorsed him. After a desperate struggle (in which he seized Vic- toria by the foot and dragged him from his horse) he was shot by one of Victoria's soldiers. Portilla's army fell back in a panic to Los An- geles and Victoria's men carried the wounded governor to the Mission San Gabriel, where his wounds were dressed by Joseph Chapman, who, to his many other accomplishments, added that of amateur surgeon. Some citizens who had taken no part in the fight brought the bodies of Avila and Pacheco to the town. "They were taken to the same house, the same hands rendered them the last sad rites, and they were laid side by side. Side by side knelt their widows and mingled their tears, while sympathizing countrymen chanted the solemn prayers of the church for the repose of the souls of these untimely dead. Side by side be- neath the orange and the olive in the little churchyard upon the plaza sleep the slayer and the slain."*
Next day, Victoria, supposing himself mor- tally wounded, abdicated and turned over the governorship of the territory to Echeandia. He resigned the office December 9, 1831, having been governor a little over ten months. When Victoria was able to travel he was sent to San Diego, from where he was deported to Mexico, San Diego borrowing $125 from the ayunta- miento of Los Angeles to pay the expense of shipping him out of the country. Several years afterwards the money had not been repaid, and the town council began proceedings to recover it, but there is no record in the archives to show that it was ever paid. And thus it was that California got rid of a bad governor and Los · Angeles incurred a bad debt.
January 10, 1832, the territorial legislature met at Los Angeles to choose a "gefe politico," or governor, for the territory. Echeandia was invited to preside but replied from San Juan Capistrano that he was busy getting Victoria out of the country. The diputacion, after wait- ing some time and receiving no satisfaction
from Echeandia whether he wanted the office or not, declared Pio Pico, by virtue of his office of senior vocal, "gefe politico."
No sooner had Pico been sworn into office than Echeandia discovered that he wanted the office and wanted it badly. He protested against the action of the diputacion and intrigued against Pico. Another revolution was threat- ened. Los Angeles favored Echeandia, al- though all the other towns in the territory had accepted Pico. (Pico at that time was a resi- dent of San Diego.) A mass meeting was called on February 12, 1832, at Los Angeles, to dis- cuss the question whether it should be Pico or Echeandia. I give the report of the meeting in the quaint language of the pueblo archives:
"The town, acting in accord with the Most Illustrious Ayuntamiento, answered in a loud voice, saying they would not admit Citizen Pio Pico as 'gefe politico,' but desired that Lieut .- Col. Citizen José Maria Echeandia be retained in office until the supreme government appoint. Then the president of the meeting, seeing the determination of the people, asked the motive or reason of refusing Citizen Pio Pico, who was of unblemished character. To this the people responded that while it was true that Citizen Pio Pico was to some extent qualified, yet they preferred Lieut .- Col. Citizen José M. Echean- dia. The president of the meeting then asked the people whether they had been bribed, or was it merely insubordination that they op- posed the resolution of the Most Excellent Di- putacion? Whereupon the people answered that they had not been bribed, nor were they insubordinate, but that they opposed the pro- posed 'gefe politico' because he had not been named by the supreme government."
At a public meeting February 19 the matter was again brought up. Again the people cried out "they would not recognize or obey any other gefe politico than Echeandia." The Most Illustrious Ayuntamiento opposed Pio Pico for two reasons: "First, because his name appeared first on the plan to oust Gefe Politico Citizen Manuel Victoria," and "Second, because he, Pico, had not sufficient capacity to fulfil the duties of the office." Then José Perez and José Antonio Carrillo withdrew from the meeting,
*Stephen C. Foster.
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saying they would not recognize Echeandia as "gefe politico." Pico, after holding the office for twenty days, resigned for the sake of peace. And this was the length of Pico's first term as governor.
Echeandia, by obstinacy and intrigue, had ob- tained the coveted office, "gefe politico," but he did not long enjoy it in peace. News came from Monterey that Capt. Agustin V. Zamo- rano had declared himself governor and was gathering a force to invade the south and en- force his authority. Echeandia began at once marshaling his forces to oppose him. Ybarra, Zamarano's military chief, with a force of one hundred men, by a forced march, reached Paso de Bartolo, on the San Gabriel river, where, fifteen years later, Stockton fought the Mexican troops under Flores. Here Ybarra found Cap- tain Borroso posted with a piece of artillery and fourteen men. He did not dare to attack him. Echeandia and Borroso gathered a force of a thousand neophytes at Paso de Bartolo, where they drilled them in military evolutions. Ybar- ra's troops had fallen back to Santa Barbara, where he was joined by Zamorano with rein- forcements. Ybarra's force was largely made up of ex-convicts and other undesirable characters, who took what they needed, asking no questions of the owners. The Angelenos, fearing those marauders, gave their adhesion to Zamorano's plan and recognized him as military chief of the territory. Captain Borroso, Echeandia's faith- ful adherent, disgusted with the fickleness of the Angelenos, at the head of a thousand mounted Indians, threatened to invade the re- calcitrant pueblo, but at the intercession of the frightened inhabitants this modern Coriolanus turned aside and regaled his neophyte retainers on the fat bullocks of the Mission San Gabriel, much to the disgust of the padres. The neo- phyte warriors were disbanded and sent to their respective missions.
