USA > California > History of the State of California and biographical record of Coast Counties, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 12
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The arrival of a party of armed Americans from across the mountains and deserts alarmed the padres and couriers were hastily dispatched to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. The Americans were placed under arrest and com- pelled to give up their arms. Smith was taken to San Diego to give an account of himself. He claimed that he had been compelled to enter the territory on account of the loss of horses and a scarcity of provisions. lle was finally re- leased from prison upon the endorsement of several American ship captains and supercar- goes who were then at San Diego. He was al- lowed to return to San Gabriel, where he pur- chased horses and supplies. He moved his camp to San Bernardino, where he remained until February. The authorities had grown uncasy
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at his continued presence in the country and orders were sent to arrest him, but before this could be done he left for the Tulare country by way of Cajon Pass. He trapped on the tribu- taries of the San Joaquin. By the ist of May he and his party had reached a fork of the Sac- ramento (near where the town of Folsom now stands). Here he established a summer camp and the river ever since has been known as the American fork from that circumstance.
Here again the presence of the Americans worried the Mexican authorities. Smith wrote a conciliatory letter to Padre Duran, president of the missions, informing him that he had "made several efforts to pass over the moun- tains, but the snow being so deep I could not succeed in getting over. I returned to this place, it being the only point to kill meat, to wait a few weeks until the snow melts so that I can go on." "On May 20, 1827," Smith writes, "with two men, seven horses and two mules, I started from the valley. In eight days we crossed Mount Joseph, losing two horses and one mule. After a march of twenty days east- ward from Mount Joseph (the Sierra Nevadas) I reached the southwesterly corner of the Great Salt Lake. The country separating it from the mountains is arid and without game. Often we had no water for two days at a time. When we reached Salt Lake we had left only one horse and one mule, so exhausted that they could hardly carry our slight baggage. We had been forced to eat the horses that had succumbed."
Smith's route over the Sierras to Salt Lake was substantially the same as that followed by the overland emigration of later years. He discov- ered the Humboldt, which he named the Mary river, a name it bore until changed by Fremont in 1845. He was the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevadas. Smith left his party of trappers except the two who accompanied him in the Sacramento valley. He returned next year with reinforcements and was ordered out of the country by the governor. He traveled up the coast towards Oregon. On the Umpqua river he was attacked by the Indians. All his party except himself and two others were mas- sacred. He lost all of his horses and furs. Ile reached Fort Vancouver, his clothing torn to
rags and almost starved to death. In 1831 he started with a train of wagons to Santa Fe on a trading expedition. While alone searching for water near the Cimarron river he was set upon by a party of Indians and killed. Thus perished by the hands of cowardly savages in the wilds of New Mexico a man who, through almost in- credible dangers and sufferings, had explored an unknown region as vast in extent as that which gave fame and immortality to the African explorer, Stanley; and who marked out trails over mountains and across deserts that Fre- mont following years afterwards won the title of "Pathfinder of the Great West." Smith led the advance guard of the fur trappers to Cali- fornia. Notwithstanding the fact that they were unwelcome visitors these adventurers continued to come at intervals up to 1845. They trapped on the tributaries of the San Joaquin, Sacramento and the rivers in the northern part of the terri- tory. A few of them remained in the country and became permanent residents, but most of them sooner or later met death by the savages.
Capt. Jedediah S. Smith marked out two of the great immigrant trails by which the overland travel, after the discovery of gold, entered Cal- ifornia, one by way of the Humboldt river over the Sierra Nevadas, the other southerly from Salt Lake, Utah Lake, the Rio Virgin, across the Colorado desert, through the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles. A third immigrant route was blazed by the Pattie party. This route led from Santa Fe, across New Mexico, down the Gila to the Colorado and from thence across the desert through the San Gorgonio Pass to Los Angeles.
