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 9

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

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the mission, where they killed a neophyte, but, hearing that there was a company of soldiers at Los Angeles prepared to attack them, they fled back to the mountains.

Between 1786 and 1790 the number of families increased from 9 to 30. An estado, or census of the pueblo, taken August 17, 1790, gives its total population 141, divided as follows : Males, 75; females, 66; unmarried, 91; married, 44; widowed, 6; under 7 years, 47; 7 to 16 years, 33 ; 16 to 29 years, 12; 29 to 40 years, 27; 40 to 90 years, 13; over 90 years, 9; Europeans, I ; Spanish (this probably means Spanish-Ameri- cans), 72; Indians, 7; Mulattoes, 22; Mestizos, 39. The large percentage of the population over 90 years of age is rather remarkable. The mixed races still constituted a large proportion of the pueblo population. The increase of inhabitants came largely from discharged soldiers of the presidios.

It was the policy of the government to encour- age marriages between the bachelor soldiers and neophyte women, and thus increase the pop- ulation of the territory without the expense of importing colonists from Mexico. Spain evi- dently looked more to the quantity of her colo- nists than to the quality.

Of the social life of the pueblo we know but little. The inhabitants were not noted for good behavior ; they were turbulent and quarrelsome. The mixture of races was not conducive of har- mony and good citizenship.

Corporal Felix seems to have been moderately successful in controlling the discordant elements. The settlers complained of his severity, but the governor sustained him, and he retained his posi- tion to the close of the century. If padre Sala- zar's opinions of the colonists of California were correct, they were a hard lot; but the padres were opposed to all efforts at the colonization of California by gente de razon, and the priest's picture of pueblo life may be overdrawn. He asserted that "the inhabitants of the pucbios were idlers and paid more attention to gambling and playing the guitar than to tilling their lands and educating their children. The pagans did most of the work, took a large part of the crop, and were so well supplied thereby that they did not care to be converted and live at the mis- sions. The friars attended to the spiritual needs of the settlers free of charge, and their tithes did California no good. Young men grew up with- out restraint and wandered among the rancherias, setting the Indians a bad example and indulging in excesses that were sure sooner or later to result in disaster."

Notwithstanding Salazar's doleful picture of the pueblos, that of Los Angeles had made fair progress. In 1790 the carlier settlers had all re-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

placed their huts of poles with adobe houses. There were twenty-nine dwellings, a town hall, barrack, cuartèl and granaries built of adobe, and around these was a wall of the same material. Whether the wall was built as a defense against hostile Indians or to prevent incursions of their herds into the village does not appear. In 1790 their crop of grain amounted to 4,500 bushels, and their cattle had increased to 3,000 head. During the decade between 1790 and 1800 the population increased from 141 to 315. The in- crease came chiefly from the growing up of chil- dren and from the discharged soldiers of the pre- sidios. Horses and cattle increased from 3,000 to 12,500 head, and the production of grain reached 7,800 bushels in 1796. In 1800 they offered to enter into an agreement to supply 3,400 bushels of wheat per year, at $1.66 per bushel, for the San Blas market. Taxes were low and were payable in grain. Each settler was re- quired to give annually two fanegas of maize or wheat for a public fund to be expended for the good of the community.

The decade between 1800 and 1810 was as de- void of noteworthy events as the preceding one. Life in the pueblo was a monotonous round of commonplace occurrences. The inhabitants had but little communication with the world be- yond their own narrow limits. There was a mail between Mexico and California but once a month. As not more than half a dozen of the inhabitants could read or write, the pueblo mail added little weight to the budget of the soldiers' correras (mail carriers).

The settlers tilled their little fields, herded their cattle and sheep, and quarreled among themselves. During the decade drunkenness and other excesses were reported as alarmingly on the increase, and, despite the efforts of the co- misionado, the pobladores could not be con- trolled. The jail and the stocks were usually well filled. Vicente Felix was no longer com- missioner. Javier Alvarado, a sergeant of the army, was comisionado in 1809, and probably had filled the office the preceding years of the decade. Population increased slowly during the decade. In 1810 there were 365 persons in the pueblo; fifty had been recruited from the town for military service in the presidios. This would make a total of 415, or an increase of 100 in ten years.

