Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 4

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366

USA > California > Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century > Part 4

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).

bay. St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, lived in the third century after Christ. He was be- headed by order of the African proconsul Galerius Maximus, during the persecution of the Christians under the Roman Emperor Valerian. The day of his death was November 26, A. D. 258.

Viscaino found clouds of smoke hanging over the headlands and bays of the coast just as Cabrillo had sixty years before, and for cen- turies preceding, no doubt, the same phenom- enon might have been seen in the autumn days of each year. The smoky condition of the at- mosphere was caused by the Indians burning the dry grass of the plains. The California Indian of the coast was not like Nimrod of old, a mighty hunter. He seldom attacked any fiercer animal than the festive jack rabbit. Nor were his futile weapons always sure to bring down the fleeted-footed conejo. So, to supply his larder, he was compelled to resort to strategy. When the summer heat had dried the long grass of the plains and rendered it exceed- ingly inflammable the hunters of the Indian villages set out on hunting expeditions. Mark- ing out a circle on the plains where the dried vegetation was the thickest they fired the grass at several points in the circle. The fire eating inward drove the rabbits and other small game back and forth across the narrowing area until, blinded with heat and scorched by the flames, they perished. When the flames had subsided the Indian secured the spoils of the chase, - slaughtered and ready cooked. The scorched and blackened carcasses of the rabbits might not be a tempting tidbit to an epicure, but the In- dian was not an epicure.

Viscaino sailed up the coast, following very nearly the same route as Cabrillo. Passing through the Santa Barbara Channel, he found many populous Indian rancherias on the main- land and the islands. The inhabitants were ex- pert seal hunters and fishermen, and were pos- sessed of a number of large, finely constructed canoes. From one of the villages on the coast near Point Reyes the chief visited him on his ship and among other inducements to remain in the country he offered to give to each Spaniard ten wives. Viscaino declined the chief's prof- fered hospitality and the wives. Viscaino's ex- plorations did not extend further north than those of Cabrillo and Drake. The principal ob- ject of his explorations was to find a harbor of refuge for the Manila galleons. These vessels on their outward voyage to the Philippine Islands kept within the tropics, but on their return, they sailed up the Asiatic coast to the latitude of Japan, where, taking advantage of the westerly winds and the Japan current, they

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

crossed over to about Cape Mendocino and then ran down the coast of California and Mexico to Acapulco. Viscaino, in the port he named Monterey after Conde de Monterey, the then Viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), claimed to have discovered the desired harbor.

In a letter to the King of Spain written by Viscaino from the city of Mexico, May 23, 1603, he gives a glowing description of Cali- fornia. As it is the earliest known specimen of California boom literature I transcribe a por- tion of it: "Among the ports of greater con- sideration which I discovered was one in thirty- seven degrees of latitude which I called Mon- terey. As I wrote to Your Majesty from that port on the 28th of December (1602) it is all that can be desired for commodiousness and as a station for ships making the voyage to the Philippines, sailing whence they make a land- fall on this coast. This port is sheltered from all winds, while on the immediate coast there are pines, from which masts of any desired size can be obtained, as well as live oaks and white oaks, rosemary, the vine, the rose of Alexandria, a great variety of game, such as rabbits, hares, partridges and other sorts and species found in Spain and in greater abundance than in the Sierra Morena (Mts. of Spain) and flying birds, of kinds differing from those to be found there. This land has a genial climate, its waters are good, and it is very fertile, judging from the varied and luxuriant growth of trees and plants; for I saw some of the fruits, particularly chestnuts and acorns, which are larger than those of Spain. And it is thickly settled with people, whom I found to be of gentle disposi- tion, peaceable and docile, and who can be brought readily within the fold of the holy gos- pel and into subjection to the Crown of Your Majesty. Their food consists of seeds, which they have in abundance and variety, and of the flesh of game, such as deer, which are larger than cows, and bear, and of neat cattle and bisons and many other animals. The Indians are of good stature and fair complexion, the women being somewhat less in size than the men and of pleasing countenance. The cloth- ing of the people of the coast lands consists of the skins of the sea wolves (otter), abound- ing there, which they tan and dress better than is done in Castile ; they possess also in great quan- tity, flax like that of Castile, hemp and cotton, from which they make fishing lines and nets for rabbits and hares. They have vessels of pine- wood very well made, in which they go to sea with fourteen paddle men of a side with great dexterity, even in very stormy weather. I was informed by them and by many others I met with in great numbers along more than eight