This party consisted of Sylvester Pattie, James Ohio Pattie, his son, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Jesse Furguson, Isaac Slover, William Pope and James Puter. The Patties left Kentucky in 1824 and followed trap- ping in New Mexico and Arizona until 1827; the elder Pattie for a time managing the cop- per mines of Santa Rita. In May, 1827, Pattie the elder, in command of a party of thirty trap- pers and hunters, set out to trap the tributaries of the Colorado. Losses by Indian hostilities, by dissensions and desertions reduced the party to eight persons. December 1st, 1827, while
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these were encamped on the Colorado near the mouth of the Gila, the Yuma Indians stole all their horses. They constructed rafts and floated down the Colorado, expecting to find Spanish settlements on its banks, where they hoped to procure horses to take them back to Santa Fe. They floated down the river until they encoun- tered the flood tide from the gulf. Finding it impossible to go ahead on account of the tide or back on account of the river current, they landed, cached their furs and traps and with two days' supply of beaver meat struck out westerly across the desert. After traveling for twenty-four days and suffering almost incredible hardships they reached the old Mission of Santa Catalina near the head of the Gulf of California. Here they were detained until news of their ar- rival could be sent to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. A guard of sixteen soldiers was sent for them and they were conducted to San Diego, where they arrived February 27, 1828. Their arms were taken from them and they were put in prison. The elder Pattie died during their imprisonment. In September all the party ex- cept young Pattie, who was retained as a host- age, were released and permitted to go after their buried furs. They found their furs had been ruined by the overflow of the river. Two of the party, Slover and Pope, made their way back to Santa Fe; the others returned, bringing with them their beaver traps. They were again im- prisoned by Governor Echeandia, but were fin- ally released.
Three of the party, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin and Jesse Furguson, became permanent residents of California. Young Pat- tie returned to the United States by way of Mexico. After his return, with the assistance of the Rev. Timothy Flint, he wrote an account of his adventures, which was published in Cin- cinnati in 1833, under the title of "Pattie's Nar- rative." Young Pattie was inclined to exaggera- tion. In his narrative he claims that with vac- cine matter brought by his father from the Santa Rita mines he vaccinated twenty-two thousand people in California. In Los Angeles alone, he vaccinated twenty-five hundred, which was more than double the population of the town in 1828. IIe took a contract from the
president of the missions to vaccinate all the neophytes in the territory. When his job was finished the president offered him in pay five hundred cattle and five hundred mules with land to pasture his stock on condition he would become a Roman Catholic and a citizen of Mexico. Pattie scorned the of- fer and roundly upbraided the padre for taking advantage of him. He had previously given Governor Eacheandia a tongue lashing and had threatened to shoot him on sight. From his narrative he seems to have put in most of his time in California blustering and threatening to shoot somebody.
Another famous trapper of this period was "Peg Leg" Smith. His real name was Thomas L. Smith. It is said that in a fight with the Indians his leg below the knee was shattered by a bullet. He coolly amputated his leg at the knee with no other instrument than his hunting knife. He wore a wooden leg and from this came his nickname. He first came to California in 1829. He was ordered out of the country. He and his party took their departure, but with them went three or four hundred California horses. He died in a San Francisco hospital in 1866.
Ewing Young, a famous captain of trappers, made several visits to California from 1830 to 1837. In 1831 he led a party of thirty hunters and trappers, among those of his party who remained in California was Col. J. J. Warner, who became prominent in the territory and state. In 1837 Ewing Young with a party of sixteen men came down from Oregon, where he finally located, to purchase cattle for the new settlements on the Willamette river. They bought seven hundred cattle at $3 per head from the government and drove them overland to Oregon, reaching there after a toilsome journey of four months with six hundred. Young died in Oregon in 1841.
From the downfall of Spanish domination in 1822, to the close of that decade there had been but few political disturbances in California. The only one of any consequence was Solis' and Herrera's attempt to revolutionize the territory and seize the government. José Maria Herrera had come to California as a commissioner of
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the commissary department. but after a short terin ui servico land! been removed from office for fraud. Jagdin Selis was a convict who was serving a ten years sentence of banishment from Mexico. The ex-official and the exile with oth- ers of damage l character combined to overturn the government.
