USA > California > Mendocino County > History of Mendocino County, California : comprising its geography, geology, topography, climatography, springs and timber > Part 24
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HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Indians, whom and whose territory it was their privilege to enter and reduce. Among the papers accompanying this report, is included a transcript of their recorded boundaries, as stated in a record book heretofore noticed. It will be seen from the fact first mentioned of their original occupation of the whole province, and from the vast territories accorded to their occupation, as late as the year 1828, how inconsistent with any considerable peopling of the country would have been any notion of proprietorship in the missionaries.
I am also instructed to "make an inquiry into the nature of the Indian Rights [in the soil], under the Spanish and Mexican governments."
It is a principle constantly laid down in the Spanish colonial laws, that the Indians shall have a right to as much land as they need for their habitations, for tillage, and for pasturage. Where they were already partially settled in communities, sufficient of the land which they occupied was secured them for those purposes .* If they were wild and scattered in the mountains and wil- dernesses, the policy of the law, and of the instructions impressed on the author- ities of the distant provinces, was to reduce them, establish them in villages, convert them to Christianity, and instruct them in useful employments.+- The province of California was not excepted from the operation of this rule. It was for this purpose especially, that the missions were founded and encour- aged. The instructions heretofore quoted, given to the commandant of Upper California in August, 1773, enjoin on that functionary, that "the reduction of the Indians in proportion as the spiritual conquests advance, shall be one of his principal cares; " that the reduction made, " and as rapidly as it proceeds, it is important for their preservation and augmentation, to congregate them in mission settlements, in order that they may be civilized and led to a rational life;" which (adds the instructions) "is impossible, if they be left to live dis- persed in the mountains."
The early laws were so tender of these rights of the Indians, that they for- bade the allotment of lands to the Spaniards, and especially the rearing of stock, where it might interfere with the tillage of the Indians. Special directions were also given for the selection of lands for the Indian villages, in places suitable for agriculture and having the necessary wood and water.# The lands set apart to them were likewise inalienable, except by the advice and consent of officers of the government, whose duty it was to protect the natives as minors or pupils.§
Agreeably to the theory and spirit of these laws, the Indians in California were always supposed to have a certain property or interest in the missions. The instructions of 1773 authorized, as we have already seen, the command-
* Recopilacion de Indias: laws 7 to 20, tit. 12, book 4.
+ Ib., laws 1 and 9, tit. 3, book 6.
# Law 7, tit. 12 Recop. Indias; ib., laws 8 and 20 tit. 3, book 6.
§ Ib., law 27, tit. 6, book 1. Pena y Pena, 1 Practica Forense Mejicana, 248, etc. Alaman, I Historia de Mejico, 23-25.
S . W. M Wullen
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THE MEXICAN GRANTS.
ant of the province to make grants to the mission Indians of lands of the missions. either in community or individually. But apart from any direct grant, they have been always reckoned to have a right of settlement; and we shall find that all the plans that have been adopted for the secularization of the missions, have contemplated, recognized, and provided for this right. That the plan of Hijar did not recognize or provide for the settlements of Indians, was one of the main objections to it, urged by Governor Figueroa and the territorial deputation. That plan was entirely discomfited; all the successive ones that were carried into partial execution, placed the Indian right of settlement amongst the first objects to be provided for. We may say, there- fore, that, however mal-administration of the law may have destroyed its intent, the law itself has constantly asserted the rights of the Indians to hab- itations and sufficient fields for their support. The law always intended the Indians of the missions-all of them who remained there-to have homes upon the mission grounds. The same, I think, may be said of the large ranchos-most, or all of which, were formerly mission ranchos-and of the Indian settlements or rancherias upon them. I understand the law to be, that wherever Indian settlements are established, and they till the ground, they have a right of occupancy in the land. This right of occupancy, how- ever-at least when on private estates-is not transferable; but whenever the Indians abandon it, the title of the owner becomes perfeet. Where there is no private ownership over the settlement, as where the land it occupies have been assigned it by a funetionary of the country thereto authorized, there is a process, as before shown, by which the natives may alien their title. I believe these remarks cover the principles of the Spanish law in regard to Indian settlements, as far as they have been applied in California, and are conformable to the customary law that has prevailed there .*
The continued observance of this law, and the exercise of the public- authority to protect the Indians in their rights under it, cannot, I think, pro- duce any great inconvenience; while a proper regard for long recognized rights, and a proper sympathy for an unfortunate and unhappy race, would seem to forbid that it should be abrogated, unless for a better. The number of subjugated Indians is now too small, and the lands they occupy too insig- nificant in amount, for their protection, to the extent of the law, to cause any considerable molestation. Besides there are causes at work by which even the present small number is rapidly diminishing; so that any question con- cerning them can be but temporary. In 1834, there were employed in the mission establishments alone the number of thirty thousand six hundred and fifty.+
* Of course, what is here said of the nature of Indian rights, does not refer to titles to lots and farming tracts, which have been granted in ownership to individual Indians by the govern- ment. These, I suppose to be entitled to the same protection as other private property.
