A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 14

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

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How long the Indians had been plotting no one knew. The conspiracy began among the neophytes of Santa Ynez and La Purisima, but it spread to the missions of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, San Fer- nando and San Gabriel. Their plan was to mas- sacre the padres and the mission guard and

having obtained arms to kill all the gente de razon and thus free themselves from mission thralldom and regain their old time freedom. The plotting had been carried on with great secrecy. Rumors had passed from mission to mission arranging the details of the uprising without the whites suspecting anything. Sunday, February 22, 1824, was the day set for begin- ning the slaughter. At the hour of celebrating mass, when the soldiers and the padres were within the church, the bloody work was to be- gin. The plot might have succeeded had not the Indians at Santa Ynez began their work prematurely. One account (Hittell's History of California) says that on Saturday afternoon be- fore the appointed Sunday they determined to begin the work by the murder of Padre Fran- cisco Xavier Uná, who was sleeping in a cham- ber next the mission church. He was warned by a faithful page. Springing from his couch and rushing to a window he saw the Indians ap- proaching. Seizing a musket from several that . were in the room he shot the first Indian that reached the threshold dead. He seized a sec- ond musket and laid another Indian low. The soldiers now rallied to his assistance and the Indians were driven back; they set fire to the mission church, but a small body of troops 1111- der Sergeant Carrillo, sent from Santa Barbara to reinforce the mission guard, coming up at this time, the Indians fled to. Purisima. The fire was extinguished before the church was consumed. At Purisima the Indians were more successful. The mission was defended by Cor- poral Tapia and five soldiers. The Indians de- manded that Tapia surrender, but the corporal refused. The fight began and continued all night. The Indians set fire to the building, but all they could burn was the rafters. Tapia, by a strategic movement, succeeded in collecting all the soldiers and the women and children inside the walls of one of the largest buildings from which the roof had been burnt. From this the Indians could not dislodge him. The fight was kept up till morning, when one of the Indians, who had been a mission alcade, made a prop- osition to the corporal to surrender. Tapia re- fused to consider it, but Father Blas Ordaz in- terfered and insisted on a compromise. After

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

much contention Tapia found himself overruled. The Indians agreed to spare the lives of all on condition that the whites laid down their arms. The soldiers laid down their arms and sur- rendered two small cannon belonging to the church. The soldiers, the women and the chil- dren were then allowed to march to Santa Ynez. While the fight was going on the Indians killed four white men, two of them, Dolores Sepulveda and Ramon Satelo, were on their way to Los Angeles and came to the mission not suspecting any danger. Seven Indians were killed in the figlit and a number wounded.

The Indians at Santa Barbara began hostilities according to their prearranged plot. They made an attack upon the mission. Captain de la Guerra, who was in command at the presidio. marched to the mission and a fight of several hours ensued. The Indians sheltered them- selves behind the pillars of the corridor and fought with guns and arrows. After losing sev- eral of their number they fled to the hills. Four soldiers were wounded. The report of the up- rising reached Monterey and measures were taken at once to subdue the rebellious neophytes. A force of one hundred men was sent under Lieut. José Estrada to co-operate with Captain de la Guerra against the rebels. On the 16th of March the soldiers surrounded the Indians who had taken possession of the mission church at Purisima and opened fire upon them. The Indians replied with their cap- tured cannon, muskets and arrows. Estrada's artillery battered down the walls of the church. The Indians, unused to arms, did little execu- tion. Driven out of the wrecked building, they attempted to make their escape by flight, but were intercepted by the cavalry which had been deployed for that purpose. Finding themselves

hemmed in on all sides the neophytes sur- rendered. They had lost sixteen killed and a large number of wounded. Seven of the prison- ers were shot for complicity in the murder oi Sepulveda and the three other travelers. The four leaders in the revolt, Mariano Pacomio, Benito and Bernabe, were sentenced to ten years hard labor at the presidio and eight oth- ers to lesser terms. There were four hundred Indians engaged in the battle.

