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 20

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

USA > California > 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 20

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Commodore Sloat was superseded by Com- modore Stockton, who set about organizing an expedition to subjugate the southern part of the territory which remained loyal to Mexico.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 he 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, Fucalde 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.

129

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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- asmı for the cause. The old factional jealousy and distrust was as potent as ever. The militia of the south would obey none but 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.

123

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 then 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.

Castro established his camp on the mesa east of the river. Here he and Andres Pico under- took to drill the somewhat incongruous collec- tion of hombres in military maneuvering. Their entire force at no time exceeded three hundred men. These were poorly armed and lacking in discipline.

We left Stockton at Monterey preparing an expedition against Castro at Los Angeles. On taking command of the Pacific squadron, July

29, he issued a proclamation. It was as bom- bastic as the pronunciamiento of a Mexican governor. Bancroft says: "The paper was made up of falsehood, of irrelevent issues and bombastic ranting in about equal parts, the tone being offensive and impolitic even in those inconsiderable portions which were true and legitimate." His only object in taking posses- sion of the country was "to save from destruc- tion the lives and property of the foreign resi- dents and citizens of the territory who had in- voked his protection." In view of Pico's humane circular and the uniform kind treatment that the Californians accorded the American residents, there was very little need of Stockton's interfer- ence on that score. Commodore Sloat did not approve of Stockton's proclamation or of his policy.

On the 6th of August, Stockton reached San Pedro and landed three hundred and sixty sailors and marines. These were drilled in mili- tary movements on land and prepared for the march to Los Angeles.

Castro sent two commissioners, Pablo de La Guerra and José M. Flores, to Stockton, asking for a conference and a cessation of hostilities while negotiations were pending. They asked that the United States forces remain at San Pedro while the terms of the treaty were under discussion. These requests Commodore Stock- ton peremptorily refused, and the commissioners returned to Los Angeles without stating the terms on which they proposed to treat.

In several so-called histories, I find a very dramatic account of this interview. On the ar- rival of the commissioners they were marched up to the mouth of an immense mortar, shrouded in skins save its huge aperture. Their terror and disconfiture were plainly discernible. Stockton received them with a stern and forbid- ding countenance, harshly demanding their mis- sion, which they disclosed in great confusion. They bore a letter from Castro proposing a truce, each party to hold its own possessions until a general pacification should be had. This proposal Stockton rejected with contempt, and 'dismissed the commissioners with the assurance that only an immediate disbandment of his forces and an unconditional surrender would

124

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

shield Castro from the vengeance of an incensed foe. The messengers remounted their horses in dismay and fled back to Castro." The mortar story, it is needless to say, is pure fabrication, yet it runs through a number of so-called his- tories of California. Castro, on the 9th of Att- gust, held a council of war with his officers at the Campo en La Mesa. He announced his in- tention of leaving the country for the purpose of reporting to the supreme government, and of returning at some future day to punish the usurpers. He wrote to Pico: "I can count only one hundred men, badly armed, worse supplied and discontented by reason of the miseries they suffer; so that I have reason to fear that not even these men will fight when the necessity arises." And this is the force that some imag- inative historians estimate at eight hundred to one thousand men.

Pico and Castro left Los Angeles on the night of August 10, for Mexico; Castro going by the Colorado River route to Sonora, and Pico, after being concealed for a time by his brother-in-law, Juan Froster, at the Santa Mar- garita and narrowly escaping capture by Fre- mont's men, finally reached Lower California and later on crossed the Gulf to Sonora.

Stockton began his march on Los Angeles August II. He took with him a battery of four guns. The guns were mounted on carretas, and each gun drawn by four oxen. He had with him a good brass band.

Major Fremont, who had been sent to San Diego with his battalion of one hundred and seventy men, had, after considerable skirmish- ing among the ranchos, secured enough horses to move, and on the 8th of August had begun his march to join Stockton. He took with him one hundred and twenty men, leaving about fifty to garrison San Diego.

