USA > California > Monterey County > History and biographical record of Monterey and San Benito Counties : and history of the State of California : containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present. Volume I > Part 4
USA > California > San Benito County > History and biographical record of Monterey and San Benito Counties : and history of the State of California : containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present. Volume I > Part 4
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Viscaino, in a letter to the King of Spain, dated at the City of Mexico, May 23, 1603, grows enthusiastic over California climate and productions. It is the earliest known specimen of California boom literature. After depicting the commodiousness of Monterey Bay as a port of safety for the Philippine ships, he says: "This port is sheltered from all winds, while on the im- mediate shores 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, hare, partridges and other sorts and species found in Spain. This land has a genial climate, its waters are good and it is fertile, judging from the varied and luxuriant growth of trees and plants; and it is thickly settled with people whom I found to be of gentle disposition, peaceable and docile. * * Their food con- * sists of seeds which they have in great abun- dance 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
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
fair complexion, the women being somewhat less in size than the men, and of pleasing counte- nance. The clothing of the people of the coast lands consists of the skins of the sea wolves (otter) abounding there, which they tan and dress better than is done in Castile; they pos- sess also in great quantity flax like that of Cas- tile, 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 in very stormy weather. * *
* They are well ac- quainted with gold and silver and said that these were found in the interior."
The object of Viscaino's boom literature of three hundred years ago was the promotion of a colony scheme for the founding of a settlement on Monterey Bay. He visited Spain to obtain the consent of the king and assistance in planting a colony. After many delays, Philip III, in 1606, ordered the viceroy of New Spain to fit out immediately an expedition to be com- manded by Viscaino for the occupation and set- tlement of the port of Monterey. Before the ex- pedition could be gotten ready Viscaino died and his colonization scheme died with him. Had he lived to carry out his scheme, the settlement of California would have antedated that of James- town, Va., by one year.
CHAPTER III.
COLONIZATION OF ALTA CALIFORNIA.
A HUNDRED and sixty years passed after the abandonment of Viscaino's coloniza- tion scheme before the Spanish crown made another attempt to utilize its vast posses- sions in Alta California. The Manila galleons sailed down the coast year after year for more than a century and a half, yet in all this long space of time none of them so far as we know ever entered a harbor or bay on the upper Cali- fornia coast. Spain still held her vast colonial possessions in America, but with a loosening grasp. As the years went by she had fallen from her high estate. Her power on sea and land had weakened. Those brave old sea kings, Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher, had destroyed her invincible Armada and burned her ships in her very harbors. The English and Dutch pri- vateers had preyed upon her commerce on the high seas and the buccaneers had robbed her treasure ships and devastated her settlements on the islands and the Spanish main, while the free- booters of many nations had time and again captured her galleons and ravished her colonies on the Pacific coast. The energy and enterprise that had been a marked characteristic of her people in the days of Cortés and Pizarro were .ebbing away. The age of luxury that began
with the influx of the wealth which flowed into the mother country from her American colonies engendered intrigue and official corruption among her rulers, demoralized her army and prostrated her industries. While her kings and her nobles were revelling in luxury the poor were crying for bread. Proscriptive laws and the fear of her Holy Inquisition had driven into exile many of the most enterprising and most intelli- gent of her people. These baneful influences had palsied the bravery and spirit of adventure that had been marked characteristics of the Spaniards in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies. Other nations stood ready to take ad- vantage of her decadence. Her old-time enemy, England, which had gained in power as Spain had lost, was ever on the alert to take advantage of her weakness; and another power, Russia, almost unknown among the powers of Europe when Spain was in her prime, was threatening her possessions in Alta California. To hold this vast country it must be colonized, but her re- strictions on commerce and her proscriptive laws against foreign immigrants had shut the door to her colonial possessions against colonists from all other nations. Her sparse settlements in Mex- ico could spare no colonists. The native in-
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habitants of California must be converted to Christianity and made into citizens. Poor mate- rial indeed were these degraded savages, but Spain's needs were pressing and missionary zeal was powerful. Indeed, the pristine courage and daring of the Spanish soldier seemed to have passed to her missionary priest.
