History of Sonoma County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county, who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present time, Part 6

Author: Gregory, Thomas Jefferson
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1190

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The ex-mission convert reverting toward the original moral type soon became a mission-memory, and this was inevitable. Much unjust denunciation has been lavished upon the disestablishment of the missions, but this has come from writers whose sentimental flights led them away from the original pur- pose of the missions, and the causes of their ending. Those institutions, as christianizers and civilizers of the California aborigines, were doomed long before the Spanish Cortes in 1813 passed but did not enforce the decree of secularization, and before the Mexican Congress in 1833 brought about the same enactment, for early in their history it was seen by intelligent Spanish officers that the missions could not make the Indians self-supporting citizens, and that the mere herding of them on the great mission tracts of land-taking about one thousand acres to support one Indian-was only maintaining them in a dependency, a servitude which doubtless was mild enough for his per- sonal comfort but did not lift him out of the low plane of ages. The Spanish Governor Borica. in 1876, said: "According to the laws the natives are to be free from tutelage at the end of ten years, the missions then becoming doc- trinaires, but those of New California, at the rate they are advancing, will not reach the goal in ten centuries: the reason God knows, and men, too, know

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

something about it." Official investigation several times during the decades of mission life showed that very few of the neophytes could read or had any literary knowledge whatever beyond the simplest church service. Also, the general assembling of the Indians in and at the missions, however sanitary the change from the white man's viewpoint, wrought disastrously in the end. The mission managers could not understand the fatality of housing the Indians, and could not overcome the natural apathy of the native to anything remotely resembling hygiene, and the losses from disease were greater than gains from all sources. In a comparatively few years the missions would have been de- populated. Moreover, Spain when she established and foisted and protected the missions, also provided for their final secularization, as the following in- structions given Viceroy Bucarili August 17, 1773, to the comandante at San Diego and Monterey.

"Article 15. when it shall happen that a mission is to be formed into a pueblo or village, the comandante shall proceed to reduce it to the civil and economical government, which, according to the laws, is observed by other villages of this kingdom." Other sections of the Cortes decree provided that 'the secular clergy should attend to the spiritual wants of these newly formed curacies," and that "the missionary monks relieved from the converted settle- ments shall proceed to the conversion of other heathen."

VALLEJO A BUSY OFFICIAL.

The Mexican congress twenty years after followed closely the decree of the Cortes in a practical and humane distribution of a half of the lands and other property to the Indians who had for years assisted in the accumulation of this wealth. To protect him against himself the neophyte by law was pre- vented from selling, mortgaging or in any way disposing of the land or cattle given him. The other half of the mission holdings were for the pobladores- colonists -- the urgent need of whom at last Mexico became conscious, and whom that government tried to encourage just previous to the time the United States took the whole proposition into her own hands. The padre's vast ranchos were soon covered by the big government grants and the colonist who was to receive a tidy little farm and many other gifts out of the mission treasury, was disappointed.

Added to these disagreeable features, Jose Maria Hijar, the chief pro- moter of the enterprise, landed into troubles of his own when he landed here. He was a man of means and some eminence in Mexico and if permitted might have carried his colonization scheme to some success, but among a people where every person watched some other with fear and distrust, official or pri- vate interference was to be expected. When Hijar left Mexico he had in his pocket his appointment to no less office than that of Governor of Upper Cali- fornia, signed by President Farias. Shortly after the new appointee's departure, Vice President Santa Ana, with the promptitude of politicians in Spanish Amer- ica, chased his superior out of the republic and proceeded to revoke that ex- official's work. A horseman rode from Mexico to Monterey in forty days. beating Hijar and his company by sea, and when the new governor arrived he was again just a plain citizen. Governor Figueroa sent the colony to So- noma, where the families were located by the comandante on the pueblo lots, but among the leaders there were dissensions and disagreements which but for

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

the strong hand of Vallejo would have broken out in open rebellion. As it was, several of the adherents of Hijar went down to Los Angeles, where they soon had an active revolt under way --- revolutions were easy and frequent in Los Angeles during the Spanish and Mexican periods. However, the Hijar insurrection subsided that same afternoon and the governor-on paper-was exiled.