+ This is not an estimate, it is an exact statement. The records of the missions were kept
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HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
In 1842, only about eight years after the restraining and compelling hand of the missionaries had been taken off, their number on the missions had dwindled to four thousand four hundred and fifty, and the process of reduc- tion has been going on as rapidly since.
In the wild and wandering tribes, the Spanish law does not recognize any title whatever to the soil.
It is a common opinion that nearly all of what may be called the coast country- that is, the country west of the Sacramento and San Joaquin val- leys-which lies south of, and including the Sonoma district, has been ceded, and is covered with private grants. If this were the case, it would still leave the extensive valleys of, these large rivers and their lateral tributaries, almost intact, and a large extent of territory-from three to four degrees of latitude- at the north, attached to the public domain within the State of California, beside the gold region of unknown extent, along the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. But while it may be nominally the case, that the greater part of the coast country referred to is covered with grants, my observation and information convince me that when the country shall be surveyed, after leav- ing to every grantee all that his grant calls for, there will be extensive and valuable tracts remaining. This is explained by the fact that the grants were not made by measurement, but by a loose designation of boundaries, often including a considerably greater extent of land than the quantity expressed in the title; but the grant usually provides that the overplus shall remain to the government. Although, therefore, the surveys, cutting off all above the quantity expressed in the grant, would often interfere with nominal occupa- tion. I think justice would generally be done by that mode to all the inter- ests concerned-the holders of the grants, the Government, and the wants of the population crowding thither. To avoid the possibility of an injustice, however, and to provide for cases where long occupation or peculiar circum- stances may have given parties a title to the extent of their nominal bounda- ries, and above the quantity expressed in their grants, it would be proper to authorize any one who should feel himself aggrieved by this operation of the survey, to bring a suit for the remaindee.
The grants in California, I am bound to say, are mostly perfect titles; that is, the holders possess their property by titles that, under the law which ere- ated them, were equivalent to patents from our Government; and those which are not perfect-that is, which lack some formality, or some evidence of com- pleteness- have the same equity, as those which are perfect, and were and would have been equally respected under the government which has passed away. Of course, I allude to grants made in good faith, and not to simulated
with system and exactness; every birth, marriage, and death was recorded, and the name of every pupil or neophyte, which is the name by which the mission Indians were known; and from this record, an annual return was made to the government of the precise number of Indians connected with the establishment.
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THE MEXICAN GRANTS.
grants, if there be any such, issued since the persons who made them ceased from their functions in that respect.
I think the state of land titles in that country will allow the public lands to be ascertained, and the private lands set apart by judicious measures, with little difficulty. Any measure calculated to discredit, or cause to be distrusted the general character of the titles there, besides the alarm and anxiety which it would create among the ancient population, and among all present holders of property, would, I believe, also retard the substantial improvement of the country: a title discredited is not destroyed, but every one is afraid to touch it, or at all events to invest labor and money in improvements that rest on a suspected tenure. The holder is afraid to improve; others are afraid to pur- chase, or if they do purchase at its discredited value, willing only to make inconsiderable investments upon it. The titles not called in question (as they certainly for any reason that I could discover do not deserve to be), the pressure of population and the force of circumstances will soon oper- ate to break up the existing large tracts into farms of such extent as the nature of the country will allow of, and the wants of the community require; and this under circumstances and with such assurance of tenure, as will war- rant those substantial improvements that the thrift and prosperity of the country in other respects invite.
