m; -nun I ;it i- ; ;,{,?.». ^^HUlHi mm-:-: .,.,. .E^utf- :-• V HHUtlMlv..,,.,,.. . ^ HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. y THE HISTOPiY OF CALIFORNIA. BY FEAI^^KLIN TUTHILL. SAN FRANCISCO: H. H. BANCROFT & COMPANY. 1866. Entered accordina; to Act of Congress, tn the year 1866. Bt H. H. BANCROFT & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California. PEEFAOE. The following liook was written because there seemed to be a demand for a History of California which should sketch the main events of the country from its discovery to the i:>resent time. The pioneer, under whose observation the most exciting of tliese events have occurred, confesses the need of sucli a book. The thousands who have entered the State since it assumed its present peaceful aspect, complain of the lack of a succinct story of what had to be done here to make the land so pleasant a home. The material for a history of California is abundant. The log-books of ancient mariners who visited the coast — the voluminous, if not well-kept archives of the Government, wliile the territory Avas under Spanish or Mexican rule — the official reports and Congressional documents about the transfer to the United States — the files of newspa2:)ers since the land was Americanized — the scores of books of intelligent travellers, who luive put their impressions on record, and the oral evidence of natives, and early immigrants, who mingled in all the affairs most interesting to us — from these sources may be drawn ample details of life in California, from dates as far in the j^ast as any but enthusiastic antiqua- rians care to retire to. There are several histories of California to be found in the libraries, some of them works of permanent value. One of the oldest, the "Jesuit Venegas,"' and the authority for the times and places of which it treats, was printed a century ago, when the California of the 260753 \ 111 PREFACE. moderns was an unknown land. The history hy Forbes, the Englishman, and the valuable report of explorations bj^ De Mofras, the Frenchman, each much quoted and appreciated in the highest quarters, were written while our California was deemed by Americans the very remotest land of the globe, farther away for all practical purposes than the East Indies, more inac- cessible than the antipodes. After the discovery of gold in California, there was quite an irruption of books about the country, and among them a few histo- ries, which rendered the outlines of its past career familiar, and ministered admirably to the needs of the early adventurers. But since their period, though the term, counted by years, is very short, all has happened that is most stirring in California story. Those events, so impossible of repetition, seem, even to the actors in them, to belong to a distant antiquity. The sixteen years that have elajosed since the American occupation, embrace such physical and social changes as oftener require a full century for tlic^r development. No doubt a better histoiy can be written when the country is older, and time has mor(3 thoroughly tested some social experiments that seem already successful. But, considering by how large a portion of the popula- tion of the State its thrilling story is but dimly remem- bered, like a tale told long ago in a far-distant spot, concerning lands now familiar, but Avhich the hearer never dreamed would become his home, this work is cheerfully submitted to tlie public, in hope that it will be received in the same spirit of charity with which it was written. AuOl'rfT, I860. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Tim APPROACnES TO, AKD DTSCOVERT OF, CALIFORXIA. Hindrances to the Earlier Discovery of California.— Columbus's Theory left no Room for Calilornia on the Globe.— First Voyagers on the Pacific— Expeditions sent up tlie Coast by Cortez.— His Pilot, Xinic'nes, discovers Lower Calilornia. a. d. 15:54.