A peace was patched up betwen Zamorano and Echeandia. Alta California was divided into two territories. Echeandia was given juris- diction over all south of San Gabriel and Zamo- rano all north of San Fernando. This division apparently left a neutral district, or "no man's land," between. Whether Los Angeles was in
this neutral territory the records do not show. If it was, it is probable that neither of the gov- ernors wanted the job of governing the rebel- lious pueblo.
In January, 1833, Governor Figueroa arrived in California. Echeandia and Zamorano each surrendered his half of the divided territory to the newly appointed governor, and California was united and at peace. Figueroa proved to be the right man for the times. He conciliated the factions and brought order out of chaos. The two most important events in Figueroa's term of office were the arrival of the Hijar Col- ony in California and the secularization of the missions. These events were most potent fac- tors in the evolution of the territory.
In 1833 the first California colonization scheme was inaugurated in Mexico. At the head of this was José Maria Hijar, a Mexican gentleman of wealth and influence. He was assisted in its promulgation by José M. Padres, an adventurer, who had been banished from California by Governor Victoria. Padres, like some of our modern real estate boomers, pic- tured the country as an earthly paradise-an improved and enlarged Garden of Eden. Among other inducements held out to the colo- nists, it is said, was the promise of a division among them of the mission property and a dis- tribution of the neophytes for servants.
Headquarters were established at the city of Mexico and two hundred and fifty colonists enlisted. Each family received a bonus of $10, and all were to receive free transporta- tion to California and rations while on the jour- ney. Each head of a family was promised a farm from the public domain, live stock and farming implements; these advances to be paid for on the installment plan. The orignal plan was to found a colony somewhere north of San Francisco bay, but this was not carried out. Two vessels were dispatched with the colonists -the Morelos and the Natalia. The latter was compelled to put into San Diego on account of sickness on board. She reached that port Sep- tember 1, 1834. A part of the colonists on board her were sent to San Pedro and from there they were taken to Los Angeles and San Gabriel. The Morelos reached Monterey Sep-
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tember 25. Hijar had been appointed governor of California by President Farias, but after the sailing of the expedition, Santa Ana, who had succeeded Farias, dispatched a courier over- land with a countermanding order. By one of the famous rides of history, Amador, the courier, made the journey from the city of Mexico to Monterey in forty days and delivered his mes- sage to Governor Figueroa. When Hijar ar- rived he found to his dismay that he was only a private citizen of the territory instead of its governor. The colonization scheme was aban- doned and the immigrants distributed them- selves throughout the territory. Generally they were a good class of citizens, and many of them became prominent in California affairs.
That storm center of political disturbances, Los Angeles, produced but one small revolution during Figueroa's term as governor. A party of fifty or sixty Sonorans, some of whom were Hijar colonists who were living either in the town or its immediate neighborhood, assembled at Los Nietos on the night of March 7, 1835. They formulated a pronunciamiento against Don José Figueroa, in which they first vigor- ously arraigned him for sins of omission and commission and then laid down their plan of government of the territory. Armed with this formidable document and a few muskets and lances, these patriots, headed by Juan Gallado, a cobbler, and Felipe Castillo, a cigarmaker, in the gray light of the morning, rode into the pueblo, took possession of the town hall and the big cannon and the ammunition that had
been stored there when the Indians of San Luis Rey had threatened hostilities. The slumbering inhabitants were aroused from their dreams of peace by the drum beat of war. The terrified citizens rallied to the juzgado, the ayuntamiento met, the cobbler statesman, Gallado, presented his plan; it was discussed and rejected. The revolutionists, after holding possession of the pueblo throughout the day, tired, hungry and disappointed in not receiving their pay for sav- ing the country, surrendered to the legal author- ities the real leaders of the revolution and disbanded. The leaders proved to be Torres, a clerk, and Apalategui, a doctor, both supposed to be emissaries of Hijar. They were imprisoned at San Gabriel. When news of the revolt reached Figueroa he had Hijar and Padres ar- rested for complicity in the outbreak. Hijar, with half a dozen of his adherents, was shipped back to Mexico. And thus the man who the year before had landed in California with a commission as governor and authority to take possession of all the property belonging to the missions returned to his native land an exile. His grand colonization scheme and his "Com- pania Cosmopolitana" that was to revolutionize California commerce were both disastrous fail- ures.