The decade between 1810 and 1820 was marked by a greater increase in population than the preceding one. In 1820 the population of the pueblo, including the few ranchos surround- ing it which were under its jurisdiction, was 650. The rule of Spain in Mexico was drawing to an end. The revolutionary war begun by Hidalgo at the pueblo of Dolores in 1810 was carried on

with varying success throughout this decade. About all that was known of it in California was that some disturbance in New Spain prevented supplies being sent to the missions and the pre- sidios. The officers and soldiers received no pay. There was no money at the presidios to buy the products of the pueblos, and there were hard times all along the line. The common people knew little or nothing of what was going on in Mexico, and probably cared less. They had no aspirations for independence and were unfit for any better government than they had. The friars were strong adherents of the Spanish crown and bitterly opposed to a republican form of government. If the revolution suc- ceeded it would be the downfall of their power in California.

The most exciting event of the decade was the appearance on the coast of California, in Novem- ber, 1818, of the "pirate Buchar," as he was com- monly called by the Californians. Bouchard was a Frenchman, in the service of the revolu- tionists of Buenos Ayres, and carried letters of marque, which authorized him to prey on Span- ish commerce. Bouchard, with two ships, carry- ing 66 guns and 350 men, attacked Monterey, and after an obstinate resistance by the Cali- fornians, it was captured and burned. He next pillaged Ortega's ranch and burned the build- ings ; then, sailing down the coast, he scared the Santa Barbarans, looked into San Pedro Bay, but finding nothing there to tempt him, he kept on to San Juan Capistrano. Here he landed and robbed the mission of a few articles and drank the padres' wine; then he sailed away and dis- appeared from the coast. Los Angeles sent a company of soldiers to Santa Barbara to fight the insurgents. The Santa Barbara and Los An- geles troops reached San Juan the day after Bou- chard pillaged the mission. Los Angeles lost nothing by the insurgents, but on the contrary gained two citizens-Joseplı Chapman, of Massa- chusetts, and an American negro, named Fisher. Joseph Chapman was the first English-speaking resident of Los Angeles. He and Fisher were captured at Monterey, and not at Ortega's ran- cho, as stated by Stephen C. Foster. Chapinan married and located at the Mission San Gabriel, where he became Padre Sanchez' man of all work, and built the first mill in Southern Cali- fornia.

The first year of the third decade of the cen- tury witnessed the downfall of Spanish domina- tion in Mexico. The patriot priest Hidalgo had, on the 15th of September, 1810, struck the first blow for independence. For eleven years a frat- ricidal war was waged-cruel, bloody and dev- astating. Hidalgo, Allende, Miña, Morelos, Aldama, Rayon, and other patriot leaders sacri-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ficed their lives for the liberty of their country. U'nder Iturbide, in September, 1821, the inde- pendence of Mexico was finally achieved. It was not until September, 1822, that the flag of Spain

was supplanted by that of Mexico in California, although the oatlı of allegiance to the imperial government of Mexico was taken in April by Sola and others.

CHAPTER IX.

TRANSITION PERIOD-FROM MONARCHY TO REPUBLIC.

P ABLO VICENTE DE SOLA was gov- ernor of Alta California when the transi- tion came from the rule of Spain to that of Mexico. He had received his appointment from Viceroy Calleja in 1814. Calleja, the butcher of Guanajuato, was the cruelest and the most bloodthirsty of the vice-regal governors of New Spain during the Mexican revolution. Sola was thoroughly in sympathy with the loyalists and bitterly opposed to the revolutionary party of Mexico. To his influence and that of the friars was due the adherence of California to the cause of Spain. Throughout the eleven years of inter- necine war that deluged the soil of Mexico with blood, the sympathies of the Californians were not with those who were struggling for freedom).

Of the political upheavals that shook Spain in the first decades of the century only the faintest rumblings reached far-distant California. Not- withstanding the many changes of rulers that political revolutions and Napoleonic wars gave the mother country, the people of California re- mained loyal to the Spanish crown, although at times they must have been in doubt who wore the crown. The success of the revolutionary movement in Mexico was no doubt bitterly dis- appointing to Sola, but he gracefully submitted to the inevitable.