The Jesuits had begun missionary work in 1697 among the degraded inhabitants of Lower California. With a perseverance that was highly commendable and a bravery that was heroic, under their devoted leaders, Salvatierra, Kino, Ugarte, Piccolo and their successors, they founded sixteen missions on the peninsula. Father Kino (or Kuhn), a German Jesuit, be- sides his missionary work, between 1694 and 1702, had made explorations around the head of the Gulf of California and up the Rio Colo- rado to the mouth of the Gila, which had clearly demonstrated that Lower California was a pen- insula and not an island. Although Ulloa had sailed down the inner coast and up the outer coast of Lower California and Domingo del Castillo, a Spanish pilot, had made a correct map showing it to be a peninsula, so strong was the belief in the existence of the Straits of Anian that one hundred and sixty years after Ulloa's voyage Las Californias were still be- lieved to be islands and were sometimes called Islas Carolinas, or the Islands of Charles, named so for Charles II. of Spain. Father Kino had formed the design of establishing a chain of mis- sions from Sonora around the head of the gulf and down the inner coast of Lower California to Cape San Lucas. He did not live to complete his ambitious project. The Jesuit missions of Baja California never grew rich in flocks and herds. The country was sterile and the few small valleys of fertile land around the missions gave the padres and the neophytes at best but a frugal return for their labors.
For years there had been, in the Catholic countries of Europe, a growing fear and dis- trust of the Jesuits. Portugal had declared them traitors to the government and had banished them in 1759 from her dominions. France had suppressed the order in her domains in 1764. In 1767, King Carlos III., by a pragmatic sanc- tion or decree, ordered their expulsion from
Spain and all her American colonies. So great and powerful was the influence of the order that the decree for their expulsion was kept secret until the moment of its execution. Throughout all parts of the kingdom, at a certain hour of the night, a summons came to every college, monastery or other establishment where mem- bers of the order dwelt, to assemble by com- mand of the king in the chapel or refectory immediately. The decree of perpetual banish- ment was then read to them. They were hastily bundled into vehicles that were awaiting them outside and hurried to the nearest seaport, where they were shipped to Rome. During their journey to the sea-coast they were not al- lowed to communicate with their friends nor permitted to speak to persons they met on the way. By order of the king, any subject who should undertake to vindicate the Jesuits in writ- ing should be deemed guilty of treason and con- demned to deatlı.
The Lower California missions were too dis- tant and too isolated to enforee the king's de- cree with the same haste and secrecy that was. observed in Spain and Mexico. To Governor Gaspar de Portolá was entrusted the enforce- ment of their banishment. These missions were. transferred to the Franciscans, but it took time to make the substitution. He proceeded with great caution and care lest the Indians should become rebellious and demoralized. It was not until February, 1768, that all the Jesuit mis- sionaries were assembled at La Paz; from there they were sent to Mexico and on the 13th of April, at Vera Cruz, they bade farewell to the western continent.
At the head of the Franciscan eontingent that took charge of the abandoned missions of Baja California, was Father Junipero Serra, a man of indomitable will and great missionary zeal. Miguel José Serra was born on the island of Majoriea in the year 1713. After completing his studies in the Lullian University, at the age of eighteen he became a monk and was admitted into the order of Franciscans. On taking or- ders lie assumed the name of Junipero (Juniper). Among the disciples of St. Francis was a very zealous and devoted monk who bore the name of Junipero, of whom St. Francis once said,,
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
"Would to God, my brothers, that I had a whole forest of such Junipers." Serra's favorite study was the "Lives of the Saints," and no doubt the study of the life of the original Junipero influ- enced him to take that saint's name. Serra's ambition was to become a missionary, but it was not until he was nearly forty years of age that luis desire was gratified. In 1749 he came to Mexico and January 1, 1750, entered the College of San Fernando. A few months later he was given charge of an Indian mission in the Sierra Gorda mountains, where, with his assistant and lifelong friend, Father Palou, he remained nine years. Under his instructions the Indians were taught agriculture and the mission became model establishment of its kind. From this mountain mission Serra returned to the city of Mexico. He spent seven years in doing mis- sionary work among the Spanish population of the capital and surrounding country. His suc- cess as a preacher and his great missionary zeal led to his selection as president of the missions of California, from which the Jesuits had been removed. April 2, 1768, he arrived in the port of Loreto with fifteen associates from the College of San Fernando. These were sent to the dif- ferent missions of the peninsula. These mis- sions extended over a territory seven hundred miles in length and it required several months to locate all the missionaries.
