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 5
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In 1833, Jose Maria Hijar, a Mexican gentleman of considerable prop- erty, aided by Jose Maria Padres, who in modern times would be styled a "promoter," set about organizing a scheme for the founding of a colony in California. The colonists were to be enlisted in Mexico and were to be given free passage from San Blas to California. Each man was promised a ranch and each adult was to receive rations to the amount of four reals-and each child two reals-per day. The colonists were to be allowed a certain amount of live stock and tools. All of these allowances were to be repaid later in
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products of the farms. A corporation known as the "Compania Cosmopoli- tana" was organized for the purpose of buying vessels and carrying on a shipping business between California and Mexico.
About 250 colonists were recruited in and about the city of Mexico. They left the capital for San Blas in April and in August, 1834, sailed from that port for California on the brig Natalia and the ship Morelos. The Natalia, on account of sickness on board, put into San Diego, September I, 1834, where the passengers were landed. The Morelos arrived at Monterey September 25th. The colonists were hospitably received by the Californians.
Hijar had been appointed gefepolitico by Vice-President Farrias, but after the departure of the colonists, President Santa Ana, who had assumed control of the government, countermanded the appointment and sent a courier overland by the Yuma route with an order to Figueroa not to give up the governorship. The courier, by one of the most remarkable rides in history, reached Monterey before Hijar and delivered his message to Gov- ernor Figueroa. Hijar, on his arrival at the capital, found himself shorn of all authority.
Part of the scheme of Hijar and Padres was the sub-division of the mis- sion property among themselves and their colonists. But the revocation of his commission as gefepolitico deprived him of all power to enforce his scheme. An attempt was made to form a settlement of the colonists at San Francisco Solano on the northern frontier, but it was abandoned. The colonists were finally scattered throughout the territory. Some of them returned to Mexico, those who remained in California were incorporated in the different settlements and formed a very respectable element of the population. Hijar and Padres were accused of being the instigators of a plot to overthrow Figueroa and seize the mission property. They were shipped out of the country and thus ended in disaster to the promoters, the first California colonization scheme.
The missions, as has been previously stated, were founded by Spain for the conversion of the Indians and their transformation into citizens. As originally planned by the Spanish government at the end of ten years from its founding, each mission establishment was to be secularized and the land divided among the Christianized Indians. Early in the history of the inissions it became apparent that although the California Indian might be made a Christian, he could not be made a self-supporting citizen.
The Indians inhabiting the country between the Coast Range and the ocean from San Diego to San Francisco, had been gathered into the various missionary establishments and had been taught, by the padres and mayor- domos, some rude industrial callings. While controlled and directed by the priests and white overseers, the Indian could be made self-supporting, but the restraint removed, he lapsed into barbarism.
Each of these religious establishments held possession, in trust for its
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neophyte retainers, of large areas of the most fertile lands in the territory. This absorption of the public domain by the missions prevented the colon- ization of the country by white settlers.
The first decree of secularization was passed by the Spanish Cortes in 1813. but nothing came of it. Spain was engaged in a death struggle with her American colonies and she had neither power nor opportunity to en- force secularization decrees. In July, 1830, the territorial diputacion adopted a plan of secularization formed by Echeandia in 1828, but before it could be enforced, Echeandia was superseded by Victoria, who was a friend of the padres and opposed to secularization. Governor Figueroa, after his arrival in California, was instructed to examine into the condition of the neophytes and report the best method of bringing about a gradual emancipation of the Indians from missionary rule. His examination convinced him that any general measure of secularization would be disastrous to the neophytes. A few might be trusted with property and given their liberty, but the great mass of them were incapable of self-support or self-government. Figueroa visited the older missions in the south with the purpose of putting into effect his plan for their gradual secularization. He found the Indians at San Diego and San Luis Rey indifferent to the offers of freedom and caring nothing for property of their own, unless they could immediately dispose of it to gratify their passions. Out of all the families at these missions, only ten could be induced to try emancipation.
