USA > California > San Bernardino County > Ingersoll's century annals of San Bernadino County, 1769-1904 : prefaced with a brief history of the state of California : supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and portraits of many of its representative people > Part 4
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Hitherto all expeditions to California had come either. by the coast route, up the peninsula, or by the sea, but in 1774, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, commander of the Tubac presidio in Sonora, with a company of thirty-four men, explored a route by the way of Gila and Colorado rivers across the desert and through the San Gorgonio Pass to San Gabriel mission. On his return to Sonora, he recruited a second expedition composed of soldiers and set- tlers and their families, aggregating in all over two hundred persons, who were designed to found a mission and establish a presidio on the San Fran-
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cisco bay. After a long and toilsome journey this party reached California in 1776. On the 17th of September, 1776, the presidio of San Francisco was formally established and on the 9th of October following, the inission christened for the founder of the Franciscan order of friars, San Francisco de Asis, was founded.
Governor Felipe de Neve, on his journey overland in 1777 from Loreto to Monterey, was instructed to examine the country from San Diego north- ward and select locations for agricultural settlements. He chose two colony sites, one in the south, on the Rio de Porciuncula, where Portala's expedi- tion had camped in August, 1769, and named by Portala, "Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles," and the other in the north on the Rio de Guadalupe.
On November 29, 1777, Governor de Neve founded the pueblo of San Jose on the site selected on the Guadalupe. The colonists were nine soldiers from the presidios of Monterey and San Francisco and five settlers of Anza's expedition. These with their families made a total of sixty-six. The site of the pueblo was about a mile north of the present site of the city of San Jose. Each settler was given a tract of irrigable land, a house lot, a soldier's rations and ten dollars a month. Each head of a family received a yoke of oxen, two horses, two cows, a mule, two sheep and two goats, a few farming implements and seed for sowing. The colonists were to reimburse the royal treasury for all the articles furnished them except their rations and monthly pay. Payments were to be made in installments from the sale of fruits, grains and cattle to the presidios.
A Spanish pueblo contained four square leagues, either oblong or in the form of a square. The public lands were divided into suertes, or planting fields-so called because they were divided among the colonists by lot ; propios, lands rented for the purpose of raising a municipal fund; dehesas, or the great pasture lands, where the herds of the pueblo pastured in com- mon and the realengos, or royal land, also used for raising revenue. Wood and water were communal property.
Under Spanish domination the pueblo was governed by a comisionado, a semi-civil, semi-military officer. There was also an alcalde who was mayor and petty judge. A guard of soldiers were kept at the guard house, partly for protection against the Indians and partly to preserve peace in the pueblo.
In 1779, Rivera y Moncada, the governor of Lower California, was in- structed to recruit in Sonora and Sinaloa settlers for the founding of a pueblo on the Rio Porciuncula and soldiers for the founding of a presidio and mission on the Santa Barbara channel. The settlers were to receive each $106.50 for two years and $60 for the next three years, the payment to be in clothing and other necessary articles at cost price ; also they were to receive live stock, farming implements and seeds, to be paid for in installments. These liberal offers secured but few recruits and those of poor quality. After a year spent
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in recruiting, Rivera had secured but fourteen settlers. Two of these de- serted before the company left Sonora and one was left behind at Loreto when, in April, 1781, the expedition began its march up the peninsula. The colon- ists under command of Lieutenant Zuniga, arrived at San Gabriel, August 18th, where they remained until September 4th. The eleven settlers and their families-forty-four persons in all, escorted by Governor de Neve and a small guard of soldiers and accompanied by the priests of San Gabriel mission, on September 4, 1781, proceeded to the site previously selected for the pueblo. This was on the right bank of the Rio Porciuncula near the spot where Portala's explorers had celebrated the feast of "Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula," from which circumstance was derived the name of the pueblo and the river. A plaza, seventy-five by one hundred varas, was laid off on the mesa above the river as the center of the settlement. A mass was said by the priests of the mission, a procession was formed and marched around the plaza, the soldiers bearing the imperial standard of Spain and the women the image of "Our Lady of the Angels." The priests blessed the plaza and the house lots. The services over, the governor and his escort took their departure and the colonists were left to work out their destiny.
