USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > The beginnings of San Francisco : from the expedition of Anza, 1774, to the city charter of April 15, 1850 : with biographical and other notes, Vol. I > Part 3
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CHAPTER III. EL CAMINO DEL DIABLO* I774
W HILE Don José de Galvez was organizing the expedition for the conquest of California, there was in the far-off frontier presidio of Tubac, a gallant soldier, Juan Bautista de Anza, by name, who manifested the liveliest interest in the un- dertaking. He petitioned the visitador-general for permission to make a journey overland from Sonora by way of the Rios Gila and Colorado to meet the ex- pedition of Portolá at Monterey bay. He proposed to pay the entire cost of the journey and only asked to be allowed to take with him twenty soldiers whom he himself should name. It was represented that with the reduction of California a road of communica- tion could be opened between Sonora and the new foundations by which the latter could be succored more surely and quickly than by the uncertain sea voyage. Anza's request was refused. The visitador-general did not consider such an expedition necessary at that time and the opening of such a road was believed to be extremely difficult, if not impos- sible. Not only were the two great rivers, the Gila and the Colorado, to be crossed, but between them and Sonora lay vast, inhospitable deserts.t
The expedition led into California by Portolá founded the presidios of Monterey and San Diego, and under their protection, the missions San Diego,
Chapters iii, iv, v and vi, were originally published in the Journal of American History, Vol. II, No. I to Vol. III, No. 3.
t Palou: Noticias, iii, 154.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Monterey, San Antonio, San Gabriel, and San Luis Obispo. The life of the new establishments was precarious in the extreme. All supplies were brought in by sea from La Paz or San Blas, and the ships were sometimes many months on the voyage. The only ships the government had at that time on the western coasts of New Spain were a few small, poorly constructed, ill found boats built at San Blas for carrying dispatches and supplies to the missions. In addition to the ordinary perils of the sea, dread scurvy, that decimator of early navigators, made the arrivals irregular and uncertain and the unfor- tunate colonists were in constant danger of starva- tion.
Anza now renewed his request for permission to take an expedition overland to Monterey, alleging that by the road he would open supplies could be taken to the new colony in less time and with much more certainty than by sea. Again he offered to conduct an expedition at his own expense. The difficulty of maintaining the new foundations caused the viceroy, Don Antonio Bucaréli y Ursúa, to lay the matter before the king, and while awaiting his reply he consulted the president of the California missions, Fray Junípero Serra, to ascertain his views. Fray Junípero gave enthusiastic support to the application and suggested a similar expedition from Santa Fé, in New Mexico. The reply of the king not only approved Captain Anza's proposal but directed the viceroy to provide him from the royal
57
ANZA'S FIRST EXPEDITION
treasury with all that was necessary to make his expedition a success. Anza's preparations were soon made and on the 8th of January 1774, he set out from Tubac on his long and hazardous journey. The expedition consisted of the comandante with an escort of twenty soldiers, Fray Juan Diaz and Fray Francisco Garcés, of the College of Santa Cruz de Querétero, the necessary guides and muleteers, thirty-four persons in all, one hundred and forty saddle and pack animals, and sixty-five head of beef cattle. Just as Anza was starting a war party of Apaches descended upon him, killed some of his escort and ran off a large number of his horses. Not having sufficient stock to replace these he was obliged to make a detour of about one hundred and twenty-five miles southwest to the Piman pueblos of the Altar river to get pack and saddle animals. Starting January 8th he was on the 9th at Aribac (Arivaca) where, he says, the gold and silver mines were worked up to the year 1767, when they were abandoned because of the Apaches. On the 13th he was at Saric, on the Altar river, a place of great fertility of soil but one most harried by Apaches. He notes that the distance from Saric to Arizona or Las Bolas is seven or eight leagues to the north- east.7 On the 17th he was at the presidio of Altar and on the 20th reached the mission of La Purisima Concepcion del Caborca. The only animals he could obtain, however, were a few worn out mules, and with this insufficient equipment he left the mission of
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Caborca, January 22d, crossed the Rio del Altar, and struck across the forbidding Papaguería,* a wide and desolate desert reaching from the Rio del Altar to the junction of the Rios Gila and Colorado. In five days of travel, moving as rapidly as he could push his decrepit outfit he reached the ruined mission of Sonoitac on what is now the boundary line between Arizona and Sonora. For the next two days the route was easy through the dry arroyo of the Sonoyta river, which is described by Dr. W. J McGee as a channel broad enough for the Ohio and deep enough for the Schuylkill but dust-dry from bank to bank. A march of twenty-three miles brought the expedition to the sink of the Sonoyta and here the brief existence of the river is ended. This is ancient Carrizal of Father Kino and may be seen on his map (1702) and on that of Venegas (1757). From here on to the junction of the Gila and Colorado, distant one hundred and twenty miles, the country contains not one permanent inhabitant and but two known watering places. The trail is well known and has long been traveled. It is the dreaded Camino del Diablo, whose terrible length is lined with the graves of its victims. Over this dreadful road came, in 1540, Captain Melchior Diaz of Coronado's army to die amid the sandy wastes of the Colorado. Later it formed the high- way of that untiring traveler and missionary Eusibio Francisco Kino.8 During the gold excitement in
* Papaguería, The land of the Papagos.