For half a century the Spanish flag had floated in California. It was lowered and in its place was hoisted the imperial standard of the Mexican Empire. A few months pass and the flag of the empire is supplanted by the tricolor of the Re- public of Mexico. Thus the Californians, in little more than one year, have passed under three different forms of government-that of a king- dom, an empire and a republic, and Sola, from a loyal Spanish governor, has been transformed into a Mexican republican.

The transition from one form of government to another was not marked by any radical changes. Under the empire a beginning was made towards a representative government. Cal- ifornia was given a "diputación provincial" or provincial legislature, composed of a president and six vocales or members. This territorial legislature met at Monterey November 9, 1822. Los Angeles, was represented in it by José

Palomares and José Antonio Carrillo. The diputacion authorized the organization of ayuntamientos or town councils for the pueblos of Los Angeles and San José, and the election of regidores or councilmen to office by the votes of the people.

Under the empire, California also was entitled to send a diputado or delegate to the imperial cortes, to be selected by the people. Upon the overthrow of his "Most Serene Majesty, Augustin I. by Divine Providence and by the Congress of the Nation, First Constitutional Emperor of Mexico," and the downfall of his short-lived empire, the republic of Mexico was established and went into effect November 19, 1823, by the adoption of a constitution similar to that of the United States. The federation was composed of nineteen states and four territories. Alta California was one of the territories. The territories were each allowed a diputado in the Mexican congress. The governors of the terri- tories were appointed by the president of the republic. The ayuntamiento of Los Angeles, which had been formed in November, 1822, 1111- der the empire, was continued under the repub- lic, with the addition of a secretary and a sindico (treasurer). The quasi-military office of comis- ionado, which had existed almost from the founding of the pueblo, was abolished, but the old soldiers, who composed a considerable por- tion of the town's population, did not take kindly to this innovation. The military comandante of the district, with the approval of Governor Argüello, who had succeeded Sola, appointed Sergeant Guillermo Cota to control the unruly element of the pueblo, his authority being similar to that formerly exercised by the comisionados. Then there was a clash between the civil and mil- itary authorities. The alcalde and the ayunta- miento refused to recognize Cota's authority. They had progressed so rapidly in republican ideas that they denied the right of any military officer to exercise his power over the free citi- zens of Angeles. The town had a bad reputa- tion in the territory. There was an unruly ele- ment in it. The people generally had a poor opinion of their rulers, both civil and military, and the ruler reciprocated in kind. The town had

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

a large crop of aspiring politicians, and it was noted for its production of wine and brandy. The result of mixing these two was disorder, dissensions and brawls. Rotation in office seems to have been the rule. No one could hold the office of alcalde two years in succession, nor could hie vote for himself. In 1826, José Antonio Carrillo was elected alcalde, but nine citizens protested that his election was illegal because as an elector he had voted for himself and that he could not hold the office twice within two years. A new election was ordered. At another election Vicente Sanchez reported to Governor Echeandia that the election was void because the candidates were "vagabonds, drunkards and worse."

The population of the pueblo in 1822, when it passed from under the domination of Spain, was 770. It was exclusively an agricultural com- munity. The only manufacturing was the con- verting of grapes into wine and brandy. The tax on wine and brandy retailed in 1829, was $339; and the fines collected were $158. These, the liquor tax and the fines, constituted the prin- cipal sources of municipal revenue.