Governor José Figueroa died at Monterey on the 29th of September, 1835. He is generally regarded as the best of the Mexican governors sent to California. He was of Aztec extraction and took a great deal of pride in his Indian blood.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MISSIONS.
T HE Franciscan Missions of Alta Califor- nia have of late been a prolific theme for a certain class of writers and espe- cially have they dwelt upon the secularization of these establishments. Their productions have added little or nothing to our previous knowledge of these institutions. Carried away by sentiment these writers draw pictures of mis- sion life that are unreal, that are purely imag-
inary, and aroused to indignation at the injus- tice they fancy was done to their ideal institu- tions they deal out denunciations against the authorities that brought about secularization as unjust as they are undeserved. Such expres- sions as "the robber hand of secularization," and "the brutal and thievish disestablishment of the missions," emanate from writers who seem to be ignorant of the purpose for which the mis-
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sions were founded, and who ignore, or who do not know, the causes which brought about their secularization.
It is an historical fact known to all acquainted with California history that these establishments were not intended by the Crown of Spain to become permanent institutions. The purpose for which the Spanish government fostered and protected them was to Christianize the Indians and make of them self-supporting citizens. Very early in its history, Governor Borica, Fages and other intelligent Spanish officers in California discovered the weakness of the mission system. Governor Borica, writing in 1796, said: "Ac- cording to the laws the natives are to be free from tutelage at the end of ten years, the mis- sions then becoming doctrinairs, but those of New California, at the rate they are advancing, will not reach the goal in ten centuries; the rea- son God knows, and men, too, know something about it."
The tenure by which the mission friars held their lands is admirably set forth in William Carey Jones' "Report on Land Titles in Cali- fornia," made in 1850. He says, "It had been supposed that the lands they (the missions) oc- cupied were grants held as the property of the church or of the misson establishments as cor- porations. Such, however, was not the case; all the missions in Upper California were estab- lished under the direction and mainly at the expense of the government, and the missionaries there had never any other right than to the occupation and use of the lands for the purpose of the missions and at the pleasure of the gov- ernment. This is shown by the history and principles of their foundation, by the laws in relation to them, by the constant practice of the government toward them and, in fact, by the rules of the Franciscan order, which forbid its members to possess property."
With the downfall of Spanish domination in Mexico came the beginning of the end of mis- sionary rule in California. The majority of the mission padres were Spanish born. In the war of Mexican independence their sympathies were with their mother country, Spain. After Mex- ico attained her independence, some of them refused to acknowledge allegiance to the repub- 7
lic. The Mexican authorities feared and dis- trusted them. In this, in part, they found a pre- text for the disestablishment of the missions and the confiscation of the mission estates. There was another cause or reason for secularization more potent than the loyalty of the padres to Spain. Few forms of land monopoly have ever exceeded that in vogue under the mission system of California. From San Diego to San Fran- cisco bay the twenty missions established under Spanish rule monopolized the greater part of the fertile land between the coast range and the sea. The limits of one mission were said to cover the intervening space to the limits of the next. There was but little left for other settlers. A settler could not obtain a grant of land if the padres of the nearest mission objected.
The twenty-four ranchos owned by the Mis- sion San Gabriel contained about a million and a half acres and extended from the sea to the San Bernardino mountains. The greatest neophyte population of San Gabriel was in 1817, when it reached 1,701. Its yearly average for the first three decades of the present century did not exceed 1,500. It took a thousand acres of fertile land under the mission system to sup- port an Indian, even the smallest papoose of the mission flock. It is not strange that the people clamored for a subdivision ofthe mission estates; and secularization became a public necessity. The most enthusiastic admirer of the missions to-day, had he lived in California seventy years ago, would no doubt have been among the loud- est in his wail against the mission system.
The abuse heaped upon the Mexican authori- ties for their secularization of these institutions is as unjust as it is unmerited. The act of the Mexican Congress of August 17, 1833, was not the initiative movement towards their dis- establishment. Indeed in their foundation their secularization, their subdivision into pueblos, was provided for and the local authorities were never without lawful authority over them. . In the very beginning of missionary work in Alta California the process of secularizing the mis- sion establishments was mapped out in the fol- lowing "Instructions given by Viceroy Bucarili August 17, 1773, to the comandante of the new establishments of San Diego and Monterey.
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Article 15, when it shall happen that a mission is to be formed into a pueblo or village the comandante will proceed to reduce it to the civil and economical government, which, according to the laws, is observed by other villages of this kingdom; their giving it a name and declaring for its patron the saint under whose memory and protection the mission was founded."