The Indians of the Santa Barbara missions and escapes from Santa Ynez and Purisima made their way over the mountains to the Tulares. A force of eighty men under com- mand of a lieutenant was sent against these. The troops had two engagements with the reb- els, whom they found at Buenavista Lake and San Emigdio. Finding his force insufficient to subdue them the lieutenant retreated to Santa Barbara. Another force of one hundred and thirty men under Captain Portilla and Lieuten- ant Valle was sent after the rebels. Father Ripoll had induced the governor to offer a gen- eral pardon. The padre claimed that the In- dians had not harmed the friars nor committed sacrilege in the church and from his narrow view these were about the only venal sins they could commit. The troops found the fugitive neophytes encamped at San Emigdio. They now professed repentance for their misdeeds and were willing to return to mission life if they could escape punishment. Padres Ripoll and Sarria, who had accompanied the expedition, entered into negotiations with the Indians; par- don was promised them for their offenses. They then surrendered and marched back with the soldiers to their respective missions. This was the last attempt of the Indians to escape from mission rule.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

CHAPTER X.

FIRST DECADE OF MEXICAN RULE.

J OSE MARIA ECHEANDIA, a lieutenant . colonel of the Mexican army, was ap- pointed governor of the two Californias, February 1, 1825. With his staff officers and a few soldiers he landed at Loreto June . 22. After a delay of a few months at Lo- reto he marched overland to San Diego, where he arrived about the middle of October. He summoned Arguello to meet him there, which he did and turned over the government, October 31, 1825. Echeandia established his capital at San Diego, that town being about the center of his jurisdiction. This did not suit the people of Monterey, who became prejudiced against the new governor. Shortly after his inauguration he began an investigation of the attitude of the mission friars towards the re- public of Mexico. He called padres Sanches, Zalvidea, Peyri and Martin, representatives of the four southern missions, to San Diego and demanded of them whether they would take the oath of allegiance to the supreme government. They expressed their willingness and were ac- cordingly sworn to support the constitution of 1824. Many of the friars of the northern mis- sions remained contumacious. Among the

most stubborn of these was Padre Vicente Francisco de Sarria, former president of the missions. He had resigned the presidency to escape taking the oath of allegiance and still continued his opposition. He was put under ar- rest and an order issued for his expulsion by the supreme government, but the execution of the order was delayed for fear that if he were banished others of the disloyal padres would abandon their missions and secretly leave the country. The government was not ready yet to take possession of the missions. The friars could keep the neophytes in subjection and make them work. The business of the country was in the hands of the friars and any radical change would have been disastrous.

The national government in 1827 had issued a decree for the expulsion of Spaniards from Mexican territory. There were certain classes of those born in Spain who were exempt from banishment, but the friars were not among the exempts. The decree of expulsion reached Cal- ifornia in 1828; but it was not enforced for the reason that all of the mission padres except three were Spaniards. To have sent these out of the country would have demoralized the mis- sions. The Spanish friars were expelled from Mexico; but those in California, although some of them had boldly proclaimed their willingness to die for their king and their religion and de- manded their passports to leave the country, were allowed to remain in the country. Their passports were not given them for reasons above stated. Padres Ripoll and Altimira made their escape without passports. They secretly took passage on an American brig lying at Santa Barbara. Orders were issued to seize the vessel should she put into any other harbor on the coast, but the captain, who no doubt had been liberally paid, took no chance of capture and the padres eventually reached Spain in safety. There was a suspicion that the two friars had taken with them a large amount of money from the mission funds, but nothing was proved. It was certain that they carried away something more than the bag and staff, the only property allowed them by the rules of their order.

The most bitter opponent of the new govern- ment was Father Luis Antonio Martinez of San Luis Obispo. Before the clandestine departure of Ripoll and Altimira there were rumors that le meditated a secret departure from the coun- try. The mysterious shipment of $6,000 in gold belonging to the mission on a vessel called the Santa Apolonia gave credence to the report of his intended flight. He had been given a pass- port but still remained in the territory. His

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

outspoken disloyalty and his well known suc- cess in evading the revenue laws and smuggling goods into the country had made him particu- larly obnoxious to the authorities. Governor Echeandia determined to make an example of him. He was arrested in February, 1830, and confined in a room at Santa Barbara. In his trial before a council of war an attempt was made to connect him with complicity in the Solis revolution, but the evidence against him was weak. By a vote of five to one it was decided to send him out of the country. He was put on board an English vessel bound for Callao and there transferred to a vessel bound for Europe; he finally arrived safely at Madrid.