In the meantime the Mexican Congress, without waiting for informa- tion from the governor, or those acquainted with the true condition of the neophytes, ordered their immediate emancipation. August 17. 1833, a decree was passed ordering the secularization of the missions in both Alta and Lower California. This decree provided that each mission should consti- tute a parish served by a priest, or curate, who should be paid a salary. The regulars, or those who were connected with the great orders, as the Franciscans and Dominicans, who had taken the oath of allegiance to the republic were to return to their colleges, or monasteries, while those who had refused to take the oath should quit the country. The expense of putting in operation this decree was to be paid out of the "pious fund."
The "Pious Fund of California" was a fund made up of contributions front pions persons for the founding and maintenance of missions in the Californias. It began with contributions to the missions of Lower Cali- fornia in 1697. It increased until it amounted to one and a half millions of dollars in 1832. It was finally confiscated by the Mexican government; but after long litigation the Catholic Church of California was given judgment for its loss by the Hague tribunal in 1902.
Figueroa and the territorial diputacion, under instructions from the Supreme Government, June 31, 1834, adopted a plan for the secularization of the missions of Alta California and the colonization of the neophytes into
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pueblos. Each head of a family was to receive from the mission lands a lot not more than 500 nor less than 100 varas square. One-half of the cattle and one-half of the farming implements and seed grains were to be divided pro rata among those receiving lands for cultivation. Out of the proceeds of the remaining property, which was to be placed under a mayor-domo, the salaries of the administrator and the priest in charge of the church were to be paid. No one could sell or incumber his land nor slaughter his cattle- except for subsistence. The government of the Indian pueblos was to be ad- ministered the same as that of the other pueblos in the territory. Before the plan of the diputacion had been promulgated, Figueroa had experimented with the neophytes of the San Juan Capistrano mission and a pueblo had been organized there. For a time it promised to be a success but finally ended in a failure.
For years the threat of secularization had hung over the missions, but heretofore something had always occurred to avert it. When it became evident that the blow would fall, the missionaries determined to save some- thing for themselves before the final wreck came. There were, on the vari- ous mission ranges, in 1833, nearly half a million head of cattle. San Gabriel. the richest of the missions, had over fifty thousand head. Thousands of these were slaughtered on shares for their hides alone and the carcasses left on the ground to rot. So terrible was the stench arising that the ayunta- miento of Los Angeles, in 1834, passed an ordinance compelling every one slaughtering cattle for their hides to cremate the carcasses. The diputacion finally issued a reglamento prohibiting the wholesale destruction of the mission cattle. What remained of the mission property was inventoried by the commissioners appointed by the governor and a certain portion distrib- uted to the Indians of the pueblos into which the missions had been con- verted. The property was soon wasted: for the Indian was improvident and indolent and took no thought for the morrow. He would not work except under compulsion. Liberty to him meant license to commit excesses. His property soon passed out of his hands and he became virtually the slave of the white man, or else a renegade living by theft.
Governor Figueroa died at San Juan Bautista. September 29, 1835, and was buried in the mission church at Santa Barbara. His funeral obsequies were the grandest ever witnessed in the territory. He was called the "Bene- factor of California."
Figueroa, before his death, had resigned his political command to José Castro, primer-vocal of the diputacion. Castro held the office for four months, when, by order of the Supreme Government, he delivered it over to Col. Nicolas Gutierrez, who held the military command of the territory, until the arrival in May, 1836, of Mariano Chico, the regularly appointed "gober- nador proprietario." Chico was a man of inordinate self-conceit and of but little common sense. He very soon secured the ill-will of the Californians.