hundred leagues of a thickly settled coast that inland there are great communities, which they invited me to visit with them. They manifested great friendship for us, and a desire for inter- course; were well affected towards the image of Our Lady which I showed to them, and very attentive to the sacrifice of the mass. They worship different idols, for an account of which I refer to said report of your viceroy, and they are well acquainted with silver and gold and said that these were found in the interior."

When Sebastian Viscaino took his pen in hand to describe a country he allowed his imag- ination full play. He was a veritable Munchau- sen for exaggeration. Many of the plants and animals he describes were not found in Califor- nia at the time of his visit. The natives were not clothed in well tanned sea otter skins, but in their own sun tanned skins, with an occa- sional smear of paint to give variety to the dress nature had provided them. The hint about the existence of gold in California is very ingeniously thrown in to excite the cupidity of the king. The object of Viscaino's boom lit- erature of three hundred years ago was similar to that sent in modern times. He was agitating a scheme for the colonization of the country he was describing. He visited Spain to obtain per- mission and means from the king to plant col- onies in California. After many delays Philip III. ordered the Viceroy of New Spain in 1606 to immediately fit out an expedition to be con- manded by Viscaino for the occupation and settlement of the port of Monterey. Before the expedition could be gotten ready Viscaino died and the colonization scheme died with him. Had it not been for his untimely death the settle- ment of California would have antedated that of Jamestown, Va.

Although Ulloa and Alarcon had reached the head of the Gulf of California and the latter, in 1540, had discovered the Colorado river; and despite the fact that Domingo del Castillo, a Spanish pilot, had made a correct map showing Lower California to be a peninsula, so strong was the belief in the existence of the Straits of Anian that one hundred and sixty years after the discoveries of these explorers, "Las Cali- fornias" were still believed to be islands; and were sometimes called Islas Carolinas or Char- les' Islands (named for Charles II., of Spain). To the German Jesuit Missionary, Father Kuhn. better known by his Spanish appellation, Father Kino, belongs the credit of finally dissipating the fallacy, that California was an island or several islands. Between 1694 and 1701 he made five explorations to the country around the head of the Gulf of California and the junction of the Gila and Colorado. In 1701 he crossed the Colo-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

rado to the California side and learned from the natives that the ocean was only ten days' jour- ney to the westward, but unable to take his pack animals across the river, he was compelled to

give up a journey to the sea coast. He had planned a chain of missions to extend up the peninsula into Alta or Nueva California, but died before he could carry out his scheme.

CHAPTER III.

MISSION COLONIZATION.

T HE aggrandizement of Spain's empire, whether by conquest or colonization, was alike the work of state and church. The sword and the cross were equally the em- blems of the conquistador (conqueror) and the poblador (colonist). The king sent his soldiers to conquer and hold, the church its well-trained servants to proselyte and colonize. Spain's pol- icy of exclusion, which prohibited foreigners from settling in Spanish-American countries, retarded the growth and development of her colonial possessions. Under a decree of Philip II. it was death to any foreigner who should enter the Gulf of Mexico or any of the lands bordering thereon. It was-as the Kings of Spain found to their cost-one thing to utter a decree, but quite another to enforce it. Under such a policy the only means left to Spain to hold her vast colonial possessions was to proselyte the natives of the countries conquered and to transform them into citizens. This had proved effective with the semi-civilized natives of Mex- ico and Peru, but with the degraded Indians of California it was a failure.