The cattle owned by the citizens of the pueblo in 1821 amounted to 10,000 head. There was a great increase in live stock during the decade be- tween 1820 and 1830. The increased demand for hides and tallow stimulated the raising of cattle. In 1830, the cattle of the pueblo had in- creased to 42,000 head, liorses and mules num- bered 3,000 head and sheep 2,400. A few for- eigners had settled in Los Angeles. The first English-speaking person to locate here was José Chapman, captured at Monterey when the town was attacked and burned by Bouchard, as pre- viously mentioned. He arrived at Los Angeles in 1818. Chapman was the only foreign-born resident of the pueblo under Spanish rule. Mex- ico, although jealous of foreigners, was not so proscriptive in her policy toward them as Spain. As opportunity for trade opened up foreigners began to locate in the town. Between 1822 and 1830 came Santiago Mckinley, John Temple, George Rice, J. D. Leandry, Jesse Ferguson, Richard Laughlin, Nathaniel Pryor, Abel Stearns, Louis Bouchette and Juan Domingo. These adopted the customs of the country, mar- ried and became permanent residents of the town. Of these Mckinley, Temple, Stearns and Rice were engaged in trade and kept stores. Their principal business was the purchase of hides for exchange with the hide droghers. The hide droghers were vessels fitted out in Boston and freighted with assorted cargoes to exchange for hides and tallow. The embarcadero of San Pedro became the principal entrepot of this trade. It was the port of Los Angeles and of

the three missions, San Gabriel, San Fernando and San Juan Capistrano.

Alfred Robinson in his "Life in California" thus describes the methods of doing business at San Pedro in 1829: "After the arrival of our trading vessel our friends came in the morning flocking on board from all quarters; and soon a busy scene commenced, afloat and ashore. Boats were passing to the beach, and men, women and children partaking in the general excitement. On shore all was confusion, cattle and carts laden with hides and tallow, gente de razon and Indians busily employed in the delivery of their produce and receiving in return its value in goods. Groups of individuals seated around little bonfires upon the ground, and horsemen racing over the plains in every direction." "Thus the day passed, some arriving, some departing- till long after sunset, the low white road, leading across the plains to the town, appeared a living panorama." Next to a revolution there was no other event that so stirred up the social ele- ments of the old pueblo as the arrival of a hide drogher at San Pedro. "On the arrival of a new vessel from the United States," says Robinson, "every man, woman, boy and girl took a pro- portionate share of interest as to the qualities of her cargo. If the first inquired for rice, sugar or tobacco, the latter asked for prints, silks and satins; and if the boy wanted a Wilson's jack- knife the girl hoped that there might be some satin ribbons for her. Thus the whole popula- tion hailed with eagerness an arrival. Even the Indian in his unsophisticated style asked for Panas Colorodos and Abalaris-red handker- chiefs and beads."

Robinson describes the pueblo as he saw it in 1829: "The town of Los Angeles consisted at this time of about twenty or thirty houses scat- tered about without any regularity or any particular attraction, excepting the numbers of vineyards located along the lowlands on the borders of the Los Angeles River. There were but two foreigners in the town at that time, na- tives of New England, namely: George Rice and John Temple, who were engaged in mer- chandising in a small way, under the firm name of Rice & Temple." The following description. taken from Robinson's "Life in California," while written of Monterey, applies equally well to Los Angeles and vicinity : "Scarce two houses in the town had fireplaces ; then (1829) the method of heating the houses was by plac- ing coals in a roof tile, which was placed in the center of the room." "This method we found common throughout the country. There were no windows; and in place of the ordinary wooden door a dried bullock hide was substituted, which was the case as a general thing in nearly all the

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ranches on the coast, as there was no fear of in- trusion excepting from bears that now and then prowled about and were easily frightened away when they ventured too near. The bullock hide was used almost universally in lieu of the old- fashioned bed ticking, being nailed to the bed- stead framc, and served every purpose for which it was intended and was very comfortable to sleep upon." At the close of the third decade of the century we find but little change in the man- ners and customs of the colonists from those of the pobladores who nearly fifty years before built their primitive habitations around the plaza vieja. In the half century the town had slowly increased in population, but there had been no material improvement in the manner of living and but little advancement in intelligence. The population of the pueblo was largely made up of descendants of the founders who had grown to manhood and womanhood in the place of their birth. Isolated from contact with the world's

activities they were content to follow the anti- quated customs and to adopt the non-progres- sive ideas of their fathers. They had passed from under the domination of a monarchy and be- come the citizens of a republic, but the transi- tion was due to no effort of theirs nor was it of their own choosing. With the assistance of the missions they had erected a new church, but neither by the help of the missions nor by their own exertions had they built a schoolhouse. In the first half century of the pueblo's existence, if the records are correct, there were but three terms of school. Generations grew to manhood during the vacations. "A little learning is a dangerous thing." The learning obtained at the pueblo school in the brief term that it was open never reached the danger point. The lim- ited foreign immigration that had come to the country after it had passed from the rule of Spain had as yet made no change in its cus- toms.