Under the empire a diputacion or provincial legislature had been established in California. Arguello in 1825 had suppressed this while he was governor. Echeandia, shortly after his ar- rival, ordered an election for a new diputacion. The diputacion made the general laws of the territory. It consisted of seven members called vocals. These were chosen by an electoral junta, the members of which were elected by the people. The diputacion chose a diputado or delegate to the Mexican Congress. As it was a long distance for some of the members to travel to the territorial capital a suplente or substitute was chosen for each member, so as to assure a quorum. The diputacion called by Echeandia met at Monterey, June 14, 1828. The sessions, of which there were two each week, were held in the governor's palacio. This diputacion passed a rather peculiar revenue law. It taxed domestic aguardiente (grape brandy) $5 a barrel and wine half that amount in the jurisdictions of Monterey and San Francisco; but in the juris- dictions of Santa Barbara and San Diego tlie rates were doubled, brandy was taxed $10 a barrel and wine $5. San Diego, Los An- geles and Santa Barbara were wine producing districts, while Monterey and San Francisco were not. As there was a larger consumption of the product in the wine producing districts than in the others the law was enacted for revenue and not for prevention of drinking.

Another peculiar freak of legislation perpe- trated by this diputacion was the attempt to change the name of the territory. The supreme

government was memorialized to change the name of Alta California to that of Montezuma and also that of the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles to that of Villa Victoria de la Reyna de los Angeles and make it the capital of the territory. A coat of arms was adopted for the territory. It consisted of an oval with the figure of an oak tree on one side, an olive tree on the other and a plumed Indian in the center with his bow and quiver, just in the act of stepping across the mythical straits of Anian. The memorial was sent to Mexico, but the supreme government paid no attention to it.

The political upheavals, revolutions and coun- ter revolutions that followed the inauguration of a republican form of government in Mexico demoralized the people and produced a prolific crop of criminals. The jails were always full and it became a serious question what to do with them. It was proposed to make California a penal colony, similar to England's Botany Bay. Orders were issued to send criminals to California as a means of reforming their mor- als. The Californians protested against the sending of these undesirable immigrants, but in vain. In February, 1830, the brig Maria Ester brought eighty convicts from Acapulco to San Diego. They were not allowed to land there and were taken to Santa Barbara. What to do with them was a serious question with the Santa Barbara authorities. The jail would not hold a tenth part of the shipment and to turn them loose in the sparsely settled country was dangerous to the peace of the community. Fin- ally, about thirty or forty of the worst of the bad lot were shipped over to the island of Santa Cruz. They were given a supply of cattle, some fishhooks and a few tools and turned loose on the island to shift for themselves. They staid on the island until they had slaughtered and eaten the cattle, then they built a raft and drifted back to Santa Barbara, where they quartered themselves on the padres of the mis- sion. Fifty more were sent from Mexico a few months later. These shipments of prison exiles were distributed around among the settlements. Some served out their time and returned to their native land, a few escaped over the border,

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

others remained in the territory after their time was up and became fairly good citizens.

The colonization law passed by the Mexican Congress August 18, 1824, was the first break in the proscriptive regulations that had pre- vailed in Spanish-American countries since their settlement. Any foreigner of good character who should locate in the country and become a Roman Catholic could obtain a grant of public land, not exceeding eleven leagues; but no for- eigner was allowed to obtain a grant within twenty leagues of the boundary of a foreign country nor within ten leagues of the sea coast. The law of April 14, 1828, allowed foreigners to become naturalized citizens. The applicant was required to have resided at least two years in the country, to be or to become a Roman Catholic, to renounce allegiance to his former country and to swear to support the constitution and laws of the Mexican republic. Quite a number of foreigners who had been residing a number of years in California took advantage of this law and became Mexican citizens by nat- uralization. The colonization law of Novem- ber 18, 1828, prescribed a series of rules and regulations for the making of grants of land. Colonists were required to settle on and culti- vate the land granted within a specified time or forfeit their grants. Any one residing outside of the republic could not retain possession of his land. The minimum size of a grant as de- fined by this law was two hundred varas square of irrigable land, eight hundred varas square of arable land (depending on the seasons) and twelve hundred varas square grazing land. The size of a house lot was one hundred varas square.