On the night of November 12, 1829. Solis, with a band of soldiers that he had induced to join his standard, seized the principal govern- ment officials at Monterey and put them in prison. At Solis' solicitation Herrera drew up a pronunciamento. It followed the usual line of such documents. It began by deploring the evils that had come upon the territory through Echeandia's misgovernment and closed with promises of reformation if the revolutionists should obtain control of the government. To obtain the sinews of war the rebels seized $3.000 of the public funds. This was dis- tributed among the soldiers and proved a great attraction to the rebel cause. Solis with twen- ty men went to San Francisco and the sol- diers there joined his standard. Next he marched against Santa Barbara with an army of one hundred and fifty men. Echeandia on hearing i the revolt had marched northward with all the soldiers he could enlist. The two armies met at Santa Ynez. Solis opened fire on the governor's army. The fire was returned. Solis' men began to break away and soon the army and its valiant leader were in rapid flight. Pacheco's cavalry captured the leaders of the revolt. Herrara. Solis and thirteen others were shipped to Mexico under arrest to be tried for their crimes. The Mexican authorities, always lenient to California revolutionists. probably from a fellow feeling. turned them all loose and Herrera was sent back to fill his former office.
Near the close of his term Governor Echeandia formulated a plan for converting the mission into pueblos. To ascertain the fitness of the neophytes for citizenship he made an in- vestigation to find out how many could read and write. He found so very few that he ordered schools opened at the missions. A pretense was made of establishing schools, but very little was accomplished. The padres were opposed to edit-
cating the natives for the same reason that the southern slave-holders were opposed to educat- ing the negro, namely, that an ignorant people were more easily kept in subjection. Echeandia's plan of secularization was quite elaborate and dealt fairly with the neophytes. It received the sanction of the diputacion when that body met in July, 1830, but beiore anything could be done towards enforcing it another governor was ap- pointed. Echeandia was thoroughly hated by the mission friars and their adherents. Robin- son in his "Life in California" calls him a man of vice and makes a number of damaging asser- tions about his character and conduct, which are not in accordance with the facts. It was dur- ing Echeandia's term as governor that the motto of Mexico, Dios y Libertad (God and Liberty), was adopted. It became immensely popular and was used on all public documents and often in private correspondence.
A romantic episode that has furnished a theme ior fiction writers occurred in the last year of Echeandia's rule. It was the elopement of Henry D. Fitch with Doña Josefa. daughter oi Joaquin Carrillo of San Diego. Fitch was a native of New Bedford, Mass. He came to Cal- ifornia in 1826 as master of the Maria Ester. He fell in love with Doña Josefa. There were legal obstructions to their marriage. Fitch was a foreigner and a Protestant. The latter objec- tion was easily removed by Fitch becoming a Catholic. The Dominican friar who was to per- form the marriage service, fearful that he might incur the wrath of the authorities, civil and cler- ical, refused to perform the ceremony. but sug- gested that there were other countries where the laws were less strict and offered to go beyond the limits of California and marry them. It is said that at this point Doña Josefa said: "Why don't you carry me off, Don Enrique?" The suggestion was quickly acted upon. The next night the lady. mounted on a steed with her cousin, Pio Pico, as an escort, was secretly taken to a point on the bay shore where a boat was waiting for her. The boat put off to the Vulture, where Captain Fitch received her on board and the vessel sailed for Valparaiso, where the couple were married. A year later Captain Fitch returned to California with his
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wife and infant son. At Monterey Fitch was arrested on an order of Padre Sanchez of San Gabriel and put in prison. His wife was also placed under arrest at the house of Captain Cooper. Fitch was taken to San Gabriel ior trial. "his offenses being most heinous." At her in- tercession, Governor Echeandia released Mrs. Fitch and allowed her to go to San Gabriel, where her husband was imprisoned in one of the rooms of the mission. This act of clemency greatly enraged the friar and his fiscal, Pa- lomares, and they seriously considered the ques- tion of arresting the governor. The trial dragged along for nearly a month. Many wit- nesses were examined and many learned points of clerical law discussed. Vicar Sanchez finally gave his decision that the marriage at Val- paraiso, though not legitimate, was not null and void, but valid. The couple were condemned
to do penance by "presenting themselves in church with lighted candles in their hands to hear high mass for three feast days and recite together for thirty days one-third of the rosary of the holy virgin."" In addition to these joint penances the vicar inflicted an additional pen- alty on Fitch in these words: "Yet considering the great scandal which Don Enrique has caused in this province I condemn him to give as penance and reparation a bell of at least fifty pounds in weight for the church at Los An- geles, which barely has a borrowed one." Fitch and his wife no doubt performed the joint pen- ance imposed upon them, but the church at Los Angeles had to get along with its borrowed bell. Don Enrique never gave it one of fifty pounds or any other weight.