Another pueblo called Branciforte was founded in 1797 near Santa Cruz, but it never prospered. The settlers were discharged soldiers, unused to labor and adverse to acquiring industrious habits.
A few grants of land were made to private citizens, but substantially, during the Spanish era, all the land outside of the pueblos used for grazing or for cultivation was held by the missions.
The commerce of California at this period was limited to the supply ships of the missions which usually came twice a year from San Blas with supplies for the missions and presidios and took away the few commercial products of the country, such as otter skins, hides and tallow of cattle. About 1800 the American smugglers began to come to the coast. . The vessels engaged in this trade were principally from Boston and were fast sailing craft. They exchanged Yankee notions for otter skins. The authorities tried to suppress this illicit traffic but were not often successful. The vessels were heavily armed and when not able to escape the revenue officers by speed or stratagem were not averse to fighting themselves out of a scrape.
Of the long and bloody struggle for Mexican Independence, beginning with the insurrection led by the patriot priest, Hidalgo, in 1810, and con- tinuing under various leaders for eleven years, but little was known in Cali- fornia. The men who filled the office of territorial governor during the years of the fratricidal struggle-Arillaga, Arguella and Sola-were royalists and so were the mission padres, nearly all of whom were Spanish born. The soldiers and the common people knew but little about what was going on in
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
the world beyond and cared less. They had no ambition to be freed from monarchical rule-they, too, were loyal to the king and the church.
The one event that disturbed the placidity of life in California during the closing years of the Spanish rule was the appearance on the coast of Bouchard, a privateer, with two frigates heavily armed. Bouchard was a Frenchman cruising under letters of marque from the insurgent government of Buenos Ayres, against the Spanish. He entered the harbor of Monterey, November 21, 1818, probably to obtain supplies, but being coldly received, he fired upon the fort. The Californians made a brave resistance but were finally overpowered. Bouchard landed and sacked and burned the town. He next appeared at Ortega's rancho, where he burned the buildings. Here the Californians captured three prisoners who were exchanged next day, when Bouchard anchored off Santa Barbara, for one Californian whom the insurgents had captured at Monterey. Bouchard next visited San Juan Capistrano, where his "pirates" drank the padres' wine and then he took his departure from California. Four of Bouchard's men were left in California. They became permanent residents. They were Joseph Chapman, an Ameri- can, and Fisher, a negro, who were captured at Monterey ; John Ross, a Scotch- man, and Jose Pascual, a negro, who deserted at San Juan. Chapman was the first American resident of Southern California. He married Guadalupe Ortega, a daughter of the owner of the Refugio rancho, which was plundered by the insurgents. He settled at the mission San Gabriel and built there the first flour mill erected in California.
The war of Mexican Independence caused hard times in California. The soldiers received no pay and the mission supply ships came at long intervals. Money was almost an unknown quantity. There were products to sell but no one to sell them to-except an occasional smuggler, or a tallow ship from Peru. The Independence of Mexico was finally achieved. September 21, 1821, by the insurgent army under Agustin Iturbide.
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
THE MEXICAN ERA.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM MONARCHY TO REPUBLICANISM.
Pablo Vicente de Sola was governor of California when Mexico attained her independence from Spain. He was of Spanish birth and was bitterly op- posed to the Revolution, even going so far as to threaten death to any one who should speak in favor of it. Although the rule of Spain in Mexico was overthrown in September, 1821, it was not until March, 1822, that official dispatches reached Sola informing him that the "Sovereign Council of the Regency of Imperial Mexico" was the governing power. The "Plan of Iguala," under which Iturbide finally overthrew the Spanish power, con- templated the placing of Fernando VII on the throne of the Mexican Empire, or, if he would not accept, then some scion of the royal family of Spain. Such a termination to the revolution did not jar Sola's loyalist sympathies. He called a junta to meet at Monterey and on the IIth of April the oath was taken to the new government and the day was closed with a blare of artillery. music and an illumination in honor of the "Soberano Junto."