CHAPTER X.

MISSION SECULARIZATION AND THE PASSING OF THE NEOPHYTE.

I T IS not my purpose in this volume to de- vote much space to the subject of the Sec- ularization of the Missions. Any extended discussion of that theme would be out of place in a local history.

Much has been written in recent years on the subject of the Franciscan Missions of Alta Cali- fornia, but the writers have added nothing to our knowledge of these establishments beyond what can be obtained from the works of Ban- croft, Hittell, Forbes and Robinson. Some of the later writers, carried away by sentiment, are very misleading in their statements. Such ex- pressions as "The Robber Hand of Seculariza- tion" and "the brutal and thievish dis-establish- ment of the missions" emanate from writers who look at the question from its sentimental side only, and who know little or nothing of the causes which brought about the secularization of the mission.

It is an historical fact known to all acquainted with California history that these establishments were not intended by the Crown of Spain to be- come permanent institutions. The purpose for which the Spanish government fostered and pro- tected 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." Spain, early in the present century, had formulated a plan for their secularization, but the war of Mexican Independence prevented the enforcement of it.

With the downfall of Spanish domination in Mexico came the beginning of the end of mis- sionary rule in California. The majority of the mission padres were Spanish born. In the war of Mexican independence their sympathies were with their mother country, Spain. After Mexico attained hier independence, some of them refused to acknowledge allegiance to the Republic. The Mexican authorities feared and distrusted them. In this, in part, they found a pretext for the dis- establishment of the missions and the confisca- tion of the mission estates. There was another cause or reason for secularization more potent than the loyalty of the padres to Spain. Few forms of land monopoly have ever exceeded that in vogue under the mission system of California. From San Diego to San Francisco bay the twenty missions established under Spanish rule monopolized the greater part of the fertile land between the Coast Range and the sea. There was but little left for other settlers. A settler

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

could not obtain a grant of land if the padres of the nearest mission objected.

The twenty-four ranchos owned by the Mis- sion San Gabriel contained about a million and a half acres and extended from the sea to the San Bernardino mountains. The greatest neo- phyte population of San Gabriel was in 1817, when it reached 1701. Its yearly average for the first three decades of the present century did not exceed 1,500. It took a thousand acres of fertile land under the mission system to support an Indian, even the smallest papoose of the mission flock. It is not strange that the people clamored for a subdivision of the mission estates ; and sec- nlarization became a public necessity. The most enthusiastic admirer of the missions to-day, had he lived in California seventy years ago, would no doubt have been among the loudest in his wail against the mission system. The Regla- mento governing the secularization of the mis- sions published by Governor Echeandia in 1830, but not enforced, and that formulated by the diputacion under Governor Figueroa in 1834, approved by the Mexican congress and finally enforced in 1834-35-36, were humane measures. The regulations provided for the colonizations of the neophytes into pueblos or villages. A portion of the personal property and a part of the lands held by the missions were to be dis- tributed among the Indians as follows : "Article 5-To each head of a family and all who are more than twenty years old, although without families, will be given from the lands of the mis- sion, whether temporal (lands dependent on the seasons) or watered, a lot of ground not to con- tain more than four hundred varas (yards) in length, and as many in breadth, nor less than one hundred. Sufficient land for watering the cattle will be given in common. The outlets or roads shall be marked out by each village, and at the proper time the corporation lands shall be designated." This colonization of the neo- phytes into pueblos would have thrown large bodies of the land held by the missions open to settlement by white settlers. The personal property of missionary establishments was to have been divided among their neophyte re- tainers thus: "Rule 6. Among the said indi- viduals will be distributed, ratably and justly, according to the discretion of the political chief, the half of the movable property, taking as a basis the last inventory which the missionaries have presented of all descriptions of cattle. Rule 7. One-half or less of the implements and seeds indispensable for agriculture shall be al- lotted to them."

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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 9

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