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 18
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The few wealthy people in the territory dressed well, even extravagantly. Robinson de- scribes the dress of Tomas Yorba, a wealthy ranchero of the Upper Santa Ana, as he saw him in 1829: "Upon his head he wore a black silk handkerchief, the four corners of which hung down his neck behind. An embroidered shirt; a cravat of white jaconet, tastefully tied; a blue damask vest; short clothes of crimson velvet; a bright green cloth jacket, with large
silver buttons, and shoes of embroidered deer- skin composed his dress. I was afterwards in- formed by Don Manuel (Dominguez) that on some occasions, such as some particular feast day or festival, his entire display often exceeded in value a thousand dollars."
"The dress worn by the middle class of fe- males is a chemise, with short embroidered sleeves, richly trimmed with lace; a muslin pet- ticoat, flounced with scarlet and secured at the waist by a silk band of the same color; shoes of velvet or blue satin; a cotton reboso or scarf; pearl necklace and earrings; with hair falling in broad plaits down the back."* After 1834 the men generally adopted calzoneras instead of the knee breeches or short clothes of the last cen- tury.
"The calzoneras were pantaloons with the ex- terior seam open throughout its length. On the upper edge was a strip of cloth, red, blue or black, in which were buttonholes. On the other edge were eyelet holes for buttons. In some cases the calzonera was sewn from hip to the middle of the thigh; in others, buttoned. From the middle of the thigh downward the leg was covered by the bota or leggins, used by every one, whatever his dress." The short jacket, with silver or bronze buttons, and the silken sash that served as a connecting link between the calzoneras and the jacket, and also supplied the place of what the Californians did not wear, suspenders, this constituted a picturesque cos- tume, that continued in vogue until the con- quest, and with many of the natives for years after. "After 1834 the fashionable women of Cal- ifornia exchanged their narrow for more flowing garments and abandoned the braided hair for the coil and the large combs till then in use for smaller combs."t
For outer wraps the serapa for men and the rebosa for women were universally worn. The texture of these marked the social standing of the wearer. It ranged from cheap cotton and coarse serge to the costliest silk and the finest French broadcloth. The costume of the neo- phyte changed but once in centuries, and that
*Robinson, Life in California.
+Bancroft's Pastoral California.
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was when he divested himself of his coat of mud and smear of paint and put on the mission shirt and breech clout. Shoes he did not wear and in time his feet became as hard as the hoofs of an animal. The dress of the mission women consisted of a chemise and a skirt; the dress of the children was a shirt and sometimes even this was dispensed.
Filial obedience and respect for parental au- thority were early impressed upon the minds of the children. The commandment, "Honor thy father and mother," was observed with an ori- ental devotion. A child was never too old or too large to be exempt from punishment. Stephen C. Foster used to relate an amusing story of a case of parental disciplining he once saw at Los Angeles. An old lady, a grandmother, was be- laboring, with a barrel stave, her son, a man thirty years of age. The son had done some- thing of which the mother did not approve. She sent for him to come over to the maternal home to receive his punishment. He came. She took him out to the metaphorical woodshed, which, in this case, was the portico of her house, where she stood him up and proceeded to administer corporal punishment. With the resounding thwacks of the stave, she would exclaim, "I'll teach you to behave yourself." "I'll mend your manners, sir." "Now you'll be good, won't you?" The big man took his punishment with- out a thought of resisting or rebelling. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. It brought back feel- ingly and forcibly a memory of his boyhood days.
In the earlier years of the republic, before revolutionary ideas had perverted the usages of the Californians, great respect was shown to those in authority, and the authorities were strict in requiring deference from their constit- uents. In the Los Angeles archives of 1828 are the records of an impeachment trial of Don Antonio Maria Lugo, held to depose him from the office of judge of the plains. The principal duty of such a judge was to decide cases of dis- puted ownership of horses and cattle. Lugo seems to have had an exalted idea of the dignity of his office. Among the complaints presented at the trial was one from young Pedro Sanchez, in which he testified that Lugo had tried to ride
his horse over him in the street because he, Sanchez, would not take off his hat to the juez del campo and remain standing uncovered while the judge rode past. Another complainant at the same trial related how at a rodeo Lugo ad- judged a neighbor's boy guilty of contempt of court because the boy gave him an impertinent answer, and then he proceeded to give the boy an unmerciful whipping. So heinous was the offense in the estimation of the judge that the complainant said, "had not Lugo fallen over a chair he would have been beating the boy yet."