After the abandonment of Viscaino's coloniza- tion scheme of 1606, a hundred and sixty-two years passed before the Spanish crown made another attempt to utilize its vast possessions in Upper California. Every year of this long in- terval, the Manila ships had sailed down the coast, but none of them, so far as we know, with one exception (the San Augustin which was wrecked in Sir Francis Drake's Bay), had ever entered its bays or its harbors. Spain was no longer a first-class power on land or sea. Those brave old sea kings-Drake, Hawkins and Fro- bisher-had destroyed her invincible Armada and burned her ships in her very harbors, the English and Dutch privateers had preyed upon her commerce on the high seas, and the bucca- neers had robbed her treasure shipsand devastat- ed her settlements on the islands and the Span- ish main, while the freebooters of many na- tions had time and again captured her Manila galleons and ravished her colonies on the Pacific Coast. The profligacy and duplicity of her kings, the avarice and intrigues of her nobles, theatroc-

ities and inhuman barbarities of her holy inqui- sition had sapped the vitality of the nation and subverted the character of her people. Although Spain had lost prestigeand her power was stead- ily declining she still held to her colonial pos- sessions. But these were in danger. England, her old-time enemy, was aggressive and grasp- ing; and Russia, a nation almost unknown when Spain was in her prime, was threatening her possessions on the northwest coast of the Pacific. The scheme to provide ports of refuge for the Manila ships on their return voyages, which had been held in abeyance for a hundred and sixty years, was again revived, and to it was added the project of colonizing California to resist Russian aggression.

The sparsely inhabited colonial dominions of Spain can furnish but few immigrants. Califor- nia, to be held, must be colonized. So again church and state act in concert for the physical and spiritual conquest of the country. The sword will convert where the cross fails. The natives who prove tractable are to be instructed in the faith and kept under control of the clergy until they are trained for citizenship; those who resist, the soldiers convert with the sword and the bullet.

The missions established by the Jesuits on the peninsula of Lower California between 1697 and 1766 had, by royal decree, been given to the Franciscans and the Jesuits expelled from all Spanish countries. To the Franciscans was en- trusted the conversion of the gentiles of the north. In 1768 the visitador-general of New Spain, José de Galvez, began the preparation of an expedition to colonize Upper or New Califor- nia. The state, in this colonization scheme, was represented by Governor Gaspar de Portolá, and the church by Father Junipero Serra. Two ex- peditions were to be sent by land and two by sea. On the 9th of January, 1769, the San Carlos was despatched from La Paz, and the San Antonio from San Lucas on the 15th of February. The first vessel reached the port of San Diego in 110 days, and the second in 57 days. Such were the uncertainties of ocean travel before the age of steam. On the 14th of May, the first land ex-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

pedition reached San Diego and found the San Antonio and San Carlos anchored there. On the Ist of July the last land expedition, with which came Governor Portola and Father Juni- pero Serra, arrived. On the 16th of July the mission of San Diego was founded, and thus, two hundred and twenty-seven years after its dis- covery, the first effort at the colonization of California was made.

The ravages of the scurvy had destroyed the crew of one of the vessels and crippled that of the other, so it was impossible to proceed by sea to Monterey, the chief objective point of the expedition. A land force, composed of seventy- five officers and soldiers and two friars, was or- ganized under Governor Gaspar de Portolá and on the 14th of July set out for Monterey Bay. On the 2d of August, 1769, the explorers dis- covered a river which they named the Porciun- cula (now the Los Angeles). That night they encamped within the present limits of the city of Los Angeles. Their camp was named Neus- tra Señora de Los Angeles. They proceeded northward, following the coast, but failed to find Monterey Bay; Viscaino's exaggerated descrip- tion deceived them. They failed to recognize in the open ensenada his land-locked harbor. Pass- ing on they discovered the Bay of San Fran- cisco. On their return, in January, they came down the San Fernando Valley, crossed the Ar- royo Seco, near the present site of Garvanza, passed over into the San Gabriel Valley and fol- lowed down a river they called the San Miguel, and crossing it at the Paso de Bartolo and thence by their former trail, they returned to San Diego. In 1770, Governor Portolá, with another expedition, again set out from San Di- ego by his former route to search for the Bay of Monterey. There, on the 3d of June, 1770, Father Junipero Serra, who had come by sea from San Diego, founded the mission of San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey, the second mis- sion founded in California, and Portolá took possession of the country in the name of the king of Spain. The founding of new missions progressed steadily. At the close of the century eighteen had been founded, and a chain of these missionary establishments extended from San Diego to the Bay of San Francisco. The neo- phyte population of these, in 1800, numbered fourteen thousand souls.