THE CEMENTERIO Grave of a family that died of thirst on the Camino del Diablo. Photograph by Captain D. D. GAILLARD.
I the Rio del Altar, tohing: Papayueria, chiny From the Rio del Nor Ts il- Rico Gila and Colorado. Ke me as rapidly as he conla oins lee roughed the Foiced te on what il now the boundary Do Listyeen Nous Bord Sonora. For the next. Tres the pun wie wasg Through the dry arroyo 12 0% So yu www, which is described by Dr W. ) ul bread enough for the Oltio amd Il. Schiogseul but doit- dry fron L march of tomrey-three miles Ineen to the sink of the Sonoyta OLAETAMO AHT be river in ended lab onimsO ont no ferirls to beib sens xlimet; & to 94610. .oldsia Venegas .UHAJJIAD .CI . CI nistas d Gosigofonq uncuor the Gila
TORNAtil Tiết one permineis
Mir ist lob Top krowo watering placer and has lone been traveled.
Figo. Sumimo Melchior
ai co do amid the sandy
Dixt of ComoEst It is formed the high-
A millionary Eusibio
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EL CAMINO DEL DIABLO
California this trail was used to a limited extent by Americans who braved the terrors of the desert rather than risk encountering the hostile Apaches by a more northerly route. So great was the mor- tality, however, among the travelers that the route was soon abandoned. It is said that during a period of eight years four hundred travelers perished of thirst between Altar and Yuma.
From Carrizal the trail stretches across the Tule desert with the nearest water forty-five miles distant and but a scanty supply then. Dividing his expedi- tion into two parts Anza marched with the first division at noon of January 30th, leaving the second division, which consisted of the pack trains, under charge of a corporal and seven soldiers, to follow later. He made about sixteen miles and encamped for the night in what he calls a bajio (flat place) without either water or pasture. This bajio was a low lying place in the Tule desert called Las Playas. It is bordered by a fringe of mesquite and greasewood and in certain seasons a little water may be found there. Resuming his march at seven thirty o'clock the next morning an hour's travel brought him to the mal pais, a vast, sloping sheet of black lava reaching from the Sierra Pinto on the north to the Sierra Pinecate on the south, and which, Anza says, grew neither grass nor tree, small shrub nor larger one. Passing the lava beds, the division reached the Tule mountains and the Tinajas del Cerro de la Cabeza Prieta-The Tanks of the
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Blackhead Butte-having traveled about sixteen miles. Anza gave to the tinajas the name of La Empinada-the Elevated. It is the Agua Escon- dida-Hidden water-of Father Kino or his Agua de la Luna; it is situated in longitude one hundred and thirteen degrees, forty-five minutes, about five miles north of the boundary line and consists of several tanks high up a rocky cañon, reached only after a hard climb. These tanks hold, when filled by the rains, about five thousand gallons .*
Anza found but a scanty supply of water in La Empinada, and leaving it for his pack-train pushed on eight miles into the Lechuguilla desert,t and camped for the night without water and with little pasture for the animals. Resuming his march at eight o'clock in the morning after the second night without water, Anza remarks that the ground they passed over gave forth a hollow sound under the tramping of the horses as if there were dungeons beneath the road .¿ A march of twelve miles brought
* A tinaja or tank is a pocket in the rock where water may be found after local storms.
t This desert lies between the Tule mountains and the Gila range. It takes its name from a plant of the Agave family called Lechuguilla-Little Lettuce. Costansó writing of the Indians of San Diego, says: "They wear no clothing save a girdle, woven like a very fine net with a fiber which they obtain from a plant called lechuguilla. Anza notes the Indians of San Jacinto mountains wearing this girdle, also a headdress of the same. The illustrations in Venega's Noticias show the Indian women of Lower California wearing the netting in that manner.