The scheme for the occupation and coloniza- tion of Alta California was to be jointly the work of church and state. The representative of the state was José de Galvez, visitador-gen- eral of New Spain, a man of untiring energy, great executive ability, sound business sense and, as such men are and ought to be, some- what arbitrary. Galvez reached La Paz in July, 1768. At once he began investigating the condi- tion of the peninsular missions and supplying their needs. This done, he turned his attention to the northern colonization. Establishing his headquarters at Santa Ana near La Paz, he sum- moned Father Junipero for consultation in regard to the founding of missions in Alta Cali- fornia. It was decided to proceed to the initial points, San Diego and Monterey, by land and sea. Three ships were to be dispatched carrying the heavier articles, such as agricultural imple-
ments, church ornaments, and a supply of provi- sions for the support of the soldiers and priest after their arrival in California. The expedi- tion by land was to take along cattle and horses to stock the country. This expedition was divided into two detachments, the advance one under the command of Rivera y Moncada, who had been a long time in the country, and the second division under Governor Gaspar de Portolá, who was a newcomer. Captain Rivera was sent northward to collect from the missions ail the live stock and supplies that could be spared and take them to Santa Maria, the most northern mission of the peninsula. Stores of all kinds were collected at La Paz. Father Serra made a tour of the missions and secured such church furniture, ornaments and vestments as could be spared.
The first vessel fitted out for the expedition by sea was the San Carlos, a ship of about two hundred tons burden, leaky and badly con- structed. She sailed from La Paz January 9, 1769, under the command of Vicente Vila. In addition to the crew there were twenty-five Cat- alonian soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Fages, Pedro Prat, the surgeon, a Franciscan friar, two blacksmiths, a baker, a cook and two tortilla makers. Galvez in a small vessel accom- panied the San Carlos to Cape San Lucas, where le landed and set to work to fit out the San Antonio. On the 15th of February this vessel sailed from San José del Cabo (San José of the Cape), under the command of Juan Perez, an expert pilot, who had been engaged in the Phil- ippine trade. On this vessel went two Franciscan friars, Juan Viscaino and Francisco Gomez. Captain Rivera y Moncada, who was to pioneer the way, had collected supplies and cattle at Vel- icatá on the northern frontier. From here, with a small force of soldiers, a gang of neophytes and three muleteers, and accompanied by Padre Crespi, he began his march to San Diego on the 24th of March, 1769.
The second land expedition, commanded by Governor Gaspar de Portolá in person, began its march from Loreto, March 9, 1769. Father Serra, who was to have accompanied it, was de- tained at Loreto by a sore leg. He joined the expedition at Santa Maria, May 5, where it had
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
been waiting for him some time. It then pro- ceeded to Rivera's camp at Velicatá, sixty miles further north, where Serra founded a mission, naming it San Fernando. Campa Coy, a friar who had accompanied the expedition thus far, was left in charge. This mission was intended as a frontier post in the travel between the pen- insular missions and the Alta California settle- ments. On the 15th of May Portolá began his northern march, following the trail of Rivera. Galvez had named, by proclamation, St. Joseph as the patron saint of the California expeditions. Santa Maria was designated as the patroness of conversions.
The San Antonia, the last vessel to sail, was the first to arrive at San Diego. It anchored in the bay April II, 1769, after a prosperous voy- age of twenty-four days. There she remained at anchor, awaiting the arrival of the San Car- los, the flag ship of the expedition, which had sailed more than a month before her. On the 29th of April the San Carlos, after a disastrous voyage of one hundred and ten days, drifted into the Bay of San Diego, her crew prostrated with the scurvy, not enough able-bodied men being left to man a boat. Canvas tents were pitched and the afflicted men taken ashore. When the disease had run its course nearly all of the crew of the San Carlos, half of the sol- diers who had come on her, and nine of the sailors of the San Antonio, were dead.