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Shortly before his arrival in California a vigilance committee, or as it was called by its organizers, "Junta Defensora de la Seguridad Publica," the first ever formed in California, had taken from the legal authorities at Los Angeles, two criminals, Gervasio Alispas and Maria del Rosaria Villa, under arrest for the murder of the woman's husband, Domingo Feliz, and had executed them by shooting them to death. This violation of law greatly en- raged Governor Chico and one of his first acts on taking office was to send Col. Gutierrez with troops to Los Angeles to punish the vigilantes. Victor Prudon, the president of the Junta Defensora, Manuel Arzaga, the secretary, and Francisco Aranjo, the military officer who had commanded the members of the junta, were arrested and committed to prison until such time as the governor could come to Los Angeles and try them. He came in June and after heaping abuse and threats upon them, he finally pardoned the three leaders of the "Defenders of Public Security." Then he quarreled with Manuel Requena, the alcalde of Los Angeles, who had opposed the vigilantes, and threatened to imprison him. He returned to Monterey, where he was soon afterward involved in a disgraceful scandal which ended in his placing the alcalde of that town under arrest.
The people, disgusted with him, arose en masse and with arms in their hands, assumed a threatening attitude. Alarmed for his safety, Chico took passage for Mexico in a brig that lay in the harbor and California was rid of him. Before his departure he turned over the political and military com- mand of the territory to Col. Guiterrez. Chico had filled the office just three months. He was a centralist, or anti-federalist, and was in sympathy with the party in Mexico that favored a centralized government. Centralism vir- tually placed the government in the hands of the president and made him a dictator. The Californians were federalists and bitterly opposed to "cen- tralism."
Gutierrez, like Chico, was a man of violent temper. It was not long before he was involved in a quarrel that eventually put an end to his official career in California. In his investigation of governmental affairs at Mont- erey, he charged fraud against Angel Ramirez, the administrator, and Juan Bautista Alvarado, the auditor of the custom house. A war of words ensued in which volleys of abuse were fired by both sides. Gutierrez threatened to put the two officials in irons. This was an insult that Alvarado, young, proud and hot-blooded could not endure in silence. He left the capital and with José Castro, at San Juan, began preparations for a revolt against the governor. His quarrel with Gutierrez was not the sole cause of his fomenting a revolution. He was president of the diputacion and the governor had treated that body with disrespect, or at least, the members, of whom Castro was one, so claimed. General Vallejo was invited to take command of the revolutionary movement, but, while he sympathized with the cause, he did not enlist in it.
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News of the projected uprising spread rapidly among the rancheros of San José and of the Salinas and Pajaro valleys. Castro and Alvarado with- out much effort soon collected an army of seventy-five Californians. They also secured the services of an auxiliary force of twenty-five Americans- hunters and trappers-under the command of Graham, a backwoodsman from Tennessee. With this force they marched to Monterey. By a strategetic movement they captured the castillo. The revolutionists demanded the sur- render of the presidio and the arms. Upon the refusal of the governor a shot from the cannon of the castillo crashed through the roof of the commandante's house and scattered Gutierrez and his staff. This-and the desertion of most of his soldiers-brought the governor to terms. November 5, 1836, he sur- rendered the presidio and resigned his office. With about seventy of his ad- herents he was placed on board a vessel in the harbor and a few days later departed for Mexico.
CHAPTER VI. THE FREE STATE OF ALTA CALIFORNIA.
The Mexican governor having been expelled, the diputacion, which was composed of hijos del pais, was called together and a plan for the in- dependence of California was formulated. This plan declared that "Cali- fornia is erected into a free and sovereign state, establishing a congress which shall pass all special laws of the country, also assume the other necessary supreme powers." The diputacion issued a Declaration of Independence which arraigned the mother country, Mexico, for sins of commission and omission ; and Castro promulgated a pronunciamiento ending with a "Viva for El Estado Libre y Soverano de Alta California." (The Free and Sov- ereign State of Alta California.) Amid the vivas and the pronunciamientos, with the beating of drums and the roar of cannon, the state of Alta Califor- nia was launched on the political sea. The revolutionists soon found that it was easy enough to declare the state free ; but quite another matter to make it free.