# Captain Gaillard of the Boundary Commission informs me that he noticed the same peculiarity in that locality caused by the horizontal stratifications and separation of the underlying layers of rock.
61
LAS TINAJAS ALTAS
the division to Las Tinajas Altas-the High Tanks. Here was water in plenty and pasture nearby. These tinajas have been known since the time of the earliest Christian explorers and were probably known to the Papagos centuries before .* They are set in the side of a natural semi-circular area on the east side of the Gila mountains, about three and a half miles north of the boundary line, and consist of a number of tanks worn in the solid rock by the waters of `a narrow rocky valley several hundred feet above, which during the rains come tumbling through the narrow gorge and fill the tanks. There are seven large tanks and a number of small ones; but with exception of the lowest tank, which can be approached by animals, they are very difficult of access. They range one above another and can only be reached by climbing several hundred feet up the steep side of a ravine. The water, surrounded and protected by overhanging walls, is deliciously cool and palatable. The tanks will hold from fifteen to twenty thousand gallons.º
Anza remained here until the morning of the third day to rest his command and let his pack- train come up, the mules being in bad condition and barely able to travel. In honor of the day, which was the Feast of the Purification of St. Mary, Anza named the aguage La Purificacion.
* Prof. Herbert E. Bolton identifies La Tinaja of Father Kino with a tank east of the Gila range, about fifteen miles south of the Gila river.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
He resumed his march February 4th, and crossed the Gila range by the Tinaja pass. His next day's march was thirteen miles and he stopped at some wells named by him Los Pozos de en Médio-the Half-way Wells. The next day he followed the same general direction, north-northwest, keeping close to the base of the Gila mountains to avoid a range of high and almost impassable sand-hills extending in a northwesterly direction from below the bound- ary line, in longitude one hundred and fourteen degrees, twenty minutes, to the Gila river. A march of eighteen and a half miles brought him to his next watering place, a spring off the road-per- haps in the Telegraph pass of the Gila mountains. Neither this well nor that of the preceding camp is known to-day. Anza says from its being out of the road they inferred it was the one named by the Jesuit fathers La Agua Escondida-the Hidden water. The Agua Escondida shown on Father Kino's map is east of the Gila range.
At this last camp he found a Papago Indian await- ing him with a message from Palma, chief of the Yumas. Anza had met Palma at the presidio of Altar just before starting to cross the Papaguería and had notified him that he would pass through his territory. The Yuma chief now sent to warn Anza of an intention among the Indians of the river to murder him and his company and seize his outfit. Palma, the messenger said, had vainly endeavored to dissuade the Indians from attempting such an
63
AN INDIAN CONSPIRACY
act which, as he told them, would bring down upon the tribe the vengeance of the Spaniards.1º They were, however, bent upon mischief and he advised Anza to be on his guard and approach the junction of the rivers with caution. Anza did not consider the matter serious, but sent the Papago to ask Palma to meet the expedition, that they might confer in regard to the conspiracy, and at two o'clock the following afternoon resumed his march for the rivers, distant twelve leagues* (31.2 miles). He made about one-half of this distance and halted for the night where there was some feed for the animals, but no water. Starting at sunrise the next morning he met his messenger returning with an under-chief of the Yumas, Palma being absent. This under- chief was unarmed and was accompanied by eight warriors armed with bows and arrows, and all, like himself, entirely naked. In his hand he carried a lighted brand with which, Anza tells us, he warmed himself by applying it to the stomach or hindquar- ters.t
The chief informed Anza that Palma had taken vigorous measures for the protection of the Spaniards by expelling from his jurisdiction those who were trying to make trouble, and all was now quiet and peaceful; that Palma had been sent for and would soon meet him with a hearty welcome. Resuming
* The league was 5000 varas-2.604 miles. A vara is 33 inches.