I think the rights of the Government will be fully secured, and the inter- ests and permanent prosperity of all classes in that country best consulted, by no other general measure in relation to private property than an authorized survey according to the grants, where the grants are modern, or since the accession of the Mexican government, reserving the overplus; or, according to ancient possession, where it dates from the time of the Spanish govern- ment, and the written evidence of the grant is lost, or does not afford data for the survey. But providing that in any case where, from the opinion of the proper law officer or agent of the Government in the State, or from information in any way received, there may be reason to suppose a grant invalid, the Government (or proper officer of it) may direct a suit to be insti- tuted for its annulment."
THE YOKAYO GRANT .- On the 11th of September, 1852, Cayetano Juarez filed his petition as claimant to the Yokayo grant, containing eight square leagues of land. The grant was made to the petitioner May 24, 1845, by Pio Pico, and approved by the Departmental Assembly June 3, 1846. The Board of Land Commissioners rejected the claim November 7, 1854, and this decision was appealed to the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, and reversed by it April 17, 1863. It was then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and at its December term, 1864, the decision of the lower court was sustained. The grant is about eighteen miles long and one mile wide, and contains thirty- five thousand five hundred and forty-one and thirty-three one-hundredths acres.
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HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Under date of November 28, 1862, the Herald had the following concern- ing the confirmation of this grant: "The Yokayo grant was confirmed by a decision of the United States District Court on the 18th. The news of this confirmation has caused some little excitement here. Some of the set- tlers, we understand, express a preference for leaving their claims rather than pay the price at which it will be held by the owners. We are not ad- vised as to the rate at which it will be offered, but we are assured it will be reasonable. In a majority of cases, we have no doubt, this turn of affairs will be worse for the settlers than it would have been had it become Government land ; but it is not so universally. A serious difficulty would have sprung up immediately on the rejection of the grant and its survey by the Government. Many of the claims in the valley are not full one-fourth of a section ; perhaps they will not average more than one hundred and twenty acres to the claim. Thus, about every fifth claim would be entirely crowded out, while many of those now holding claims of good land would be so far shifted from their present location as to throw all their valuable · improvements, such as orchards, barns, fences, and even their residences, on another's land. But those who now have good paying claims and wish to hold to them, can do so, provided the grant owners will sell at such rates as to justify the settlers in purchasing."
A few weeks later, December 19, 1862, the Herald says : "We are in- formed that the owners of the grant will sell the land so as to average two dollars and fifty cents per acre for the entire grant."
In May, 1866, William Doolan was sent to Ukiah as the agent of the men who owned the grant, and a survey was made of the different claims and prices agreed upon, and a general settlement made, much to the satis- faction of the settlers. None of them were compelled to leave their claims except from the fact that they were unable to meet the first payment. Judges John Curry, S. C. Hastings and General Carpentier were at this time the owners of the grant. The title to it is now very good, being, as far as is known, entirely free from a cloud of any character. The last shadow was removed in March, 1867, when General M. G. Vallejo and Mortimer Ryan released all their claim and title to it, which they held by virtue of a mort- gage.
THE SANEL GRANT .- Fernando Feliz, as claimant, filed his petition for the Sanel grant with the Land Commissioners, August 14, 1852. The grant was made November 9, 1844, by Manuel Micheltorena. The claim was rejected October 18, 1853, by the Commissioners. An appeal was taken to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by the claimant, where the decision of the Commissioners was reversed June 14, 1856. The grant contained four leagues, provided that amount of land could be found within the boundaries as laid down in the expediente and
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THE MEXICAN GRANTS.
disseño, and if not, whatever amount was in the limits so defined was thus confirmed.