For years there had been a growing jealousy between Northern and Southern California. Los Angeles, through the efforts of Jose Antonio Carrillo, had, by the decree of the Mexican congress in May, 1835, been raised to the dignity of a city and made the capital of the territory. In the move- ment to make California a free and independent state, the Angeleños recog- nized an attempt on the part of the people of the north to deprive their city of its honor. Although as bitterly opposed to Mexican governors and as actively engaged in fomenting revolutions against them as the people of Monterey, the Angeleños chose at this time to profess loyalty to the mother
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country. They opposed the Monterey plan of government and formulated one of their own, in which they declared that California was not free and they would obey the laws of the supreme government only.
Alvarado had been made governor by the diputacion and Castro com- mandante general of the army of the Free State. They determined to sup- press the recalcitrant sureños (southerners). They collected an army of eighty natives, obtained the assistance of Graham with his American riflemen and marched southward. The ayuntamiento of Los Angeles had organized an army of 270 men, part of whom were neophytes. This force was sta- tioned at the Mission San Fernando. Before the northern troops reached the mission, commissioners from Los Angeles met them and a treaty of peace was patched up. Alvarado with his troops arrived in Los Angeles January 23, 1837, and was received with expressions of friendship. An extraordinary meeting of the ayuntamiento was called. Pio Pico expressed the great pleasure it gave him to see a "hijo del pais" in office and Antonio Osio, one of the most belligerent of the southerners declared that "sooner than again submit to a Mexican governor, or dictator, he would flee to the forest and be devoured by wild beasts." Alvarado made a conciliatory speech and an agreement was entered into to support the "Monterey plan," with Alvarado as governor pro tempore, until the Supreme Government should decide the question. Quiet reigned in the south for a few months. Then San Diego formulated a plan of government and the standard of revolt was again raised. The San Diego plan restored California to allegiance to the Supreme Government and the officials at San Diego and Los Angeles took the oath to obey the centralist constitution of 1836; this, in their opinion, absolved them from obedience to Juan Bautista Alvarado and his Monterey plan for a "Free State."
In October came the news that Carlos Carrillo of Santa Barbara had beer appointed governor of California by the Supreme Government. Then con- sternation seized the "Free State" men of the north and the sureños of Los Angeles went wild with joy. They invited Carrillo to make Los Angeles his capital-an invitation which he accepted. December 6th was set for his inauguration and great preparations were made for the event. Cards of in- vitation were issued asking the people to come to the inauguration "dressed as decent as possible." A grand inauguration ball was held in the governor's palacio-the house of the widow Josefa Alvarado, the finest in the city. Cannon boomed on the old plaza, bonfires blazed in the streets and the city was illuminated for three nights. Los Angeles was at last a real capital and had a governor all to herself.
Alvarado and Castro, with an army, came down from the north deter- mined to subjugate the troublesome southerners. A battle was fought at San Buenaventura. For two days cannon volleyed and thundered-at inter- vals. One man was killed and several mustangs died for their country. The
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"sureños" were defeated and their leaders captured and sent as prisoners of state to Vallejo's bastile at Sonoma. Los Angeles, Carrillo's capital, was captured by Alvarado. Carrillo rallied his demoralized army at Las Flores. Another battle was fought-or, rather a few shots were fired, at long range, from the cannon. Nobody was hurt. Carrillo surrendered and was sent home to his wife, at Santa Barbara, who became surety for his future good behavior. Alvarado was now the acknowledged governor of El Estado Libre de Alta California, but the "Free State" had ceased to exist. Months before the last battle in the war for Independence, Alvarado had made his peace with the Supreme Government by taking the oath of allegiance to the constitutional laws of Mexico, and thus restoring California to the rule of the mother country. In November, 1838, Alvarado received his formal ap- pointment as "gobernador interino" of California, or rather of the Califor- nias; for under the new constitution creating twenty-four departments instead of states, the two Californias constituted one department.