But Sola's royalist sympathies received a rude shock a few months later when news reached California that Iturbide, by coup-d'etat, had overturned the "Sovereign Council of the Regency," seized the government for himself and been proclaimed Emperor with the imposing title of "Agustin I, by Divine Providence and by the Congress of the Nation, first Constitutional Emperor of Mexico." In September, 1822, the flag of Spain that for half a century had waved over the palacio of the governor at Monterey, was low- ered and the Imperial banner of Mexico took its place. California, from the dependency of a kingdom, had become a province of an empire. Im- portant events followed each other in rapid succession. Scarce half a year after the flag of the empire floated on the breeze in California, before the emperor was dethroned and forced into exile. The downfall of the empire was followed by the establishment of a republic fashioned after that of the United States. The country over which the viceroys of Spain had ruled for three hundred years was divided into nineteen states and four territories. The executive power was vested in a president and vice-president and the legislative power in a senate and chamber of deputies. Only the states were allowed representatives in the senate, the territories, of which Alta Cali- fornia was one, were to be governed by a governor appointed by the presi- dent and a diputacion, or territorial assembly, elected by the people. Each
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territory was entitled to send a diputado, or delegate, to the Mexican con- gress.
Luis Antonio Argüello succeeded Sola as governor, or "gefe politico" (political chief), as the office was later styled under the republic. He was elected November 9, 1822, president of the provincial diputacion and by virtue of his office became temporary governor instead of Sola, who had been elected delegate to the imperial congress. Argüello was the first gov- ernor under the republic. He was a native Californian, having been born at the presidio of San Francisco in 1784. He was a man of limited education but made good ·use of what he had. Argüello, as well as Sola, had been a pronounced royalist during the revolution, but with the downfall of Spanish domination he had submitted gracefully to the inevitable.
The success of the revolution was most bitterly disappointing to the mission padres. Through the long years of internicine strife between Mexico and the mother country they had hoped and prayed for the triumph of Spain. In the downfall of Spanish domination in California and the rise of re- publicanism, they read the doom of their feudal institutions, the missions. On the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of October, 1824, in Cali- fornia, Father Vicente de Serria, the president of the missions-a Spaniard and a royalist-not only refused to take the oath of allegiance to it, but also declined to perform religious services in favor of it, or to allow his imme- diate subordinates to do so. An order was issued by the Supreme Govern- ment for his arrest, but before it reached California he had been superseded in the presidency by Father Narciso Duran, of San Jose. A number of the padres were hostile to the Republic and evaded taking the oath of allegiance on the ground of obedience to the orders of their Superior. Their unfriendly attitude to the Republic was one of the causes that led to the secularization of the missions a few years later.
The Mexican government shortly after its inauguration, removed most of the restrictions imposed by Spain against foreigners settling in Califor- nia. The colonization law of 1824 was quite liberal. The state religion was the Roman Catholic and all foreigners who settled in the country were re- quired to embrace the doctrines and be baptized into that church. During Spanish domination not more than half a dozen foreigners had been allowed to become permanent residents in California. The earliest English settler was John Gilroy, after whom the town of Gilroy was named. He was left by his vessel at Monterey in 1814. Being sick with scurvy, he was allowed to remain in the country. He married a daughter of Ignacio Ortega and at one time owned a considerable body of land, but died poor. Joseph Chapman, the first American settler was, as has been previously mentioned, one of Bouchard's men captured at Monterey in 1818.
Beginning with Baron Rezanof's visit in the ship Juno, to San Fran- cisco, in 1806, for the purpose of buying grain for the starving Russian
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colony at Sitka, the Russians made frequent visits to the California coast, partly to obtain supplies, but more for the purpose of hunting seal and sea otter. Their Aleut fur hunters in their bidarkas, or skin canoes, killed otter in San Francisco bay and the Spaniards, destitute of boats or ships, were powerless to prevent them. While hunting otter the Russians had examined the coast north of San Francisco bay with the design of founding an agri- cultural colony where they might raise grain for their settlements in the far north. In 1812 they built a village and fort about eighteen miles north of Bodega bay, which they named Ross. The fort mounted ten cannon. They also maintained a port on Bodega bay. They had also a small station on Russian River. The Spanish protested against this invasion of territory and threatened to drive out the Russians, but nothing came of either their protests or threats. The Russian ships came to California for supplies and were wel- comed by the people and the padres, if not by the government officials. The Russian colony was not a success ; the ignorant soldiers and the Aleuts, who formed the bulk of the three or four hundred inhabitants, knew little about farming. After the decline of fur hunting the settlement became unprofitable. In 1841 the buildings and stock were sold by the Russian governor to Cap- tain John A. Sutter for $30,000. The settlement was abandoned and the fort and town have long since fallen into ruins.