THE GRANTE DEL NORTE, or GARCIA GRANT .- This grant was said to have been given to Rafael Garcia by M. Micheltorena in 1844, and con- tained nine leagues, extending from the Gualala river to the Mal Paso, and one league back. The grant was given on the ground of dues for mil- itary service, which entitled Garcia to eleven leagues of land, two of which he held in Marin county, and the other nine located here; hence the title, " Grante del Norte," the North Grant. Garcia sold his title to Jose Leandro Luco for the sum of $10,000. In 1852 the claim was submitted to the Land Commissioners, and by them rejected. The matter was then appealed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and in 1857 or 1858 the claim was confirmed by that court. The matter was again appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the decision of the lower court was reversed in 1861. The grant contained about forty thousand acres. Its title was faulty, in that the grant made by Michelto- rena had never been confirmed by the Departmental Assembly at the city of Mexico. Those were matters, however, that there was as much uncer- tainty about as where lightning would strike in a western thunder-storm, and what would condemn one claim seemed to be the strength of another.
THE ALBION GRANT .- This grant contained eleven leagues, and was made to Captain Guilermo Richardson in 1844 by Micheltorena. It was never confirmed. It extended from Big river south to the Garcia river, and it will thus be seen that quite a strip of land lying between the Mal Paso and the Garcia river was covered by both claims. As neither of them were ever confirmed, no trouble ever grew out of that fact.
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HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
GENERAL HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT OF MENDOCINO COUNTY.
THE history of any county of California follows so sequentially, and is so closely allied with the history of the Pacific coast in general, and this State in particular, that to commence the chronicling of events from the beginning naturally and properly takes us back to the first discoveries in this portion of the globe, made by the bold old voyageurs who left the known world and the charted seas behind them and sailed out into an unknown, untraversed, unmaped and trackless main, whose mysteries were as great to them as those of that "undiscovered bourne from whence no traveler hath yet returned." Of all of those old Argonauts, it is not now known that any of them ever touched upon the soil of Mendocino county, nor is it at all proba- ble that they did, as there are no harbors along her coast which would afford tbem any decent and safe anchorage, where they would be free from the many storms that vex the waters of the Pacific, her placid name to the contrary notwithstanding. That several of them sailed close along its bor- ders there can be no doubt, and this is especially true of Sir Francis Drake. What a curious spectacle, and beautiful withal, must the coast of Mendocino have presented at that time. There were teeming thousands of aboriginals within its limits at that time, all of whom, of course, had never seen a ship, and when the news spread inland that such a wonder was visible on the western horizon, how they must have flocked down to the sea-shore to get a glimpse of the white-winged convoy from the land of "The Here- after," bearing emissaries from the Great Spirit, "Gitchie Manito." And the; great redwood forests were probably in their infancy, almost, yet. Three hundred years would make a marked difference in the size of even a redwood, and it is possible that the hills and mountains of this section were comparatively bare at that time. And that same period of time would make a great difference in the configuration of the outline of the coast also. The soft sandstone of which the immediate shore of the ocean is formed is very susceptible to the action of the waves, and it is possible that thousands upon thousands of acres have been washed away since then. It all seems more like a dream than a reality, that these bold men did sail so far away and make such long voyages into the unknown seas. The principal one of these, as far as the Pacific coast is concerned, was Sir Francis Drake, than whom no bolder navigator ever sailed the high seas.
We will now briefly sketch for the information of the reader how it was
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GENERAL HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT.