The colony plan of populating the territory with desirable Mexican citi- zens, as well as the building of the "city" in the Santa Rosa valley having been abandoned, Comandante Vallejo at Sonoma found himself-for about ten years -a very busy official. He had the lately mission-emancipated neophytes-about as helpless as children-with their property to look after, also the Indians of his military district who had never received any mission-taming, and were ready at any hour to rush him and his corporal's guard of soldiers out of the country. With the home-seeking colonists from Mexico, bands of Amer- ican immigrants were finding their way into the fertile Sonoma valleys, though he repeatedly had been ordered by his superiors to prevent this "lawless in- vasion." This Spanish characteristic order, utterly absurd as well as impos- sible of compliance, Vallejo did not even pretend to obey, and he was too strong in territorial politics to be molested. So he kept his pueblo of four leagues square in peace while the cheap "rebellions" of wrangling officials were troub- ling the country from San Diego to Monterey. In the corps of the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West may be found the names of descendants of the following settlers who drifted into Sonoma county during '35 and '45: Mariano G. and Salvador Vallejo; Julio, Joaquin and Ramon Carrillo; Rafael Garcia ; Ignacio and Pablo Pacheco: Nazario and Francisco Berryessa; Felipe and Lazaro Peña; Manuel Vaca: Domingo Senz; Gregorio Briones; Juan Miranda ; Marcos and Cayetano Juarez ; Bartolo Bojorques; Francisco Duarte; Fernando Felix; Rosalino Olivera: Victor Prudon; George Yount; John Wil- son; James Scott; Mark West; J. B. R. Cooper; Edward Manuel McIntosh ; James Black : Edward Bale; James Dawson and Timothy Murphy. General Vallejo in 1832 married Francesca Benicia Carrillo, one of the daughters of Joaquin Carrillo, and three prominent gringo pioneers of Sonoma, Henry D. Fitch1, Jacob P. Leese and Juan B. Cooper, married sisters of Senora Vallejo. With these stalwart Yankee brothers-in-law as neighbors one may readily see where the Comandante got his high opinion of the Americanos del Norte.

THE CARRILLOS IN THE SOUTH-LAND.

The Carrillos were prominent among the old California families, settling first at Santa Barbara. Jose Antonio Carrillo seems to have been the "states- man" of the south and as such took an active part in the "capitol city" and other contests that kept the two ends of the state in constant wrangle. Los Angeles, the hot-bed of political dissension, and San Diego were geographically mated, and the combination could always be counted upon opposing Monterey- if they were not too busy opposing each other. San Francisco in those days had not reached a chief-city importance, so the "capitol" pendulum swung up and down the state-even after the Americans "came," till it finally stood sta- tionary on the Rio Sacramento. In 1835 José Antonio Carrillo as territorial delegate to the Mexican Congress lobbied through that body the decree making

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

Los Angeles the capital city. José appears to have cut a pretty wide swath that session in Mexico, for next year it was learned that he had persuaded Presidente Bustamente to appoint his brother, Carlos Carrillo, governor of Cali- fornia. This pleased the Angelenos, because with a governor within their gates they could humiliate Monterey. But Monterey was well supplied with gov- ernors that year. Governor Figueroa's death left Alta California legally in the hands of the diputacion or territorial legislature, of which Jose Carrillo was the presiding officer, but being a congressional delegate in Mexico, Jose Castro, another member, assumed the governship pro tem. The diputacion then decided to meet at Monterey.

A GOVERNOR-RIDDEN LAND.