On the 14th of May Captain Rivera y Mon- cada's detachment arrived. The expedition had made the journey from Velicatá in fifty-one days. On the first of July the second division, commanded by Portolá, arrived. The journey had been uneventful. The four divisions of the grand expedition were now united, but its num- bers had been greatly reduced. Out of two hundred and nineteen who had set out by land and sea only one hundred and twenty-six re- mained; death from scurvy and the desertion of the neophytes had reduced the numbers nearly one-half. The ravages of the scurvy had de- stroyed the crew of one of the vessels and greatly crippled that of the other, so it was im- possible to proceed by sea to Monterey, the second objective point of the expedition. A council of the officers was held and it was de-
cided to send the San Antonia back to San Blas: for supplies and sailors to man the San Carlos. The San Antonia sailed on the 9th of July and after a voyage of twenty days reached her des- tination; but short as the voyage was, half of the crew died of the scurvy on the passage. In early American navigation the scurvy was the most dreaded scourge of the sea, more to be feared than storm and shipwreck. These might happen occasionally, but the scurvy always made its appearance on long voyages, and sometimes destroyed the whole ship's crew. Its appearance and ravages were largely due to the neglect of sanitary precautions and to the utter indiffer- ence of those in authority to provide for the comfort and health of the sailors. The interces- sion of the saints, novenas, fasts and penance- were relied upon to protect and save the vessel and her crew, while the simplest sanitary meas- ures were utterly disregarded. A blind, unrea- soning faith that was always seeking interposi- tion from some power without to preserve and ignoring the power within, was the bane and curse of that age of superstition.
If the mandates of King Carlos III. and the instructions of the visitador-general, José de Galvez, were to be carried out, the expedition for the settlement of the second point designated (Monterey) must be made by land; accordingly Governor Portolá set about organizing his forces for the overland journey. On the 14th of July the expedition began its march. It con- sisted of Governor Portolá, Padres Crespi and Gomez, Captain Rivera y Moncada, Lieutenant Pedro Fages, Engineer Miguel Constansó, sol- diers, muleteers and Indian servants, number- ing in all sixty-two persons.
On the 16th of July, two days after the de- parture of Governor Portolá, Father Junipero,. assisted by Padres Viscaino and Parron, founded the mission of San Diego. The site selected was in what is now Old Town, near the tempo- rary presidio, which had been hastily con- structed before the departure of Governor Por- tolá. A hut of boughs had been constructed and in this the ceremonies of founding were hield. The Indians. while interested in what was going on, manifested no desire to be converted. They were willing to receive gifts, particularly
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of cloth, but would not taste the food of the Spaniards, fearing that it contained poison and attributing the many deaths among the soldiers and sailors to the food. The Indians had a great liking for pieces of cloth, and their desire to obtain this led to an attack upon the people of the mission. On the 14th of August, taking advantage of the absence of Padre Parron and two soldiers, they broke into the mission and began robbing it and the beds of the sick. The four soldiers, a carpenter and a blacksmith ral- lied to the defense, and after several of their numbers had fallen by the guns of the soldiers, the Indians fled. A boy servant of the padres was killed and Father Viscaino wounded in the hand. After this the Indians were more cau- tious.
We now return to the march of Portola's ex- pedition. As the first exploration of the main land of California was made by it, I give con- siderable space to the incidents of the journey. Crespi, Constansó and Fages kept journals of the march. I quote from those of Constansó and Crespi. Lieutenant Constansó thus de- scribes the order of the march. "The setting- forth was on the 14th day of June* of the cited year of '69. The two divisions of the expedition by land marched in one, the commander so ar- ranging because the number of horse-herd and packs was much, since of provisions and victuals alone they carried one hundred packs, which he estimated to be necessary to ration all the folk during six months; thus providing against a delay of the packets, altho' it was held to be impossible that in this interval some one of them should fail to arrive at Monterey. On the marches the following order was observed: At the head went the commandant with the offi- cers, the six men of the Catalonia volunteers, who added themselves at San Diego, and some friendly Indians, with spades, mattocks, crow- bars, axes and other implements of pioneers, to chop and open a passage whenever necessary. After them followed the pack-train, divided into four bands with the muleteers and a competent number of garrison soldiers for their escort with each band. In the rear guard with the rest of
the troops and friendly Indians came the cap- tain, Don Fernando Rivera, convoying the horse-herd and the mule herd for relays."