that that famous navigator came to these parts. Captain Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth, England, on the thirteenth day of December, A. D. 1577, for the South Sea Islands, having under his command five vessels, in size between fifteen and one hundred tons; in the largest, the Pelican afterwards named the Golden Hind he sailed himself, while the men in the whole fleet mustered only one hundred and sixty-six in number. On December 25, 1577, he sighted the coast of Barbary, and on the 29th the Cape Verde Islands, thence sailing across the almost untraveled bosom of the broad Atlantic, he made the coast of Brazil on the 5th of April, and entering the Rio de la Plata, parted company with two of his vessels, which, however, he afterwards met, and taking from them their provisions and men turned them adrift. On the 29th of May he entered the port of St. Julian, where he lay for two months taking in stores; on the 20th of August he entered the Straits of Magellan; on the 25th of September he passed out of them, having with him only his own ship, and thus handed his name to pos- terity as the first Englishman to voyage through that bleak and tempestu- ous arm of the sea. On the 25th of November he arrived at Macao, now a Portuguese settlement on the southern coast of China, which he had appointed as a place of rendezvous in the event of his ships being separated; but Captain Winter, his vice-admiral, had repassed the straits and returned to England. Drake thence continued his voyage along the coast of Chili and Peru, taking all opportunities of seizing Spanish ships, and attacking them off shore, till his men were satiated with plunder. Here he con- templated a return to England, but fearing the storm-lashed shores of Magellan, and the possible presence of a Spanish fleet, he determined to search for a northern connection between the two vast oceans, similar to that which he knew to exist in the southern extremity of the continent. He, therefore, sailed along the coast upwards in quest of such a route. When he started the season was yet young, still the historian of the voyage says that on June 3, 1579, in latitude forty-two, now the southern line of the State of Oregon, the crew complained bitterly of the cold, while the rigging of the ship was rigidly frozen, and again, in latitude forty-four " their hands were benumbed, and the meat was frozen when it was taken from the fire." With these adversities to contend against, it is no wonder then that he resolved to enter the first advantageous anchorage he should find. On June 5th they sailed in shore, and brought-to in a harbor, which proving unadvantageous through dense fogs and dangerous rocks, he once more put to sea, steering southward for some indentation in the coast line, where he should be safe. This they found on June 17, 1579, within thirty- eight degrees of the equator.
There seems to have been a very different state of weather existing in those days from that prevalent in the same latitudes at the present time, and many attempts have been made to harmonize those statements with
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HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
what it is reasonable to suppose was the truth. First of all the statements of this chronicler, although a Reverend gentleman, must be taken cum grano salis. He was sure that no one could dispute his statements, and he was doubtless loth to give this " New Albion " the credit of having a climate that would more than vie with "Old Albion." Again it will be remembered that the north-west trade-winds which prevail along the coast are fully as searching and cold as the winter winds, and that to a crew of men just from under a tropical sun, it would prove doubly piercing, and they doubtless thought these results of cold should occur even if they did not. Again there was a legend among the old Indians along this coast that there was once a year when snow fell in mid-summer. Now such a climatic somersault may have possibly occurred, and the condition of the weather been just as described.
But be that as it may, the truth that Drake did effect a landing in a " fair and good " bay stands out boldly and unimpeachably, and to locate the place is the subject now in hand. Authorities differ widely in regard to the matter, and thorough research fails to establish satisfactorily to all the exact situation of that body of water which should be called Drake's bay. From time immemorial it was thought that the present Bay of San Fran- cisco must have been the place, and all men of thirty years of age and older will remember the statement in the old school history to the effect that the first white men to sail into the Bay of San Francisco were Sir Francis Drake and his crew. Franklin Tuthill, in his " History of California," maintains that ground and says: "Its (San Francisco bay) latitude is thirty-seven degrees, fifty-nine minutes, to which that given by Drake's chronicler is quite as near as those early navigators with their comparatively rude instruments were likely to get. The cliffs about San Francisco are not remarkably white, even if one notable projection inside the gate is named ' Lime Point;' but there are many white mountains both north and south of it, along the coast, and Drake named the whole land-not his landing place alone-New Albion. They did not go into ecstasies about the harbor- they were not hunting harbors, but fortunes in compact form. Harbors, so precious to the Spaniards, who had a commerce in the Pacific to be pro- tected, were of small account to the roving Englishman. But the best pos- sible testimony he could bear as to the harbor's excellence were the thirty- six days he spent in it. The probabilities are, then, that it was in San Francisco bay that Drake made himself at home. As Columbus, failing to give his name to the continent he discovered, was in some measure set right by the bestowal of his name upon the continent's choicest part, when poetry dealt with the subject, so to Drake, cheated of the honor of naming the finest harbor on the coast, is still left a feeble memorial, in the name of a closely adjoining dent in the coast line. To the English, then, it may be believed belongs the credit of finding San Francisco bay."
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