t Melchior Diaz, who reached the Colorado river in the fall of 1540, named it the Rio del Tizon-River of the Firebrand-because of this custom.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
his march Anza reached the Rio Gila at three in the afternoon accompanied by two hundred Yuma braves who had come out to meet him and who escorted him with shouts and laughter and other demonstrations of joy. At five o'clock Palma arrived with a body of sixty Indians and the white and red chieftains embraced each other with affection before the company. Captain Anza entertained his visitors with some refreshments while at Palma's request he permitted the Indians, most of whom had never before seen a white man, to examine the dress and equipment of the men. Palma, noting the posted guards with swords drawn and horses ready, asked why this was done and said the men should betake themselves to rest and liberty, relying on the friend- ship of the Yumas. Anza informed him that soldiers were ever on guard; that even in the presidio the men were on guard as if in the face of the enemy.
After bestowing a decoration on the chief, Anza, in the name of the king confirmed him in his com- mand of the Yumas, giving him a brief account of the authority of the king who, in his turn, was responsible to God the ruler of all. After this Palma took Anza's staff and made a long harangue to his people, explaining the nature of the honor done him and of his responsibility to the king, and then ordered them to their huts for the night. In the morning a short journey down the river brought them to the ford of the Gila and the house of Palma
65
FIRST STAGE OF JOURNEY COMPLETED
where, in the presence of six hundred of his people, the chief received and entertained the white men with generous hospitality.
The first stage of the long journey is completed. In one month Anza has traveled one hundred and thirty-eight leagues (three hundred and fifty-nine miles) of desert, with a worn and decrepit outfit. So far he has braved the known danger, traveled the known trail. He is now to face the unknown. Desolate as was the land through which he has come, he has now to encounter deserts as dreadful, fierce savages warring against each other and hostile to the invader, and without guides, wander amid sandy wastes in search of water.
CHAPTER IV. THE PASSAGE OF THE COLORADO £ DESERT I774
A NZA reached the junction of the Rios Gila and Colorado, February 7, 1774. Giving up the following day to rest and to the enjoyment of the hospitality of the Yumas, he began the second stage of his journey February 9th, by the passage of the Rio Colorado, the first crossing into Alta California by white men. The river had been crossed by Melchior Diaz in 1540, Father Kino in 1701, and by Father Garcés, one of the two priests now with Anza, in 1771, but all these had crossed into Lower California. Palma guided the expedition to a ford where, with the assistance of the Indians, they made a safe passage. In celebration of this event, and of its being accom- plished for the first time by the king's arms, the comandante fired a salvo and set off some rockets which pleased the Indians very much by their flight through the air, though the sound of the guns
frightened them so that they threw themselves on the ground. Anza crossed the river above its junc- tion with the Gila, and notes in his diary that it is the season of the greatest drouth and he found it only three and a half feet deep and five hundred and seventy feet wide. He gives an excellent description of the river and its surroundings, the San Dionisio of Father Kino, a Yuma ranchería,* now the town of Yuma, Arizona; the Purple hills ten miles to the north-northwest, through whose gorges the Colorado emerges into the open valley;
* Rancheria-an Indian village or town.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
the large peak to the northwest, which he named Cabeza del Gigante-Giant's Head-now called Castle Dome; a lesser peak fifteen miles to the north, which, on account of its shape, he named La Campana-The Bell-now called Chimney Peak. He also notes that below the junction of the Gila and Colorado the united river is constrained to a narrow strait about 100 varas (275 feet) wide between bluffs of moderate height. To this he gave the name of Puerto de la Concepcion. Here was established in 1780, on the bluffs of the California side, the mis- sion of La Purisima Concepcion, the site of the present Fort Yuma.
Having safely transferred his baggage across the river Anza camped for the night, being much troubled by the multitude of naked Indians in the camp. He presented them with an ox, and trinkets and tobacco, hoping to get rid of them, but they remained to sleep with their new friends. Anza describes the Yumas as tall and robust, lighter in color than the Pimas, with faces which, though naturally good, they had disfigured with paint. Their ears were bored with from three to five holes in each of which they wore a ring. They also pierced the cartilage of the nose and through it passed a bunch of feathers or a stick a palm (eight and a half inches) in length, and as thick as a large quill. They went naked for they considered it womanly to be covered. They dressed their hair with clay and over it threw a powder that had a luster like silver, sleeping seated
7I
THE YUMA NATION
so as not to disturb this headdress. Their arms were bows and arrows of poor quality, staves four varas (eleven feet) long, and clubs. The women were large like the men, and Anza observes that their faces were about as he has seen other Indian women; he saw none that were horribly ugly nor did he see any specially handsome. Their dress consisted of a sort of petticoat down to the knee divided into two parts, that in front being the shorter.