Under Mexican domination in California there was no tax levied on land and improve- ments. The municipal funds of the pueblos were obtained from revenue on wine and brandy; from the licenses of saloons and other business houses; from the tariff on imports; from per- mits to give balls or dances; from the fines of transgressors, and from the tax on bull rings and cock pits. Then men's pleasures and vices paid the cost of governing. In the early '40S the city of Los Angeles claimed a population of two thousand, yet the municipal revenues rarely exceeded $1,000 a year. With this small amount the authorities ran a city government and kept out of debt. It did not cost much to run a city government then. There was no army of high- salaried officials with a horde of political heelers quartered on the municipality and fed from the public crib at the expense of the taxpayer. Poli- ticians may have been no more honest then than now, but where there was nothing to steal there was no stealing. The alcaldes and regi- dores put no temptation in the way of the poli- ticians, and thus they kept them reasonably honest, or at least they kept them from plunder- ing the taxpayers by the simple expedient of having no taxpayers.
The functions of the various departments of the municipal governments were economically administered. Street cleaning and lighting were performed at individual expense instead of pub- lic. There was an ordinance in force in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara and probably in , other municipalities that required each owner of . a house every Saturday to sweep and clean in front of his premises to the middle of the street. His neighbor on the opposite side met him half
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way, and the street was swept without expense to the pueblo. There was another ordinance that required each owner of a house of more that two rooms on a main street to hang a lighted lantern in front of his door from twilight to eight o'clock in winter and to nine in sum- mer. There were fines for neglect of these duties.
There was no fire department in the pueblos. The adobe houses with their clay walls, earthen floors, tiled roofs and rawhide doors were as nearly fireproof as any human habitation could he made. The cooking was done in detached
kitchens and in beehive-shaped ovens without flues. The houses were without chimneys, so the danger from fire was reduced to a minimum. A general conflagration was something un- known in the old pueblo days of California.
There was no paid police department. Every able-bodied young man was subject to military duty. A volunteer guard or patrol was kept on duty at the cuartels or guard houses. The guards policed the pueblos, but they were not paid. Each young man had to take his turn at guard duty.
CHAPTER XVI.
TERRITORIAL EXPANSION BY CONQUEST.
T HE Mexican war marked the beginning by the United States of territorial ex- pansion by conquest. "It was," says General Grant, "an instance of a republic fol- lowing the bad example of European mon- archies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." The "additional territory" was needed for the creation of slave states. The southern politicians of the extreme pro-slavery school saw in the rapid settlement of the northwestern states the downfall of their domination and the doom of their beloved insti- tution, slavery. Their peculiar institution could not expand northward and on the south it had reached the Mexican boundary. The only way of acquiring new territory for the extension of slavery on the south was to take it by force from the weak Republic of Mexico. The annexation of Texas brought with it a disputed boundary line. The claim to a strip of country between the Rio Nueces and the Rio Grande furnished a convenient pretext to force Mexico to hostili- ties. Texas as an independent state had never exercised jurisdiction over the disputed terri- tory. As a state of the Union after annexation she could not rightfully lay claim to what she never possessed, but the army of occupation took possession of it as United States property, and the war was on. In the end we acquired a large slice of Mexican territory, but the irony
of fate decreed that not an acre of its soil should be tilled by slave labor.
The causes that led to the acquisition of Cali- fornia antedated the annexation of Texas and the invasion of Mexico. After the adoption of liberal colonization laws by the Mexican gov- ernment in 1824, there set in a steady drift of Americans to California. At first they came by sea, but after the opening of the overland route in 1841 they came in great numbers by land. It was a settled conviction in the minds of these adventurous nomads that the manifest destiny of California was to become a part of the United States, and they were only too willing to aid destiny when an opportunity offered. The opportunity came and it found them ready for it.