Among the foreigners who came to California soon after the establish- ment of Mexican independence and became prominent in affairs may be named W. E. P. Hartnell, Captain John R. Cooper, Wm. A. Richardson, Daniel A. Hill and Wm. A. Gale.
Wm. Edward Petty Hartnell came to California from Lima as a member of the firm of McCullock, Hartnell & Co., of Lima, engaged in the hide and tallow trade. Hartnell was an Englishman by birth, well educated and highly respected. He married Maria Teresa de la Guerra and twenty-five children were born to them. He died at Monterey in 1859.
Wm. A. Gale came to California in 1810 as a Boston fur-trader. He returned to the territory in 1822 on the ship Sachem, the pioneer Boston hide drogher. The hide drogher was, in a certain sense, the pioneer immigrant ship of California. It brought to the coast a number of Americans who be- came permanent residents of the country. California, on account of its long distance from the centers of trade, had but few products for exchange that would bear the cost of transportation. Its chief commodities for barter, during the Mexican era, were hides and tallow. The vast range of country adapted to cattle raising made that its most profitable industry. After the restrictions on commerce with foreigners had, to a great extent, been removed by the Mexican government, a profitable trade grew up between the New England ship owners and the Californians.
Vessels were fitted out in Boston with a cargo of assorted goods suitable for the California trade. Voyaging around Cape Horn, they reached Cali-
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fornia, and stopping at various points along the coast they exchanged their stock of goods and Yankee "notions" for hides and tallow. It took from two to three years to make the voyage out from Boston and return, but the profits on the goods sold and the hides received in exchange were so large that these ventures paid handsomely. Cattle raising, up to the time of the discovery of gold in 1848, continued to be the principal industry of the country.
During the first decade of Republican rule in California, there was but little change in its political condition or in the views of the people con- cerning the government. Mission rule was still dominant and the people were subservient to the rule of the governors appointed over them. But with the increase of foreigners and the advent of ex-revolutionists from Mexico, the old-time native Californian loyalists gradually became imbued with a kind of republicanism that transformed them into malcontents whose protests against the sins of governmental officials took the form of pro- nunciamientos and revolutions.
The first of the numerous revolts against the rule of the governors ap- pointed by the Mexican government was that known as the Solis revolu- tion which occurred in November, 1829. The soldiers at the presidios for years had received but a small part of their pay and were but poorly clothed and provisioned. The garrison at Monterey rebelled and seized and im- prisoned their officers. Those at San Francisco followed the example of their comrades at Monterey. Putting themselves under the leadership of Joaquin Solis, an ex-revolutionist of Mexico who had been banished from that country, they marched southward to meet Governor Echeandia, who was moving northward with a force of about one hundred men from San Diego, where he had established his capital. The two forces met at Dos Pueblos, near Santa Barbara and a bloodless battle ensued. During two days the firing was kept up, then the revolutionists, having exhausted their ammunition and their courage, took to their heels and fled to Monterey. . pursued-at a safe distance-by the governor's soldiers. The rebellious "escoltas" (militia) were pardoned and returned to duty. Herrara, the de- posed commissary-general, Solis and several other leaders were arrested and sent to Mexico to be tried for high crimes and misdemeanor. On their ar- rival in that land of revolutions, they were turned loose and eventually returned to California.
The principal cause of the California disturbances was the jealousy and dislike of the "hijos del pais" (native sons) to the Mexican born offi- cers who were appointed by the superior government to fill the offices. Many of these were adventurers who came to the country to improve their fortunes and were not scrupulous as to methods or means, so that the end was accomplished.
HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER V. REVOLUTIONS AND SECULARIZATION.