In their internecine wars and in their revolts against the Mexican gov- ernors, the Californians invoked the aid of a power that would not down at their bidding-that was the assistance of the foreigners. Zamorano in his contest with Echeandia was the first to enlist the foreign contingent. Next Alvarado secured the services of Graham and his riflemen to help in the expulsion of Gutierrez. In his invasion of the south he and Castro again called in the foreign element headed by Graham and Coppinger. Indeed the fear of the American riflemen, who made up the larger part of Graham's force, was the most potent factor in bringing the south to terms. These hunters and trappers, with their long Kentucky rifles, shot to kill and any battle in which they took part would not be a bloodless affair.
After Alvarado had been confirmed in his office, he would gladly have rid himself of his late allies. But they would not be shaken off and were importunate in their demands for the recognition of their services. There were rumors that the foreigners were plotting to overthrow the government and revolutionize California as had already been done in Texas. Alvarado issued secret orders to arrest a number of foreigners whom he had reason to fear. About one hundred men were arrested during the month of April, 1840. Of these, forty-seven were sent as prisoners in irons to San Blas. The others were released. The prisoners were about equally divided in nation- ality between Americans and Englishmen. They were confined in prison at Tepic. Here the British consul, Barron, was instrumental in securing their release-the American consul being absent. The Mexican government paid them damages for their imprisonment and furnished those who had a legal right to residence in California with transportation to Monterey, where they landed in July, 1841, better dressed and with more money than when they were sent away.
The most important event during Alvarado's rule that remains to be
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noted is the capture of Monterey, October 19, 1842, by Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, commander of the United States forces of the Pacific. Jones, who was cruising in the South Pacific, learning that Admiral Thomas, in command of the English squadron of the Pacific, had sailed out of Callao under sealed orders, suspected that the Admiral's orders were to seize California. Knowing that war was imminent between Mexico and the United States, Jones determined to take possession of California for the United States, if he could reach it before the English admiral did. Crowding on all sail, he reached Monterey October 19th and immediately demanded the surrender of California, both Upper and Lower, to the United States government. He gave Governor Alvarado until nine o'clock on the morn- ing of the 20th to decide on his course. Alvarado had already been super- seded by Micheltorena, who was then somewhere in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alvarado at first decided to shirk the responsibility of sur- render by leaving the town; but he was dissuaded from this step. The terms of surrender were agreed upon and at ten o'clock the next morning 150 sailors and marines disembarked, took possession of the fort, lowered the Mexican flag and raised the American colors. The officers and soldiers of the California government were discharged and their guns and arms taken possession of by the United States troops and carried into the fort. On the 21st, at four p. m., the flags again changed places-the fort and arms were restored to their former claimants. Commodore Jones had learned from some Mexican newspapers found in the captured fort that war did not exist between the two republics.
CHAPTER VIII. CLOSING YEARS OF MEXICAN ERA.
For some time ill feeling had been growing between Governor Alvarado and the commandante general, M. G. Vallejo. Each had sent commissions to the Supreme Government to present the respective sides of the quarrel. The Supreme Government decided to combine the civil and military offices in the person of a Mexican officer. On January 22, 1842, Manuel Micheltorena, who had seen service with Santa Anna in Texas, was appointed to this office. He was to be provided with a sufficient number of troops to prevent the intrusion of foreigners-particularly Americans-into California. The large force promised him finally dwindled down to 300 convicts, known as cholos, who were released from Mexican prisons on condition that they serve in the army.
Governor Micheltorena had landed with his ragged cholos at San Diego, in August, and was leisurely marching northward to the capital. On the
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night of October 24th he had arrived at a point twenty miles north of San Fer- nando when news reached him of the capture of Monterey by Commodore Jones. The valiant commander and his cholos retreated to San Fernando, where they remained until they learned of the restoration of Monterey to the Californians. Then they fell back to Los Angeles. Here, January 20, 1843, Commodore Jones held a conference with the governor, who made some exorbitant demands-among others that the United States government should pay $15,000 to Mexico for the expense incurred in the general alarm and for a set of musical instruments lost in the retreat, and also replace 1500 uniforms ruined in the violent march. Commodore Jones did not deign an answer to these ridiculous demands; and Micheltorena did not insist upon them. The conference closed with a grand ball-and all parties were pacified.
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