Capt. John C. Fremont, an engineer and ex- plorer in the services of the United States, ap- peared at Monterey in January, 1846, and ap- plied to General Castro, the military comandante, for permission to buy supplies for his party of sixty-two men who were encamped in the San Joaquin valley, in what is now Kern county. Permission was given him. There seems to have been a tacit agreement between Castro and Fremont that the exploring party should not enter the settlements, but early in March the whole force was encamped in the Salinas val- ley. Castro regarded the marching of a body of armed men through the country as an act of
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hostility, and ordered them out of the country. Instead of leaving, Fremont intrenched himself on an eminence known as Gabilian Peak (about thirty miles from Monterey), raised the stars and stripes over his barricade, and defied Castro. Castro maneuvered his troops on the plain below, but did not attack Fremont. After two days' waiting Fremont abandoned his position and began his march northward. On May 9, when near the Oregon line, he was overtaken by Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States navy, with a dispatch from the president. Gil- lespie had left the United States in November, 1845, and, disguised, had crossed Mexico from Vera Cruz to Mazatlan, and from there had reached Monterey. The exact nature of the dispatches to Fremont is not known, but pre- sumably they related to the impending war be- tween Mexico and the United States, and the necessity for a prompt seizure of the country to prevent it from falling into the hands of Eng- land. Fremont returned to the Sacramento, where he encamped.
On the 14th of June, 1846, a body of Amer- ican settlers from the Napa and Sacramento valleys, thirty-three in number, of which Ide, Semple, Grigsby and Merritt seem to have been the leaders, after a night's march, took posses- sion of the old castillo or fort at Sonoma, with its rusty muskets and unused cannon, and made Gen. M. G. Vallejo, Lieut .- Col. Prudon, Capt. Salvador Vallejo and Jacob P. Leese, a brother- in-law of the Vallejos, prisoners. There seems to have been no privates at the castillo, all offi- cers. Exactly what was the object of the Amer- ican settlers in taking General Vallejo prisoner is not evident. General Vallejo was one of the few eminent Californians who favored the an- nexation of California to the United States. He is said to have made a speech favoring such a movement in the junta at Monterey a few months before. Castro regarded him with sus- picion. The prisoners were sent under an armed escort to Fremont's camp. William B. Ide was elected captain of the revolutionists who remained at Sonoma, to "hold the fort." He issued a pronunciamiento in which he de- clared California a free and independent gov- ernment, under the name of the California Do.
public. A nation must have a flag of its own, so one was improvised. It was made of a piece of cotton cloth, or manta, a yard wide and five feet long. Strips of red flannel torn from the shirt of one of the men were stitched on the bottom of the flag for stripes. With a blacking brush, or, as another authority says, the end of a chewed stick for a brush, and red paint, William L. Todd painted the figure of a grizzly bear passant on the field of the flag. The na- tives called Todd's bear "cochino," a pig; it resembled that animal more than a bear. A five-pointed star in the left upper corner, painted with the same coloring matter, and the words "California republic" printed on it in ink, completed the famous bear flag.
The California republic was ushered into ex- istence June 14, 1846, attained the acme of its power July 4, when Ide and his fellow patriots burnt a quantity of powder in salutes, and fired off oratorical pyrotechnics in honor of the new republic. It utterly collapsed on the 9th of July, after an existence of twenty-five days, when news reached Sonoma that Commodore Sloat had raised the stars and stripes at Monterey and taken possession of California in the name of the United States. Lieutenant Revere arrived at Sonoma on the 9th and he it was who low- ered the bear flag from the Mexican flagstaff, where it had floated through the brief existence of the California republic, and raised in its place the banner of the United States.
Commodore Sloat, who had anchored in Monterey Bay July 2, 1846, was for a time un- decided whether to take possession of the coun- try. He had no official information that war had been declared between the United States and Mexico; but, acting on the supposition that Captain Fremont had received definite in- structions, on the 7th of July he raised the flag and took possession of the custom-house and government buildings at Monterey. Captain Montgomery, on the 9th, raised it at San Fran- cisco, and on the same day the bear flag gave place to the stars and stripes at Sonoma.