Anza estimated the Yuma nation as numbering thirty-five hundred souls. Their lands were rich bottom lands capable of high cultivation. Indeed he saw wheat growing without irrigation so good that the best lands in Sonora could not equal it, and he was astonished at the abundance of maize, beans, calabashes, and melons they grew. He also notes that dams could be made and the water carried for a long distance for irrigation. All these descrip- tions are interesting in view of the reclamation work being done at this point by the United States Govern- ment and by private corporations.
On the following morning, February 10th, Anza resumed his march taking his way down the Colorado, which here flows almost due west, accompanied by about six hundred Yumas who, with somewhat troublesome kindness, insisted on driving the horses, pack mules, and cattle, each beast being surrounded by five or six Indians. The march was a weary one, for the road, though mostly level, was but a twisting- corkscrew of a trail through a chaparral of mesquite
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
and other brush that filled the river bottom and made it difficult for the animals. After four leagues of travel the expedition reached Pilot Knob, to which Anza gave the name of Cerro de San Pablo. Here the river takes a turn to the south, and traveling another league further the expedition halted for the night at the Ranchería de San Pablo, a Yuman village on the river-bank. This was the site of the second Colorado mission, San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer, established in the fall of 1780, and destroyed, together with its sister mission La Purisima Concepcion, on July 17, 1781, by this same Palma and his Indians. The next day's march carried them six leagues further down the river in a southwesterly direction to a lake in the flood plain of the river which the commander called Laguna de las Cojas. Here the jurisdiction of the Yumas ended and that of the Cojat nation began. I find no record of any tribe of that name, but Anza's description fits that of the Cajuenche, a tribe inhabit- ing the lower Colorado below Yuma. The next day's travel of four and a half leagues to the south and west and away from the river, brought the command to a large laguna, two and a half miles in length, but narrow, some five and a half feet in depth, and well stocked with fish. This lake, to which Anza gave the name of Laguna de Santa Olalla, was left from the overflow of the river. It was probably located on the Rio Padrones, about twelve miles south of the boundary line and eight miles west of the river.
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THE PERILS OF THE DESERT
Anza had now reached the end of the known land. The Cajuenches, or, as he calls them, the Cojats, received him with the same friendly welcome given by their relatives, the Yumas, but their jurisdiction was confined to the flood plain of the river, and to the west ranged the fierce Comeya, into whose terri- tory no Cajuenche or Yuma would venture. The expedition must cross the Colorado desert without guides and find the water-holes as best it could.
Among Anza's train was a Christian Indian, Sebastian Tarabel, by name, a native of the mission of Santa Gertrudes in Lower California. He was one of five Indians of that mission who had accom- panied Portolá on his march to Monterey in 1769. Sebastian had found the country so well suited to his taste that he had brought his wife from Lower California and settled at the mission of San Gabriel. Becoming tired of life at the mission he had run away, taking with him his wife and his brother, and had struck out across the San Jacinto mountains and the Colorado desert for the pueblos of the Yumas. Lost amid the sand-hills of the desert, his wife and his brother perished, but he, rescued by the Yumas, had been taken by Palma to the presidio of Altar, where he joined the expedition of Anza as guide. These sand-hills of the Colorado desert reach from a point about thirty-five miles north of the boundary line to some ten or twelve miles below it, the tract varying in width from ten to thirty miles. They are greatly dreaded, because
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
their similarity of appearance is most bewildering and the constantly shifting sand quickly obliterates any trail made through them. It was to avoid these that the detour to the southwest into Lower California was made.
The Indian, Sebastian, was of no help to Anza in his present need. Palma had accompanied them to Santa Olalla, but here he left them, saying he could go no further, for the expedition would now pass into the land of his enemies. He said that by the time Anza returned the Colorado would be in flood but he would be prepared with rafts and would take the Spaniards over in safety. With tears in his eyes he said good-bye (á Dios) to his friend, and the expedition plunged into the unknown desert.
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