Four pro tem. governors passed through the office during the next nine months, and after the last one had been shipped back to Mexico, General José Castro and Juan Bautista Alvarado, a customs clerk and a man of considera- ble ability, started a full grown revolution. The diputacion declared El Estado Libre de Alta California-The Free State of Upper California-forever inde- pendent, and arraigned Mexico for crimes that made the acts of George III of Great Britain seem lamb-like in comparison. Then California had two gov- ernors, and as Mexico had revolutions of her own at home, she let the new free state work out its own salvation,-and back into the Mexican confedera- tion. Affairs were somewhat mixed. Governor Alvarado of the north was the nephew of Governor Carlos Carrillo of the south and Los Angeles was for anybody who made that city his residence. That civic peculiarity yet may be observed in Los Angeles. General Castro's army of one hundred Californians made an imposing array on parade, but his fighting force consisted of fifty American riflemen under the command of a Tennesseean named Isaac Graham. It is not known that these men did any fighting during that campaign, but as it was known in both gubernatorial departments that they could and would shoot to kill, their mere presence on the field won the battle. Although Governor Carrillo and his brother, the member to Congress, were from Santa Barbara, that pueblo in its turn got up a revolt and he sent troops to punish the rebels, but this force was badly used up by Pio Pico, his brother-in-law. This sent his southern excellency scurrying out of Los Angeles and as far away as San Diego. A number of his friends did not get out in time and were caught by the northern governor, who sent them up to Sonoma, where Vallejo could keep them in seclusion for a few months, which he did although they were the adherents of Señora Vallejo's gubernatorial kinsman.

Alvarado's subjugation of the southerners progressed smoothly. When- ever Graham's riflemen showed up before a rebellious city, that rebellion was over and the ayuntamiento, or city council, would issue a voluble pronuncia- mento in which detestation for Mexico and veneration for a "hijo del pais" (son of the country) in the governor's chair were pretty well mixed. Finally Carrillo fell into the hands of his "arribeño" (upper) rival, and Alvarado, like a kind nephew, turned his captive over to his aunt, who assured him that she would keep el tio-the uncle-out of politics and otherwise be responsible for his behavior. Señora Carrillo seems to have been a woman of power and influence, at least in her own home at Santa Barbara, as she kept her word.

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

which was more than did the city of Los Angeles. That place with San Diego so annoyed Alvarado with their intrigues and plots that he passed the word down the coast that if they did not behave themselves he would shoot ten of their leading men. As he had this number in the Castillo at Sonoma with the key safe in Comandante Vallejo's pocket, the Angeleños and the San Diegos quickly concluded that Alvarado could and would do what he threatened, and he had no further trouble with them. But the free and sovereign days of Alta California were numbered. Some months before this Alvarado had reached the conclusion that an independent state containing a contentious pop- ulation and menaced by a foreign immigration could not exist. He had quietly "explained" to Mexico and had taken the oath of allegiance to the constitu- tion of 1836, and in 'return for handing California back to the Supreme Gov- ernment of Mexico, he was appointed governor. As either a salve for his wounded dignity or for a place of exile, the ex-governor was given the Island of Santa Rosa in the Santa Barbara Channel. On this western Elba, or St. Helena, Don Carlos Carrillo, like another Napoleon, settled down on his sea- girt rancho and as a typical Californian let his todays slip into the "mañanas."

Considerable space is here given to the Carrillo name because of the part played by members of that family not only in the lower portion of the state, but later in Sonoma; in connection with M. G. Vallejo, also with the settle- ment of the Santa Rosa valley. This digression into general history shows how Sonoma county on the northern frontier of the Mexican dominion played her role in the final act of Spain in the Californias. Sonoma is the last set- tlement of the Spanish crown in America if not in the world, and is the last colony from Mexico in California, hence the story of this county must carry much of the general history of the state.

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

CHAPTER X.

A FREE AND EASY PEOPLE.

At this period in the tale, when Mexico. is moving in battle-array to meet her great northern neighbor, and California with the tide is drifting in the same direction, a chapter may be given on life among the earlier native sons and daughters of the golden west, El hijos y la hijas del pais of Spanish blood, the mild and easy-going people who found on this mild and sunny coast a fitting and ideal place of existence. Methods and manners in the new Pueblo of Sonoma, just coming into civic life under the fatherly care of Comandante Vallejo, may be described as a fair sample of life in all California towns. Madre Spain gave her municipalities a government that smacked strongly of maternal- ism, but it was a system that suited her simple and kindly people. In the haci- endas and out on the ranchos the later-coming Anglo-Saxon found these milder Iberians, and took advantage of them. The North American in California survived and it was a survival of the fittest, not always of the best. We forced Mexico into a war, well knowing that our armies would be in her cap- ital in a few months. and because our pro-slavery politicians were calling for more territory. Only in the southwestern corner of the continent was the land then wanted, and our neighbor republic had to be whipped into gift giving. And a little more delay might have let France or England into Monterey and have given us a harder task to whip those settlers out.