The purpose for which the mission was founded was to aid in the settlement of the country, and to convert the natives to Christian- ity. "These objects accomplished the mission- ary's labor was considered fulfilled and the es- tablishment subject to dissolution. This view of their purpose and destiny fully appears in the tenor of the decree of the Spanish Cortes of September 13, 1813. It was passed in conse- quence of a complaint by the Bishop of Guiana of the evils that affected that province on ac- count of the Indian settlements in charge of missions not being delivered to the ecclesiastical ordinary, although thirty, forty and fifty years had passed since the reduction and conversion of the Indians."
The Cortes decreed Ist, that all the new reduciones y doctrinairs (settlements of newly converted Indians) not yet formed into parishes of the province beyond the sea which were in charge of missionary monks and had been ten years subjected should be delivered immediately to the respective ecclesiastical ordinaries (bish- ops) without resort to any excuse or pretext conformably to the laws and cedulas in that respect. Section 2nd, provided that the secular clergy should attend to the spiritual wants of these curacies. Section 3rd, the missionary monks relieved from the converted settlements shall proceed to the conversion of other heathen."
The decree of the Mexican Congress, passed November 20, 1833, for the secularization of the missions of Upper and Lower California, was very similar in its provisions to the decree of the Spanish Cortes of September, 1813. The Mex- ican government simply followed the example of Spain and in the conversion of the missions into pueblos was attempting to enforce a prin-
ciple inherent in the foundation of the mission- ary establishments. That secularization resulted disastrously to the Indians was not the fault of the Mexican government so much as it was the defect in the industrial and intellectual training of the neophytes. Except in the case of those who were trained for choir services in the churches there was no attempt made to teach the Indians to read or write. The padres generally entertained a poor opinion of the neophytes' intellectual ability. The reglamento governing the secularization of the missions, published by Governor Echeandia in 1830, but not enforced, and that formulated by the diputa- cion under Governor Figueroa in 1834,approved by the Mexican Congress and finally enforced in 1834-5-6, were humane measures. These reg- ulations provided for the colonization of the neophytes into pueblos or villages. A portion of the personal property and a part of the lands held by the missions were to be distributed among the Indians as follows:
"Article 5-To each head of a family and all who are more than twenty years old, although without families, will be given from the lands of the mission, whether temporal (lands depend- ent on the seasons) or watered, a lot of ground not to contain more than four hundred varas (yards) in length, and as many in breadth not less than one hundred. Sufficient land for water- ing the cattle will be given in common. The outlets or roads shall be marked out by each vil- lage, and at the proper time the corporation lands shall be designated." This colonization of the neophytes into pueblos would have thrown large bodies of the land held by the mis- sions open to settlement by white settlers. The personal property of missionary establishments was to have been divided among their neophyte retainers thus: "Article 6. Among the said in- dividuals will be distributed, ratably and justly, according to the discretion of the political chief, the half of the movable property, taking as a basis the last inventory which the missionaries have presented of all descriptions of cattle. Arti- cle 7. One-half or less of the implements and seeds indispensable for agriculture shall be al- lotted to thema."
The political government of the Indian pu-
*William Carey Jones' Report.
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eblos was to be organized in accordance with existing laws of the territory governing other towns. The neophyte could not sell, mortgage or dispose of the land granted him; nor could he sell his cattle. The regulations provided that "Religious missionaries shall be relieved from the administration of temporalities and shall only exercise the duties of their ministry so far as they relate to spiritual matters." The nunner- ies or the houses where the Indian girls were kept under the charge of a duena until they were of marriageable age were to be abolished and the children restored to their parents. Rule 7 provided that "What is called the 'priest- hood' shall immediately cease, female children whom they have in charge being handed over to their fathers, explaining to them the care they should take of them, and pointing out their obligations as parents. The same shall be done with the male children."
Commissioners were to be appointed to take charge of the mission property and superintend its subdivision among the neophytes. The con- version of ten of the missionary establishments into pueblos was to begin in August, 1835. That of the others was to follow as soon as possible. San Gabriel, San Fernando and San Juan Capis- trano were among the ten that were to be secularized first. For years secularization had threatened the missions, but hitherto something had occurred at the critical time to avert it. The missionaries had used their influence against it, had urged that the neophytes were unfitted for self-support, had argued that the emancipation of the natives from mission rule would result in disaster to them. Through all the agitation of the question in previous years the padres had labored on in the preservation and upbuilding of their establishments; but with the issuing of the secularization decree by the Mexican Congress, August 17, 1833, the or- ganization of the Hijar Colony in Mexico and the instructions of acting president Farias to Hijar to occupy all the property of the missions and subdivide it among the colonists on their arrival in California, convinced the missionaries that the blow could no longer be averted. The revocation of Hijar's appointment as governor and the controversy which followed between
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