* "It must be well considered that the marches of these troops with such a train and with such embarrassments thro' unknown lands and un- used paths could not be long ones; leaving aside the other causes which obliged them to halt and camp early in the afternoon, that is to say, the necessity of exploring the land one day for the next, so as to regulate them (the marches) according to the distance of the watering-places and to take in consequence the proper precau- tions; setting forth again on special occasions. in the evening, after having given water to the beasts in that same hour upon the sure informa- tion that in the following stretch there was no. water or that the watering place was low, or the pasture scarce. The restings were measured by the necessity, every four days, more or less, according to the extraordinary fatigue occa- sioned by the greater roughness of the road, the toil of the pioneers, or the wandering off of the beasts which were missing from the horse herd and which it was necessary to seek by their tracks. At other times, by the necessity of humoring the sick, when there were any, and with time there were many who yielded up their strength to the continued fatigue, the excessive heat and cruel cold. In the form and according to the method related the Spaniards executed their marches; traversing immense lands more fertile and more pleasing in proportion as they penetrated more to the north. All in general are peopled with a multitude of Indians, who came out to meet them and in some parts accompa- nied them from one stage of the journey to the next; a folk very docile and tractable chiefly from San Diego onward."
Constansó's description of the Indians of Santa Barbara will be found in the chapter on the "Aborigines of California." "From the chan- nel of Santa Barbara onward the lands are not so populous nor the Indians so industrious, but they are equally affable and tractable. The Spaniards pursued their voyage without opposi- tion up to the Sierra of Santa Lucia, which they contrived to cross with much hardship. At the
*Evidently an error: it should be July 14th.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
foot of said Sierra on the north side is to be found the port of Monterey, according to an- cient reports, between the Point of Pines and that of Año Nuevo (New Year). The Spaniards caught sight of said points on the Ist of October of the year '69, and, believing they had arrived at the end of their voyage, the commandant sent the scouts forward to reconnoitre the Point of Pines; in whose near vicinity lies said Port in 36 degrees and 40 minutes North Latitude. But the scant tokens and equivocal ones which are given of it by the Pilot Cabrera Bueno, the only clue of this voyage, and the character of this Port, which rather merits the name of Bay, being spacious (in likeness to that of Cadiz), not corresponding with ideas which it is natural to form in reading the log of the aforemen- tioned Cabrera Bueno, nor with the latitude of 37 degrees in which he located it, the scouts were persuaded that the Port must be farther to the north and they returned to the camp which our people occupied with the report that what they sought was not to be seen in those parts."
They decided that the Port was still further north and resumed their march. Seventeen of their number were sick with the scurvy, some of whom, Constansó says, seemed to be in their last extremity; these had to be carried in lit- ters. To add to their miscries, the rains began in the latter part of October, and with them came an epidemic of diarrhea, "which spread to all without exception; and it came to be feared that this sickness which prostrated their powers and left the persons spiritless, would finish with the expedition altogether. But it turned out quite to the contrary." Those afflicted with the scurvy began to mend and in a short time they were restoredto health. Constansó thus describes the discovery of the Bay of San Francisco: "The last day of October the Expedition by land came in sight of Punta de Los Reyes and the Farallones of the Port of San Francisco, whose landmarks, compared with those related by the log of the Pilot Cabrera Bueno, were found exact. Thereupon it became of evident knowl- edge that the Port of Monterey had been left behind; there being few who stuck to the contrary opinion. Nevertheless the comman- dant resolved to send to reconnoitre the
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