Manuel Victoria succeeded Echeandia as gefe politico of Alta California in January, 1831. Victoria was a soldier with but.little idea as to how to ad- minister civil affairs. He was arbitrary and tyrannical. He refused to convoke the diputacion, or territorial assembly. From the very beginning of his term he was involved in quarrels with the leading men of the terri- tory. Exile, imprisonment and banishment were meted out for small of- fenses-and sometimes for none at all.
At length Jose Antonio Carrillo and Don Abel Stearns, who had beer exiled to Lower California with Juan Bandini and Pio Pico, residents of San Diego, formulated a plot for the overthrow of Victoria, and issued a pronunciamiento arraigning him for misdeeds and petty tyrannies. The soldiers at the presidio, with their captain, Portilla, joined the revolt. Por- tilla and the leading conspirators with fifty men marched northward. At Los Angeles they released the prisoners from the jail and chained up instead Alcalde Sanchez, the petty despot of the pueblo who had been very ready to carry out the arbitrary decrees of Victoria.
The San Diego army, augmented by the liberated prisoners and volun- teers from Los Angeles, to the number of 150 men, marched out to meet Victoria, who, with a small force, was moving southward to suppress the rebellion. The two armies met west of Los Angeles in the Cahuenga valley. In the fight that ensued Jose Maria Avila, who had been imprisoned by Vic- toria's orders in the pueblo jail, charged single-handed upon Victoria. He killed Captain Pacheco, of Victoria's staff, and dangerously wounded the governor himself. Avila was killed by one of Victoria's men. Victoria's army retired with the wounded governor to San Gabriel mission and the revolutionists retired to Los Angeles. Next day, the governor, who sup- posed himself mortally wounded, abdicated ; later he was deported to Mexico. Pio Pico, senior vocal of the diputacion, was elected gefe politico by that body, but Echeandia, on account of his military rank, claimed the office. Pico, for the sake of peace, did not insist upon his rights, but allowed Echeandia to take the office.
Echeandia did not long enjoy in peace the office obtained by threats. Captain Agustin V. Zamorano, late secretary of the deposed Victoria, raised the standard of revolt at Monterey and pronounced against the San Diego plan under which Echeandia and the diputacion were conducting the gov- ernment. He raised an army of about one hundred men, some of whom were cholos, or convicts. This army, under the command of Captain Ibarra, marched southward and met no opposition until it reached El Paso de
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Bartolo on the San Gabriel river. Here Captain Barroso, of Echeandia's force, with fourteen men and a piece of artillery, stopped the onward march of the invaders. Echeandia gathered an army of neophytes from the mis- sions-said to have been a thousand strong. On the approach of this body Ibarra's men retreated to Santa Barbara. Captain Barroso, with three hundred of his neophyte retainers mounted on horses and armed with rude lances, set out to capture Los Angeles, which at the approach of Ibarra's army had acknowledged allegiance to Zamorano; but at the intercession of the repentant inhabitants, the recreant pueblo was spared and the neophyte invaders were turned aside to San Gabriel, where-much to the disgust of the padres-they were regaled on the fat bullocks of the mission. The neophyte army was then dismissed.
The diputacion, which was really the only legal authority it. the terri- "tory, after much correspondence, finally effected a compromise between the rival claimants. Zamorano was recognized as military chief of all the terri- tory north of San Fernando, and Echeandia all south of San Gabriel, while Pio Pico, who, by virtue of his rank as senior vocal, was the lawful governor, was left without any jurisdiction. After this adjust- ment all parties kept the peace and California, with its trio of governors, was happier than with one.
On the 14th of January, 1833, about one year after the enforced departure of Victoria, Jose Figueroa, "gobernador proprietario" of Alta California, by appointment of the Supreme Government of Mexico, arrived at Monterey. Zamorano at once turned over to him whatever authority he had in the north and Echeandia at San Diego, as soon as the arrival of Figueroa was known to him, did the same.
Figueroa was Mexican born and of Aztec descent. He was a general in the Mexican army and is regarded as one of the ablest and most efficient of the Mexican governors of California. He instituted a policy of concilia- tion and became very popular with the people. He inaugurated a number of reforms and gave attention to the condition and treatment of the neo- phytes. Two of the most important events in the history of California during the Mexican era occurred in Figueroa's term of office. The first was the arrival of the Hijar colonists and the second was the securalization of the missions.
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