The buildings of the different missions of Cali- fornia were constructed after the same general plan ; the principal variation being in the archi- tecture of the church. Col. J. J. Warner, a pioneer of 1831, who saw the missions in their prime, thus describes the missionary establish- ments: "As soon after the founding of a mis- sion as its circumstances would permit, a large

pile of buildings in the form of a quadrangle, composed in part of burnt brick but chiefly of sun-dried ones, was erected around a spacious court. A large and capacious church which usu- ally occupied one of the outer corners of the quadrangle, was a necessary and conspicuous part of the pile. In these massive buildings covered with red tile, were the habitation of the friars, rooms for guests, and for the major- domos and their families, hospital wards, store houses and granaries, rooms for the carding, spinning and weaving of woolen fabrics, shops for blacksmiths, joiners and carpenters, sad- dlers, shoemakers, soap boilers, and cellars for storing the products (wine and brandy) of the vineyards. Near the habitation of the friars and in front of the large building, another building of similar materials was placed and used as quar- ters for a small number-about a corporal's guard of soldiers, under command of a non- commissioned officer, to hold the Indian neo- phytes in check, as well as to protect the mission from the attacks of the hostile Indians. The soldiers at each mission also acted as couriers. carrying from mission to mission the corre- spondence of the government officers and the friars. These small detachments of soldiers which were stationed at each mission were fur- nished by one or the other of the military posts at San Diego or Santa Barbara both of which were military garrisons."

The location of a mission was decided by the number of Indians in the immediate neighbor- hood who could be brought into the fold. As the Indian rancherias were located near a stream and in the most fertile part of the valley, the missionary establishments with but very few ex- ceptions occupied the best agricultural lands of California. It was not so much the padres as the Indians who decided the location. These establishments were separated far enough so that their jurisdiction did not conflict. Their distance apart varied from twenty to sixty miles. Each mission was directed by two friars. One of these superintended the mission buildings and conducted the religious instruction of the Indi- ans. The other supervised the business affairs of the mission, but it frequently happened that where one of the padres was a man of great force of character, like Zalvidea at San Gabriel and Péyri at San Luis Rey, he ruled supreme in all capacities, and there was no division of administration.

It is useless to discuss what the missions might have accomplished for the Indian had not the "blight of secularization" struck them. From their own statistics it becomes evident that at the large death rate which prevailed in them and their rapid decline in population during the

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

fifteen to twenty years previous to seculariza- tion, the neophytes would in two or three dec- ades at most have become practically extinct and the missions tenantless.

What under most favorable conditions and the ablest management they did accomplish for the Indian was perhaps best shown at San Gabriel under the rule of Zalvidea.

Under him San Gabriel became the most per- fect type of the missionary establishments of Alta California and the best illustration of what the mission system under the most favorable circumstances could and did accomplish for the Indian.

Padre Zalvidea came to the mission in 1806 and was removed to Capistrano in 1826. He was a clerical Napoleon-a man born to rule in any sphere of life into which he might be thrown. Hugo Reid says, "He possessed a pow- erful mind, which was as ambitious as it was powerful, and as cruel as it was ambitious. He remodeled the general system of government at the mission, putting everything in order and placing every person in his proper station. Everything under him was organized and that organization kept up with the lash."

"The neophytes were taught trades; there were soap makers, tanners, shoemakers, car- penters, blacksmiths, bakers, fishermen, brick and tile makers, cart makers, weavers, deer hunters, saddle makers, shepherds and vaqueros. Large soap works were erected, tannery yards established, tallow works, cooper, blacksmith, carpenter and other shops, all in operation. Large spinning rooms, where might be seen 50 or 60 women turning their spindles merrily ; and there were looms for weaving wool, cotton and

flax. Storehouses filled with grain, and ware- houses of manufactured products testified to the industry of the Indians."