The Californians had grown accustomed to foreigners coming to the country by sea, but they were not prepared to have them come over- land. The mountains and deserts that inter- vened between the United States and California were supposed to be an insurmountable barrier to foreign immigration by land. It was no doubt with feelings of dismay, mingled with anger, that Governor Echeandia received the advance gnard of maldito estranjeros, who came across the continent. Echeandia hated foreigners and particularly Americans. The pioneer of over-

land travel from the United States to California was Capt. Jedediah S. Smith. Smith was born in Connecticut and when quite young came with his father to Ohio and located in Ashtabula county, where he grew to manhood amid the rude surroundings of pioneer life in the west. By some means he obtained a fairly good educa- tion. We have no record of when he began the life of a trapper. We first hear of him as an employe of General Ashley in 1822. He had command of a band of trappers on the waters of the Snake river in 1824. Afterwards he became a partner of Ashley under the firm name of Ashley & Smith and subsequently one of the members of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The latter company had about 1825 established a post and fort near Great Salt Lake. Froni this, Angust 22, 1826, Captain Smith with a band of fifteen hunters and trappers started on his first expedition to California. His object was to find some new country that had not been occupied by a fur company. Traveling in a south- westerly direction he discovered a river which he named Adams (after President John Quincy Adams) now known as the Rio Virgin. This stream he followed down to its junction with the Colorado. Traveling down the latter river he arrived at the Mojave villages, where he rested fifteen days. Here he found two wander- ing neophytes, who guided his party across the desert to the San Gabriel mission, where he and his men arrived safely early in December, 1826.

The arrival of a party of armed Americans from across the mountains and deserts alarmed the padres and couriers were hastily dispatched to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. The Americans were placed under arrest and com- pelled to give up their arms. Smith was taken to San Diego to give an account of himself. He claimed that he had been compelled to enter the territory on account of the loss of horses and a scarcity of provisions. He was finally re- leased from prison upon the endorsement of several American ship captains and supercar- goes who were then at San Diego. He was al- lowed to return to San Gabriel, where he pur- chased horses and supplies. He moved his camp to San Bernardino, where he remained until February. The authorities had grown uneasy

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

at his continued presence in the country and orders were sent to arrest him, but before this could be done he left for the Tulare country by way of Cajon Pass. He trapped on the tribu- taries of the San Joaquin. By the Ist of May he and his party had reached a fork of the Sac- ramento (near where the town of Folsom now stands). Here he established a summer camp and the river ever since has been known as the American fork from that circumstance.

Here again the presence of the Americans worried the Mexican authorities. Smith wrote a conciliatory letter to Padre Duran, president of the missions, informing him that he had "made several efforts to pass over the moun- tains, but the snow being so deep I could not succeed in getting over. I returned to this place, it being the only point to kill meat, to wait a few weeks until the snow melts so that I can go on." "On May 20, 1827," Smith writes, "with two men, seven horses and two mules, I started from the valley. In eight days we crossed Mount Joseph, losing two horses and one mule. After a march of twenty days east- ward from Mount Joseph (the Sierra Nevadas) I reached the southwesterly corner of the Great Salt Lake. The country separating it from the mountains is arid and without game. Often we had no water for two days at a time. When we reached Salt Lake we had left only one horse and one mule, so exhausted that they could hardly carry our slight baggage. We had been forced to eat the horses that had succumbed."