General Castro was holding Santa Clara and San José when he received Commodore Sloat's proclamation informing him that the commo- Jore had taken possession of Monterey. Cas.
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tro, after reading the proclamation, which was written in Spanish, formed his men in line, and addressing them, said: "Monterey is taken by the Americans. What can I do with a handful of men against the United States? I am going to Mexico. All of you who wish to follow me, 'About face!' All that wish to remain can go to their homes."* A very small part of his force followed him.
Commodore Sloat was superseded by Com- modore Stockton, who set about organizing an expedition to subjugate the southern part of the territory which remained loyal to Mexico. Fre- mont's exploring party, recruited to a battalion of one hundred and twenty men, had marched to Monterey, and from there was sent by vessel to San Diego to procure horses and prepare to act as cavalry.
While these stirring events were transpiring in the north, what was the condition in the south where the capital, Los Angeles, and the bulk of the population of the territory were located? Pio Pico had entered upon the duties of the governorship with a desire to bring peace and harmony to the distracted country. He ap- pointed Juan Bandini, one of the ablest states- men of the south, his secretary. After Bandini resigned lie chose J. M. Covarrubias, and later José M. Moreno filled the office.
The principal offices of the territory had been divided equally between the politicians of the north and the south. While Los Angeles be- came the capital, and the departmental assembly met there, the military headquarters, the ar- chives and the treasury remained at Monterey. But, notwithstanding this division of the spoils of office, the old feud between the arribeños and the abajeños would not down, and soon the old-time quarrel was on with all its bitterness. Castro, as military comandante, ignored the governor, and Alvarado was regarded by the sureños as an emissary of Castro's. The de- partmental assembly met at Los Angeles, in March, 1846. Pico presided, and in his opening message set forth the unfortunate condition of affairs in the department. Education was neg- lected; justice was not administered; the mis-
sions were so burdened by debt that but few of them could be rented; the army was disor- ganized and the treasury empty.
Not even the danger of war with the Amer- icans could make the warring factions forget their fratricidal strife. Castro's proclamation against Fremont was construed by the sureños into a scheme to inveigle the governor to the north so that the comandante-general could de- pose him and seize the office for himself. Cas- tro's preparations to resist by force the en- croachments of the Americans were believed by Pico and the Angelenians to be fitting out of an army to attack Los Angeles and over- throw the government.
On the 16th of June, Pico left Los Angeles for Monterey with a military force of a hundred men. The object of the expedition was to op- pose, and, if possible, to depose Castro. He left the capital under the care of the ayunta- miento. On the 20th of June, Alcalde Gallardo reported to the ayuntamiento that he had posi- tive information "that Don Castro had left Monterey and would arrive here in three days with a military force for the purpose of captur- ing this city." (Castro had left Monterey with a force of seventy men, but he had gone north to San José.) The sub-prefect, Don Abel Stearns, was authorized to enlist troops to pre- serve order. On the 23d of June three compa- nies were organized, an artillery company under Miguel Pryor, a company of riflemen under Benito Wilson, and a cavalry company under Gorge Palomares. Pico, with his army at San Luis Obispo, was preparing to march against Monterey, when the news reached him of the capture of Sonoma by the Americans, and next day, July 12th, the news reached Los Angeles just as the council had decided on a plan of defense against Castro, who was five hundred miles away. Pico, on the impulse of the mo- ment, issued a proclamation, in which he arraigned the United States for perfidy and treachery, and the gang of "North American adventurers," who captured Sonoma "with the blackest treason the spirit of evil can invent." His arraignment of the "North American na- tion" was so severe that some of his American friends in Los Angeles took umbrage at his
*Hall's History of San José.
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pronunciamento. He afterwards tried to recall it, but it was too late; it had been published.
Castro, finding the "foreign adventurers" too numerous and too aggressive in the northern part of the territory, determined, with what men he could induce to go with him, to retreat to the south; but before so doing he sent a medi- ator to Pico to negotiate a treaty of peace and amity between the factions. On the 12th of July the two armies met at Santa Margarita, near San Luis Obispo. Castro brought the news that Commodore Sloat had hoisted the United States flag at Monterey and taken pos- session of the country for his government. The meeting of the governor and the comandante- general was not very cordial, but in the presence of the impending danger to the territory they concealed their mutual dislike and decided to do their best to defend the country they both loved.