* Bancroft's History of California, Vol. III-144.
CHAPTER XI. REVOLUTIONS-THE HIJAR COLONISTS.
M ANUEL VICTORIA was appointed governor in March. 1830, but did not reach California until the last month of the year. Victoria very soon became un- popular. He undertook to overturn the civil authority and substitute military rule. He recommended the abolition of the ayunta- mientos and refused to call together the ter- ritorial diputacion. He exiled Don Abel Stearns and José Antonio Carrillo: and at dif- ferent times, on trumped-up charges, had hali a hundred of the leading citizens of Los An- geles incarcerated in the pueblo jail. Alcalde Vicente Sanchez was the petty despot of the pueblo, who carried out the tyrannical decrees of his master, Victoria. Among others who were imprisoned in the cuartel was José Maria Avila. Avila was proud, haughty and over- bearing. He had incurred the hatred of both Victoria and Sanchez. Sanchez. under orders from Victoria, placed Avila in prison, and to humiliate him put him in irons. Avila brooded over the indignities inflicted upon him and vowed to be revenged.
Victoria's persecutions became so unbearable that Pio Pico, Juan Bandini and José Antonio Carrillo raised the standard of revolt at San Diego and issued a pronunciamento, in which they set forth the reasons why they felt them- selves obliged to rise against the tyrant, Vic- toria. Pablo de Portilla, comandante of the presidio of San Diego. and his officers, with a force of fifty soldiers, joined the revolutionists and marched to Los Angeles. Sanchez's pris- oners were released and he was chained up in the pueblo jail. Here Portilla's force was re- cruited to two hundred men. Avila and a nuni- ber of the other released prisoners joined the revolutionists, and all marched forth to meet Victoria, who was moving southward with an armed force to suppress the insurrection. The two forces met on the plains of Cahuenga, west of the pueblo. at a place known as the Lomitas de la Canada de Breita. The sight of his per- secutor so infuriated Avila that alone he rushed upon him to run him through with his lance. Captain Pacheco, of Victoria's staff. parried the lance thrust. Avila shot him dead with one of
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his pistols and again attacked the governor and succeeded in wounding him, when he himself received a pistol ball that unhorsed him. After a desperate struggle (in which he seized Vic- toria by the foot and dragged him from his horse) he was shot by one of Victoria's soldiers. Portilla's army fell back in a panic to Los An- geles and Victoria's men carried the wounded governor to the Mission San Gabriel. where his wounds were dressed by Joseph Chapman, who, to his many other accomplishments, added that of amateur surgeon. Some citizens who had taken no part in the fight brought the bodies of Avila and Pacheco to the town. "They were taken to the same house, the same hands rendered then the last sad rites, and they were laid side by side. Side by side knelt their widows and mingled their tears, while sympathizing countrymen chanted the solemn prayers of the church for the repose of the souls of these untimely dead. Side by side be- neatlı the orange and the olive in the little churchyard upon the plaza sleep the slayer and the slain."*
Next day, Victoria, supposing himself mor- tally wounded abdicated and turned over the governorship of the territory to Echeandia. He resigned the office December 9, 1831, having been governor a little over ten months. When Victoria was able to travel he was sent to San Diego, from where he was deported to Mexico, San Diego borrowing $125 from the ayunta- miento of Los Angeles to pay the expense of shipping him out of the country. Several years afterwards the money had not been repaid, and the town council began proceedings to recover it, but there is no record in the archives to show that it was ever paid. And thus it was that California got rid of a bad governor and Los Angeles incurred a bad debt.
January 10, 1832, the territorial legislature met at Los Angeles to choose a "gefe politico," or governor, for the territory. Echeandia was invited to preside but replied from San Juan Capistrano that he was busy getting Victoria out of the country. The diputacion, after wait- ing some time and receiving no satisfaction
from Echeandia whether he wanted the office or not, declared Pio Pico, by virtue of his office of senior vocal, "gefe politico."