The adobe, in which the Spanish colonist housed himself, was not a thing of exquisite beauty, in fact it was not anything but a structure exceedingly ugly, but it was easily built and comfortable when occupied. There was no ornamentation without or within ; but little variety, and while every man was his own architect and builder he "architected" and built like his neighbor. Some of the mission churches were imposing, while others, like the heavy dwellings of the people around them, were massed-up outside of every known rule of architecture. The Indian generally was the builder. He soon learned to cast the big clumsy, mud bricks, sun-drying them first on one side and then on the other and mud-plastering the hard cakes into walls. He was a fairly good workman-fairly good for that California day-and not difficult to herd onto his job. Plenty of carne for him when the vaqueros rode in with a fat steer, and a little, just a little, vino from the mission vineyard to wash the meal down. He never struck for higher wages, because he never received any wages. The white man who taught hiin a new tongue took care that the word "wages" didn't get into it. Probably he was as well off, herded with the other livestock of the haciendas, as he would have been running free and rounding up the sprightly grasshopper on the golden summer hills. From dirt-floor to tile-roof in the big houses there was so little wood or any combustible that the fire insurance business was the last thing that got over the mountains into California, and a full-fledged, active agent would have been considered fit for treason, stratagem and for spoils. Only the aristocrats could indulge in board-

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

floors. A description of the gubernatorial mansion in Monterey in 1814 says it was floored in wood, its front door was rawhide and wooden-barred windows let in the sunshine and air. The front and the upper story, if la casa had such, were the quarters for the don and his family, which was generally a large one, and the other portions of the hacienda were for the ranch herders, house servants and the retainers and hangers-on around the place. These latter were Indians, mixed-brecds and world-tramps of an unknown moral quality. The Spanish-Californian was kind to his pensioners. Doubtless often in their numbers and uselessness he found them a never-ending nuisance, but while he had a league of rancho left or a head of cattle straying over it he shared with them.

The wheat lands did not then produce as they did later under the plow of the gringo, but there was plenty of tortillas -- thin cakes beaten into shape by hand and baked before the fire,-eaten at every meal. Out under a convenient tree, in the clear, dry air where it would keep fresh till the knife got it all, hung a carcass of beef, and when that was gone to the chile-con-carne pot, there was more on-hoof in the wild-oats on the hills. The bean-pabulum of the Bostonese and the proletariat-was the chief of the rancho vegetable gar- den; and the gaudy red-pepper-never absent from any table or dish-grew between bean-rows. Coffee-when the ships brought it in,-and wine-in the Sonoma and Santa Clara valleys where the grapes grew-for the padron's table; and water, generally, for the others. While the plains were covered with cattle, milk and butter were unknown on a Californian's bill-of-fare. It was the enterprising Yankee here who went into the dairy business with the Spanish cow. Some of the missions had orchards hedged by willows and cactus, but tree-culture had little part in the early civilization of the country. Shade-trees, except on the alamedas along the roads leading to the churches or places of public resort, were not in favor. In those days when the noble oaks, the madrona or mother-tree, the peerless redwood or pine, the classic laurel, the wide-leafed maple and other princely growths made California a great natural garden, artificial planting was not necessary. That was to come when the ax and saw furthered the work of destruction among our groves- "God's first temples."

SIMPLE CIVIC GOVERNMENTS.

A civic government in Spanish dominion was simply and wisely handled. It consisted of the ayuntamiento (junta) or council, and its members were one or two alcaldes (mayors or judges), two or four regidores (councilmen) and a procurador-syndico (treasurer). The alcaldes were the presidents of the council. The syndico was not only the custodian of the pueblo coin, but he was tax-collector, city attorney, and a number of other useful and industrious things-for all of which he got no salary. The care of the town money was generally the lightest of his official duties, as taxation and expenditures were in constant competition for the lowest point in the town business. Most of the cooking was done in outdoor kitchens or ovens, consequently there were no flues nor chinineys in the walls to keep the fire department busy. The water utility was a well in the plaza where the senoras met with their ollas or water-jars, and the street lighting consisted of a lantern hung before the door