Stockton consumed three days on the march. Fremont's troops joined him just south of the city, and at 4 p. m. of the 13th the combined force, numbering nearly five hundred men, en- tered the town without opposition, "our entry," says Major Fremont, "having more the effect of a parade of home guards than of an enemy taking possession of a conquered town." Stock- ton reported finding at Castro's abandoned camp

ten pieces of artillery, four of them spiked. Fre- mont says he (Castro) "had buried part of his guns." Castro's troops that he had brought down with him took their departure for their northern homes soon after their general left, breaking up into small squads as they advanced. The southern troops that Pico had recruited dis- persed to their homes before the arrival of the Americans. Squads of Fremont's battalion were sent out to scour the country and bring in any of the Californian officers or leading men whom they could find. These, when found, were paroled.

Another of those historical myths, like the mortar story previously mentioned, which is palmed off on credulous readers as genuine his- tory, runs as follows: "Stockton, while en route from San Pedro to Los Angeles, was informed by a courier from Castro 'that if he marched upon the town he would find it the grave of him- self and men.' 'Then,' answered the commodore, `tell the general to have the bells ready to toll at eight o'clock, as I shall be there by that time.'" As Castro left Los Angeles the day before Stockton began his march from San Pedro, and when the commodore entered the city the Mexican general was probably two hundred miles away, the bell tolling myth goes to join its kindred myths in the category of his- tory as it should not be written.

On the 17th of August, Stockton issued a sec- ond proclamation, in which he signs himself commander-in-chief and governor of the terri- tory of California. It was milder in tone and more dignified than the first. He informed the people that their country now belonged to the United States. For the present it would be governed by martial law. They were invited to elect their local officers if those now in office refused to serve.

Four days after the capture of Los Angeles, The Warren, Captain Hull, commander, an- chored at San Pedro. She brought official no- tice of the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico. Then for the first time Stockton learned that there had been an official declaration of war between the two countries. United States officers had waged war and had taken possession of California upon

125

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

the strength of a rumor that hostilities existed between the countries.

The conquest, if conquest it can be called, was accomplished without the loss of a life, if we except the two Americans, Fowler and Cowie, of the Bear Flag party, who were brutally mur- dered by a band of Californians under Padillo, and the equally brutal shooting of Beryessa and the two de Haro boys by the Americans at San Rafael. These three men were shot as spies, but there was no proof that they were such, and they were not tried. These murders occurred before Commodore Sloat raised the stars and stripes at Monterey.

On the 15th of Angust, 1846, just thirty-seven days after the raising of the stars and stripes at Monterey, the first newspaper ever published in California made its appearance. It was pub- lished at Monterey by Semple and Colton and named The Californian. Rev. Walter Colton was a chaplain in the United States navy and came to California on the Congress with Com- modore Stockton. He was made alcalde of Monterey and built, by the labor of the chain

gang and from contributions and fines, the first schoolhouse in California, named for him Colton Hall. Colton thus describes the other member of the firm, Dr. Robert Semple: "My partner is an emigrant from Kentucky, who stands six feet eight in his stockings. He is in a buckskin dress, a foxskin cap; is true with his rifle, ready with his pen and quick at the type case." Semple came to California in 1845, with the Hastings party, and was one of the leaders in the Bear Flag revolution. The type and press used were brought to California by An- gustin V. Zamorano in 1834, and by him sold to the territorial government, and had been used for printing bandos and pronunciamentos. The only paper the publishers of The Californian could procure was that used in the manufacture of cigarettes, which came in sheets a little larger than foolscap. The font of type was short of w's, so two v's were substituted for that letter, and when these ran out two u's were used. The paper was moved to San Francisco in 1848 and later on consolidated with the Cali- fornia Star.

CHAPTER XVII. REVOLT OF THE CALIFORNIANS.

H OSTILITIES had ceased in all parts of the territory. The leaders of the Cali- fornians had escaped to Mexico, and Stockton, regarding the conquest as completed, set about organizing a government for the con- quered territory. Fremont was to be appointed military governor. Detachments from his bat- talion were to be detailed to garrison different towns, while Stockton, with what recruits he could gather in California, and his sailors and marines, was to undertake a naval expedition against the west coast of Mexico, land his forces at Mazatlan or Acapulco and march overland to "shake hands with General Taylor at the gates of Mexico." Captain Gillespie was made military commandant of the southern depart- ment, with headquarters at Los Angeles, and as- signed a garrison of fifty men. Commodore Stockton left Los Angeles for the north Sep-

tember 2. Fremont, with the remainder of his battalion, took up his line of march for Monte- rey a few days later. Gillespie's orders were to place the city under martial law, but not to en- force the more burdensome restrictions upon quiet and well-disposed citizens. A conciliatory policy in accordance with instructions of the secretary of the navy was to be adopted and the people were to be encouraged to "neutrality, self-government and friendship."