Smith's route over the Sierras to Salt Lake was substantially the same as that followed by the overland emigration of later years. He discov- ered the Humboldt, which he named the Mary river, a name it bore until changed by Fremont in 1845. He was the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevadas. Smith left his party of trappers except the two who accompanied him in the Sacramento valley. He returned next year with reinforcements and was ordered out of the country by the governor. Hc traveled up the coast towards Oregon. On the Umpqua river he was attacked by the Indians. All his party except himself and two others were mas- sacred. He lost all of his horses and furs. He reached Fort Vancouver, his clothing torn to

rags and almost starved to death. In 1831 lie started with a train of wagons to Santa Fe on a trading expedition. While alone searching for water near the Cimarron river he was set upon by a party of Indians and killed. Thus perished by the hands of cowardly savages in the wilds of New Mexico a man who, through almost in- credible dangers and sufferings, had explored an unknown region as vast in extent as that which gave fame and immortality to the African explorer, Stanley; and who marked out trails over mountains and across deserts that Fre- mont following years afterwards won the title of "Pathfinder of the Great West." Smith led the advance guard of the fur trappers to Cali- fornia. Notwithstanding the fact that they were unwelcome visitors these adventurers continued to come at intervals up to 1845. They trapped on the tributaries of the San Joaquin, Sacramento and the rivers in the northern part of the terri- tory. A few of them remained in the country and became permanent residents, but most of them sooner or later met death by the savages.

Capt. Jedediah S. Smith marked out two of the great immigrant trails by which the overland travel, after the discovery of gold, entered Cal- ifornia, one by way of the Humboldt river over the Sierra Nevadas, the other southerly from Salt Lake, Utah Lake, the Rio Virgin, across the Colorado desert, through the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles. A third immigrant route was blazed by the Pattie party. This route led from Santa Fe, across New Mexico, down the Gila to the Colorado and from thence across the desert through the San Gorgonio Pass to Los Angeles.

This party consisted of Sylvester Pattie, James Ohio Pattie, his son, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Jesse Furguson, Isaac Stover, William Pope and James Puter. The Patties left Kentucky in 1824 and followed trap ping in New Mexico and Arizona until 1827; the elder Pattie for a time managing the cop- per mines of Santa Rita. In May, 1827, Pattic the elder, in command of a party of thirty trap- pers and hunters, set out to trap the tributaries of the Colorado. Losses by Indian hostilities. by dissensions and desertions reduced the party to eight persons. December 1st, 1827, while

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

these were encamped on the Colorado near the mouth of the Gila, the Yuma Indians stole all their horses. They constructed rafts and floated down the Colorado, expecting to find Spanish settlements on its banks, where they hoped to procure horses to take them back to Santa Fe. They floated down the river until they encoun- tered the flood tide from the gulf. Finding it impossible to go ahead on account of the tide or back on account of the river current, they landed, cached their furs and traps and with two days' supply of beaver meat struck out westerly across the desert. After traveling for twenty-four days and suffering almost incredible hardships they reached the old Mission of Santa Catalina near the head of the Gulf of California. Here they were detained until news of their ar- rival could be sent to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. A guard of sixteen soldiers was sent for them and they were conducted to San Diego, where they arrived February 27, 1828. Their arms were taken from them and they were put in prison. The elder Pattie died during their imprisonment. In September all the party ex- cept young Pattie, who was retained as a host- age, were released and permitted to go after their buried furs. They found their furs had been ruined by the overflow of the river. Two of the party, Slover and Pope, made their way back to Santa Fe; the others returned, bringing with them their beaver traps. They were again im- prisoned by Governor Echeandia, but were fin- ally released.

Three of the party, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin and Jesse Furguson, became permanent residents of California. Young Pat- tie returned to the United States by way of Mexico. After his return, with the assistance of the Rev. Timothy Flint, he wrote an account of his adventures, which was published in Cin- cinnati in 1833, under the title of "Pattie's Nar- rative." Young Pattie was inclined to exaggera- tion. In his narrative he claims that with vac- cine matter brought by his father from the Santa Rita mines he vaccinated twenty-two thousand people in California. In Los Angeles alone, he vaccinated twenty-five hundred, which was more than double the population of the town in 1828. He took a contract from the

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A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 14

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184