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

from twilight to bedtime-or until the candle burned out. Street work was confined to occasional digging or shoveling before one's own premises. No member of the ayuntamiento was salaried-the office in those days sought the man, and held him after it found him. And as he was a sturdy old don, inclined to keep the municipal coin-sack tied up with a rawhide riata, there was no civic grafting in those adobe pueblos "before the gringo came." The few soldiers or a volunteer, unpaid night-watch did the policing of the town or village. The area of an official pueblo was four square Spanish leagues or about twenty-seven square miles, in square or rectangular form. The lands were laid out in town lots, grain lands, public pasture lands, vacant commons, muni- cipal lands the rental of which went to defray public expenses, and unappro- priated royal lands, also used for raising revenue. As under Mexican domina- tion in California no tax was levied on land and improvements, the municipal funds of the pueblos were obtained from revenues on wine and brandy ; from the licenses of saloons and other business houses; from the tariff on imports ; from ball and dance permits; from the tax on bull-rings and cock-pits; and from petty court fines. Then, men paid for their vice and pleasure and the money was put to good use. The following from Professor J. M. Guinn's excellently written California history, from which this writer has gleaned many paragraphs of valuable information, will give an idea of municipal economy in the ante-golden times. "In the early '4os the city of Los Angeles claimed a population of two thousand, yet the municipal revenues rarely exceeded $1,000 a year. With this small amount the authorities ran a city government and kept out of debt, but at that time it cost little to run a city. There was no army of high-salaried officials with a horde of political heelers quartered on the municipality and fed from the public crib at the expense of the taxpayer. Politicians then may have been no more conscientious than now, but where there was nothing to steal there was 110 stealing. The alcaldes and other city fathers put no temptation in the way of the politicians, and thus kept them reasonably honest, or at least they kept them from plundering the tax payers by the simple expedient of having no tax payers."

NO AMERICAN TECHNICALITIES.

The judiciary was as simple as the legislative. Among the Spanish pio- neers of Alta California, there were few breaches of law, and virtually no crime. The courts weighed the old, old questions of right and wrong, and not the verbal formation of a law term, and Spanish justice was not lost under American technicalities. There were few law libraries in California, and writ- ten statutes were yet in the future. Minor offenses and actions involving less than one hundred dollars were examined and decided by the alcalde, while cases of more weight or importance were passed up to the district or supreme courts. Either party could demand a jury, and as this body of three or five persons was always picked from the best and most intelligent citizens of the pueblo, the cases went through the court unhampered by wrangling lawyers and archaic rules of procedure. The jurisdiction of an ayuntamiento might be confined to a small village or a county, and its authority was often as extensive as its jurisdiction. Its members serving without pay were liable to fine for non- attendance, and resignations were difficult. Even under the government of

HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY

a Spanish king, three-quarters of a century ago, California had the referendum. When a question of importance was before the ayuntamiento and there was a division in opinion, the alarma publica bell was rung and every citizen gathered immediately at the assembly hall. Those who failed without reason were fined $3. Then and there the public by the simple raising of hands voted and decided the question. Some of the town ordinances were unique, but seemed to have filled the bill even though they often appeared to regulate the social as well as the civic functions of the pueblo. From an old municipal record it may be read that "All individuals serenading promiscuously around the streets of the city at night without having first obtained permission from the alcalde will be fined $1.50 for the first offense, $3 for the second offense, and for the third punished according to law." That third "law" punishment must have been too fierce for a written municipal ordinance. A Los Angeles ordinance threatened: "Every person not having any apparent occupation in this city or its jurisdiction is hereby ordered to look for work within three days, count- ing from the day this ordinance is published; if not complied with he will be fined $2 for the first offense, $4 for the second offense, and will be given compulsory work for the third." It is evident these old-time city fathers intended to be severe in tramp-treatment, but it would be a simple-minded vagrant of any age that could not dodge those penalties. Just keep "a-lookin' and no fine, no work."

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History of Sonoma County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county, who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present time, Part 6

Author: Gregory, Thomas Jefferson Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Gregory, Thomas Jefferson
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1190