No sooner had Pico been sworn into office than Echeandia discovered that he wanted the office and wanted it badly. He protested against the action of the diputacion and intrigued against Pico. Another revolution was threat- ened. Los Angeles favored Echeandia, al- though all the other towns in the territory had accepted Pico. (Pico at that time was a resi- dent of San Diego.) A mass meeting was called on February 12, 1832, at Los Angeles, to dis- cuss the question whether it should be Pico or Echeandia. I give the report of the meeting in the quaint language of the pueblo archives:
"The town, acting in accord with the Most Illustrious Ayuntamiento, answered in a loud voice, saying they would not admit Citizen Pio Pico as 'gefe politico,' but desired that Lieut .- Col. Citizen José Maria Echieandia be retained in office until the supreme government appoint. Then the president of the meeting, seeing the determination of the people, asked the motive or rea on of refusing Citizen Pio Pico, who was of unblemished character. To this the people responded that while it was true that Citizen Pio Pico was to some extent qualified, yet they preferred Lieut .- Col. Citizen José M. Echean- dia. The president of the meeting then asked the people whether they had been bribed, or was it merely insubordination that they op- posed the resolution of the Most Excellent Di- putacion? Whereupon the people answered that they had not been bribed, nor were they insubordinate, but that they opposed the pro- posed 'gefe politico' because he had not been named by the supreme government."
At a public mecting February 19 the matter was again brought up. Again the people cried out "they would not recognize or obey any other gefe politico than Echeandia." The Most Illustrious Ayuntamiento opposed Pio Pico for two reasons: "First, because his name appeared first on the plan to oust Gefe Politico Citizen Manuel Victoria," and "Second, because he, Pico, had not sufficient capacity to fulfil the duties of the office." Then José Perez and José Antonio Carrillo withdrew from the meeting,
*Stephen C. Foster.
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saying they would not recognize Echeandia as "gefe politico." Pico, after holding the office for twenty days, resigned for the sake of peace. And this was the length of Pico's first term as governor.
Echeandia, by obstinacy and intrigue, had ob- tained the coveted office, "gefe politico," but he did not long enjoy it in peace. News came from Monterey that Capt. Agustin V. Zamo- rano had declared himself governor and was gathering a force to invade the south and en- force his authority. Echeandia began at once marshaling his forces to oppose him. Ybarra, Zamarano's military chief, with a force of one hundred men, by a forced march, reached Paso de Bartolo, on the San Gabriel river, where, fifteen years later, Stockton fought the Mexican troops under Flores. Here Ybarra found Cap- tain Borroso posted with a piece of artillery and fourteen men. He did not dare to attack him. Echeandia and Borroso gathered a force of a thousand neophytes at Paso de Bartolo, where they drilled them in military evolutions. Ybar- ra's troops had fallen back to Santa Barbara, where he was joined by Zamorano with rein- forcements. Ybarra's force was largely made up of ex-convicts and other undesirable characters, who took what they needed, asking no questions of the owners. The Angelenos, fearing those marauders, gave their adhesion to Zamorano's plan and recognized him as military chief of the territory. Captain Borroso, Echeandia's faith- ful adherent, disgusted with the fickleness of the Angelenos, at the head of a thousand mounted Indians, threatened to invade the re- calcitrant pueblo, but at the intercession of the frightened inhabitants this modern Coriolanus turned aside and regaled his neophyte retainers on the fat bullocks of the Mission San Gabriel, much to the disgust of the padres. The neo- phyte warriors were disbanded and sent to their respective missions.
A peace was patched up betwen Zamorano and Echeandia. Alta California was divided into two territories. Echeandia was given juris- diction over all south of San Gabriel and Zamo- rano ali north of San Fernando. This division apparently left a neutral district, or "no man's land," between. Whether Los Angeles was in
this neutral territory the records do not show. If it was, it is probable that neither of the gov- ernors wanted the job of governing the rebel- lious pueblo.
In January, 1833, Governor Figueroa arrived in California. Echeandia and Zamorano each surrendered his half of the divided territory to the newly appointed governor, and California was united and at peace. Figueroa proved to be the riglit man for the times. He conciliated the factions and brought order out of chaos. The two most important events in Figueroa's term of office were the arrival of the Hijar Col- ony in California and the secularization of the missions. These events were most potent fac- tors in the evolution of the territory.
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