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 15

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

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president of the missions to vaccinate all the neophytes in the territory. When his job was finished the president offered him in pay five hundred cattle and five hundred mules with land to pasture his stock on condition he would become a Roman Catholic and a citizen of Mexico. Pattie scorned the of- fer and roundly upbraided the padre for taking advantage of him. He had previously given Governor Eacheandia a tongue lashing and had threatened to shoot him on sight. From his narrative he seems to have put in most of his time in California blustering and threatening to shoot somebody.

Another famous trapper of this period was "Peg Leg" Smith. His real name was Thomas L. Smith. It is said that in a fight with the Indians his leg below the knee was shattered by a bullet. He coolly amputated his leg at the knee with no other instrument than his hunting knife. He wore a wooden leg and from this came his nickname. He first came to California in 1829. He was ordered out of the country. He and his party took their departure, but with them went three or four hundred California horses. He died in a San Francisco hospital in 1866.

Ewing Young, a famous captain of trappers, made several visits to California from 1830 to 1837. In 1831 he led a party of thirty hunters and trappers, among those of his party who remained in California was Col. J. J. Warner, who became prominent in the territory and state. In 1837 Ewing Young with a party of sixteen men came down from Oregon, where he finally located, to purchase cattle for the new settlements on the Willamette river. They bought seven hundred cattle at $3 per head from the government and drove them overland to Oregon, reaching there after a toilsome journey of four months with six hundred. Young died in Oregon in 1841.

From the downfall of Spanish domination in 1822, to the close of that decade there had been but few political disturbances in California. The only one of any consequence was Solis' and Herrera's attempt to revolutionize the territory and seize the government. José Maria Herrera had come to California as a commissioner of

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

the commissary department, but after a short term of service had been removed from office for fraud. Joaquin Solis was a convict who was serving a ten years sentence of banishment from Mexico. The ex-official and the exile with oth- ers of damaged character combined to overturn the government.

On the night of November 12, 1829, Solis, with a band of soldiers that he had induced to join his standard, seized the principal govern- ment officials at Monterey and put them in prison. At Solis' solicitation Herrera drew up a pronunciamento. It followed the usual line of such documents. It began by deploring the evils that had come upon the territory through Echeandia's misgovernment and closed with promises of reformation if the revolutionists should obtain control of the government. To obtain the sinews of war the rebels seized $3,000 of the public funds. This was dis- tributed among the soldiers and proved a great attraction to the rebel cause. Solis with twen- ty men went to San Francisco and the sol- diers there joined his standard. Next he marched against Santa Barbara with an army of one hundred and fifty men. Echeandia on hearing of the revolt had marched northward with all the soldiers he could enlist. The two armies met at Santa Ynez. Solis opened fire on the governor's army. The fire was returned. Solis' men began to break away and soon the army and its valiant leader were in rapid flight. Pacheco's cavalry captured the leaders of the revolt. Herrara. Solis and thirteen others were shipped to Mexico under arrest to be tried for their crimes. The Mexican authorities, always lenient to California revolutionists, probably from a fellow feeling, turned them all loose and Herrera was sent back to fill his former office.

Near the close of his term Governor Echeandia formulated a plan for converting the mission into pueblos. To ascertain the fitness of the neophytes for citizenship he made an in- vestigation to find out how many could read and write. He found so very few that he ordered schools opened at the missions. A pretense was made of establishing schools, but very little was accomplished. The padres were opposed to edu-

cating the natives for the same reason that the southern slave-holders were opposed to educat- ing the negro, namely, that an ignorant people were more easily kept in subjection. Echeandia's plan of secularization was quite elaborate and dealt fairly with the neophytes. It received the sanction of the diputacion when that body met in July, 1830, but before anything could be done towards enforcing it another governor was ap- pointed. Echeandia was thoroughly hated by the mission friars and their adherents. Robin- son in his "Life in California" calls him a man of vice and makes a number of damaging asser- tions about his character and conduct, which are not in accordance with the facts. It was dur- ing Echeandia's term as governor that the motto of Mexico, Dios y Libertad (God and Liberty), was adopted. It became immensely popular and was used on all public documents and often in private correspondence.

A romantic episode that has furnished a theme for fiction writers occurred in the last year of Echeandia's rule. It was the elopement of Henry D. Fitch with Doña Josefa, daughter of Joaquin Carrillo of San Diego. Fitch was a native of New Bedford, Mass. He came to Cal- ifornia in 1826 as master of the Maria Ester. He fell in love with Doña Josefa. There were legal obstructions to their marriage. Fitch was a foreigner and a Protestant. The latter objec- tion was easily removed by Fitch becoming a Catholic. The Dominican friar who was to per- form the marriage service, fearful that he might incur the wrath of the authorities, civil and cler- ical, refused to perform the ceremony, but sug- gested that there were other countries where the laws were less strict and offered to go beyond the limits of California and marry them. It is said that at this point Doña Josefa said: "Why don't you carry me off, Don Enrique?" The suggestion was quickly acted upon. The next night the lady, mounted on a steed with her cousin, Pio Pico, as an escort, was secretly taken to a point on the bay shore where a boat was waiting for her. The boat put off to the Vulture, where Captain Fitch received her on board and the vessel sailed for Valparaiso, where the couple were married. A year later Captain Fitch returned to California with his

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

wife and infant son. At Monterey Fitch was arrested on an order of Padre Sanchez of San Gabriel and put in prison. His wife was also placed under arrest at the house of Captain Cooper. Fitch was taken to San Gabriel for trial, "his offenses being most heinous." At her in- tercession, Governor Echeandia released Mrs. Fitch and allowed her to go to San Gabriel, where her husband was imprisoned in one of the rooms of the mission. This act of clemency greatly enraged the friar and his fiscal, Pa- lomares, and they seriously considered the ques- tion of arresting the governor. The trial dragged along for nearly a month. Many wit- nesses were examined and many learned points of clerical law discussed. Vicar Sanchez finally gave his decision that the marriage at Val- paraiso, though not legitimate, was not null and void, but valid. The couple were condemned

to do penance by "presenting themselves in church with lighted candles in their hands to hear high mass for three feast days and recite together for thirty days one-third of the rosary of the holy virgin."# In addition to these joint penances the vicar inflicted an additional pen- alty on Fitch in these words: "Yet considering the great scandal which Don Enrique has caused in this province I condemn him to give as penance and reparation a bell of at least fifty pounds in weight for the church at Los An- geles, which barely has a borrowed one." Fitch and his wife no doubt performed the joint pen- ance imposed upon them, but the church at Los Angeles had to get along with its borrowed bell. Don Enrique never gave it one of fifty pounds or any other weight.

*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 nun- 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

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 Ecleandia 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.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 front 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-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 lis 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-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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."

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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 15

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