Nearly all historians who have written upon this subject lay the blame for the subsequent uprising of the Californians and their revolt against the rule of the military commandant, Gillespie, to his petty tyrannies. Col. J. J. Warner, in his Historical Sketch of Los An- geles County, says: "Gillespie attempted by a coercive system to effect a moral and social change in the habits, diversions and pastimes of

126

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

the people and to reduce them to his standard of propriety." Warner was not an impartial judge. He had a grievance against Gillespie which embittered him against the captain. Gil- lespie may have been lacking in tact, and his schooling in the navy under the tyrannical régime of the quarterdeck of sixty years ago was not the best training to fit him for govern- ment, but it is hardly probable that in two weeks' time he undertook to enforce a "coercive system" looking toward an entire change in the moral and social habits of the people. Los An- geles under Mexican domination was a hotbed of revolutions. It had a turbulent and restless clement among its inhabitants that was never happier than when fomenting strife and con- spiring to overthrow those in power. Of this class Colton, writing in 1846, says: "They drift about like Arabs. If the tide of fortune turns against them they disband and scatter to the four winds. They never become martyrs to any cause. They are too numerous to be brought to punishment by any of their governors, and thus escape justice." There was a conservative class in the territory, made up principally of the large landed proprietors, both native and foreign-born, but these exerted small influence in controlling the turbulent. While Los An- geles had a monopoly of this turbulent and rev- olutionary element, other settlements in the territory furnished their full quota of that class of political knight errants whose chief pastime was revolution, and whose capital consisted of a gaily caparisoned steed, a riata, a lance, a dagger and possibly a pair of horse pistols. These were the fellows whose "habits, diver- sions and pastimes" Gillespie undertook to re- duce "to his standard of propriety."

That Commodore Stockton should have left Gillespie so small a garrison to hold the city and surrounding country in subjection shows that either he was ignorant of the character of the people, or that he placed too great reliance in the' completeness of their subjection. With Castro's men in the city or dispersed among the neighboring ranchos, many of them still retain- ing their arms, and all of them ready to rally at a moment's notice to the call of their leaders; wich no reinforcements nearer than five hundred

miles to come to the aid of Gillespie in case of an uprising, it was foolhardiness in Stockton to entrust the holding of the most important place in California to a mere handful of men, half disciplined and poorly equipped, without forti- fications for defense or supplies to hold out in case of a siege.

Scarcely had Stockton and Fremont, with their men, left the city before trouble began. The turbulent element of the city fomented strife and seized every occasion to annoy and harass the military commandant and his meu. While his "petty tyrannies," so called, which were probably nothing more than the enforce- ment of martial law, may have been somewhat provocative, the real cause was more deep seated. The Californians, without provocation on their part and without really knowing the cause why, found their country invaded, their property taken from them and their government in the hands of an alien race, foreign to them in customs and religion. They would have been a tame and spiritless people indeed, had they neglected the opportunity that Stockton's blun- dering gave them to regain their liberties. They did not waste much time. Within two weeks from the time Stockton sailed from San Pedro hostilities had begun and the city was in a state of siege.

* Gillespie, writing in the Sacramento States- man in 1858, thus describes the first attack : "On the 22d of September, at three o'clock in the morning, a party of sixty-five Californians and Sonorenos made an attack upon my small command quartered in the government house. We were not wholly surprised, and with twenty- one rifles we beat them back without loss to our- selves, killing and wounding three of their num- ber. When daylight came, Lieutenant Hensley, with a few men, took several prisoners and drove the Californians from the town. This party was merely the nucleus of a revolution commenced and known to Colonel Fremont be- fore he left Los Angeles. In twenty-four hours, six hundred well-mounted horsemen, armed with escopetas (shotguns), lances and one fine brass piece of light artillery, surrounded Los. Angeles and summoned me to surrender. There were three old honey-combed iron guns (spiked)

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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 20

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