The Mission San Gabriel became the largest manufacturing center in California. Zalvidea in a short time mastered the language of the natives and preached to them every Sunday in their own tongue. He looked closely after their morals and instilled industry into them with the lash. Reid says, "He seemed to consider whipping as meat and drink to them, for they had it night and morning." The mission furnished besides its own workmen laborers for the rancheros and the pueblo of Los Angeles. The old Church of Our Lady of the Angeles was built by neophyte laborers and mechanics from the mission, hired out at the compensation of one real (12} cents) a day.

It would seem, from the industrial training the natives had received through the three gen- erations that came on the stage of action in mis- sion life between 1770 and 1835, that they might have become self-dependent and self support- ing; that they might have become capable of self-government and fitted for citizenship under Spain, which was the purpose for which the mis- sions were established; and yet we find them, at San Gabriel in little more than a decade from the time when Zalvidea had raised this mission to such industrial eminence, helpless and incap- able-the serf and the slave of the white man, or savage renegades in the mountains.

The causes that brought about the seculariza- tion of the missions, the defects in the mission system, and the decline and fall of the neophyte will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE INDIANS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

T O THEORIZE upon the origin of the California Indians would be as unprofita- ble as to attempt the solution of the ethnological problem of why, living in a country with a genial climate, a productive soil and all the requisites necessary to develop a superior race, the aborigines of California should have been among the most degraded specimens of the North American Indians.

In 1542, when Cabrillo sailed along the coast of California, he found villages of half-naked savages subsisting by fishing and on the natural products of the soil. Two hundred and twenty- seven years later, when Portolá led his expedi-

tion from San Diego to Monterey, he found the natives existing under the same conditions. Two centuries had wrought no change in them for the better; nor is it probable that ten centuries would have made any material improvement in their condition. They seemed incapable of evolution.

The Indians of the interior valleys and those of the coast belonged to the same general family. There were no great tribal divisions like those that existed among the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains. Each rancheria was to a certain extent independent of all others, al- though at times they were known to combine

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

for war or plunder. Although not warlike, they sometimes resisted the whites in battle with bravery and intelligence.

Each village had its own territory in which to hunt and fish and its own section in which to gather nuts, seeds and herbs. While their mode of living was somewhat nomadic, they seem to have had a fixed location for their rancherias. Some of these rancherias, or towns, were quite large. Hugo Reid places the number of their towns within the limits of what was Los Angeles County in 1851 at forty. "Their huts," he says "were made of sticks covered in around with flag mats worked or plaited, and each village generally contained from 500 to 1,500 huts. Suanga (near what is now the site of Wilming- ton) was the largest and most populous village, being of great extent." If these huts were all occupied by families Reid's estimate of the size of the Indian towns is evidently too large. Por- tolá's expedition found no very populous towns when it passed through this section in 1769.

The Indian village of Yang-na was located within the present limits of Los Angeles City. It was a large town, as Indian towns go. Its location was between what is now Aliso and First Street, in the neighborhood of Alameda Street. Father Crespi, one of the two Francis- can friars who accompanied Portolá's expedi- tion, in his diary thus describes the first meeting of the white men and the Indian inhabitants of Yang-na: "Immediately at our arrival about eight Indians came to visit us from a large rancheria situated pleasantly among the woods on the river's bank. The gentiles made us pres- ents of trays heaped with pinales, chia* and other herbs. The captain carried a string of shell beads and they threw us three handfuls. Some of the old men smoked from well-made clay bowls, blowing three times, smoke in our faces. We gave them some tobacco and a few beads and they retired well satisfied."

On the evening of August 2, the expedition had encamped on the east side of the river near the point where the Downey Avenue bridge now crosses it.

Father Crespi continues, "Thursday (August 3, 1769), at half past six, we set out and forded the Porciuncula River, where it leaves the moun- tains to enter the plain." (This would be about where the Buena Vista Street bridge now spans the river.) "After crossing the river we found

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.

Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 4

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co. Number of Pages: 1366

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366