Sorrowfully they began their retreat to the capital; but even threatened disaster to their common country could not wholly unite the north and the south. The respective armies, Castro's numbering about one hundred and fifty men, and Pico's one hundred and twenty, kept about a day's march apart. They reached Los Angeles, and preparations were begun to resist the invasion of the Americans. Pico issued a proclamation ordering all able-bodied men be- tween fifteen and sixty years of age, native and naturalized, to take up arms to defend the coun- try; any able-bodied Mexican refusing was to be treated as a traitor. There was no enthusi- asm for the cause. The old factional jealousy and distrust was as potent as ever. The militia of the south would obey none butt their own officers; Castro's troops, who considered them- selves regulars, ridiculed the raw recruits of the sureños, while the naturalized foreigners of American extraction secretly sympathized with their own people.
Pico, to counteract the malign influence of his Santa Barbara proclamation and enlist the sym- pathy and more ready adhesion of the foreign element of Los Angeles, issued the following circular: (This circular or proclamation has never before found its way into print. I find no allusion to it in Bancroft's or Hittell's His-
tories. A copy, probably the only one in exist- ence, was donated some years since to the Historical Society of Southern California.)
SEAL OF
Gobierno del Dep. de Californias.
"CIRCULAR .- As owing to the unfortunate condition of things that now prevails in this department in consequence of the war into which the United States has provoked the Mex- ican nation, some ill feeling might spring up between the citizens of the two countries, out of which unfortunate occurrences might grow, and as this government desires to remove every cause of friction, it has seen fit, in the use of its power, to issue the present circular.
"The Government of the department of Cali- fornia declares in the most solemn manner that all the citizens of the United States that have come lawfully into its territory, relying upon the honest administration of the laws and the observance of the prevailing treaties, shall not be molested in the least, and their lives and property shall remain in perfect safety under the protection of the Mexican laws and authorities legally constituted.
"Therefore, in the name of the supreme gov- ernment of the nation, and by virtue of the authority vested upon me, I enjoin upon all the inhabitants of California to observe towards the citizens of the United States that have lawfully come among us, the kindest and most cordial conduct, and to abstain from all acts of violence against their persons or property; provided they remain neutral, as heretofore, and take no part in the invasion effected by the armies of their nation.
"The authorities of the various municipalities and corporations will be held strictly responsi- ble for the faithful fulfillment of this order, and shall, as soon as possible, take the necessary measures to bring it to the knowledge of the people. God and Liberty.
"PIO PICO. "JOSE MATIAS MARENO, Secretary pro tem." Angeles, July 27, 1846.
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When we consider the conditions existing in California at the time this circular was issued, its sentiments reflect great credit on Pico for his humanity and forbearance. A little over a month before, a party of Americans seized General Vallejo and several other prominent Californians in their homes and incarcerated them in prison at Sutter's Fort. Nor was this outrage mitigated when the stars and stripes were raised. The perpetrators of the outrage were not punished. These native Californians were kept in prison nearly two months without any charge against them. Besides, Governor Pico and the leading Californians very well knew that the Americans whose lives and prop- erty this proclamation was designed to protect would not remain neutral when their country- men invaded the territory. Pio Pico deserved better treatment from the Americans than he received. He was robbed of his landed posses- sions by unscrupulous land sharks, and his char- acter defamed by irresponsible historical scrib- blers.
Pico made strenuous efforts to raise men and means to resist the threatened invasion. He had mortgaged the government house to de Celis for $2,000, the mortgage to be paid "as soon as order shall be established in the department." This loan was really negotiated to fit out the expedition against Castro, but a part of it was expended after his return to Los Angeles in procuring supplies while preparing to meet the American army. The government had but little credit. The moneyed men of the pueblo were averse to putting money into what was almost sure to prove a lost cause. The bickerings and jealousies between the factions neutralized to a considerable degree the efforts of Pico and Cas- tro to mobilize the army.
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