— Ca- biillo discovers Upper California, a, d. I.'ii-^ — TTi,.^ C.m.sf. .Snna^j;: Profitless.— Meaning of the Word California.— Boundaries of the Country Pages I— U CHAPTER II. A NOTABLE EXGLISHMAN IX CALlFORyiA. Inducements to the Exploration of the Coast.— The Straits of Anian.— Sir Francis Drako about Cape Horn, and on the Paciflc. — He Attempts Upturning to Europe by a North- ern Pioute. — Visits California, a. d. 1.579, and names it New Albion. — A Pedestrian Trip throuirh the Country. — The Climate gets a Bad Name.— Drake probably entered San Francisco Baj-.— Keasons for the Belief. — Chai'acteristics of the Natives. — Did they find Gold * . ". Pages 15— '27 CHAPTER III. VISCAiyOS E.YPLORATIOy.S ALONG TITE CALIFORNIA COAST. Philip II. orders the Settlement of California. — Viscaino's Settlement at La Paz. — His care- ful Exploration of the Coast, a. d. 1G02. — Describes San Diego and Monterey. — Ills Crew Suffers from Scurvy. — Did he Visit San Fnincisco? — The B^esuits of his Voyage Wasted Pages •2-i-3(J CHAPTER IV. UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE THE COUNTRY. Pirates on the Coast. — Futile Attempt of Admiral Otondo and Father Kino to Colonize California in 108-3. — The Jesuits decline the Job. — Topographical Reasons why the Spanish Navigators missed the best Harbor on the Coast,. .". Pages 37—41 CHAPTER Y . EXPERIMENTS OF THE JESUITS IN CALIFORNIA. Jesuit Occupation of the Peninsula. — Fathers Kino and Salva Tierra undertake the Spir- itual Conquest of California.— Settlement at Loreto, a. d. 1697. — Their Method with the Indians.— A Rebellion Met by Coercion. — Teidousy of the Jesuits Hinders their Success. — Hard Times. — Fattier l"garte at the Missicm.-Kino, from Sonora. furnishes Sui>plies. — Effort to Connect the Settlements of the Peninsula and the Main-Land by a Chain of Missions. — Overland Excursions from Sonora to Lower Calilornia. — Salva Tierra's Unwelcome Promotion. Release, and Death. — Alberoni's Grand Scheme and its tiollapse. — The Pioneer Home-Built Vessel. — Ugarte Explores the Gulf — Geo- graphical Surveys.— Ugarte Dies.— A Success.— The" Missions Relieve the Philippino X C0NTEITT3. Galleon. — A Rf-bellion. — Life t\t the Mission.— Wliippinc: Topnlnr with the InOi.nns. — The I'loiis Fund. — The Jesiiit.s K.NpelliMl. — '1 he Framiscans iissiiino ibe Lower t'ali- foriiia Missions. — Begerfs HIast airainst C'alifornia. — 'I'lie Dominicans lleliive the Fi-aneiscans, who (a. d. 1769):roto Upper Caliloinia.— Venega's History and Cnnoi s Map T Pages 42— 1 1 CHAPTER YI. OCCVPATIOy OF UPPER CALIFORNIA BY THE FRANCISCANS. Gaivpz's and Jnnipcro's Expedition, in four DetachmeTits, to Settle Upper California. — They llendezvciiisat San Die^ro. — A Mission Kstal)lisl)ed, A. o. 1769. — (tovcrnor TortalA visits Monlerey Harbor. Overland, without recou'nizinir it. — Discovers San Francisco by Land. — Indian Outbreak at San Dies:". — Monterey Discovered, — Joyful Keception of the News in Mexico. — Death of Father Junijiero, A. D 17S4. — Location of the Mis- sions. — \ Vessel enters San Francisco I!ay, June, 1775 — Order of Kstablishnicnt of the Missions Pages 72 — 87 CHAPTER YII. THE ABORIGINES. The AboriiTiEes of Upper Californi.i. — Digrser Mytholojry, Tradition.*, and Cnstoms. — Their Fxid; rjeli^'ious ami Social Life; 'Medical Pnictice ; the Sweat-Ilonse. — Burial or BurniufT of the Dead.— Their Ideas of Death Pages 8S — 97 CHAPTER VIII. DETAILS OF THE MISSION SYSTEM. The Spai^ish Policy towards the Indians. — Theory of the Mission System. — The Mission Buildings. — The Indian linncheria. — Government of the Mission. — The Presidio. — Oollisioti of Priests and S(ddieis. — The Pueblo of ditferent Kinds. — Political Govern- ment of California under Spain. — lOffect of tbe Manifold Order System. Pages 98 — 110 CHAPTER IX. A CALM HALF CENTURY. Tbe. Indians take kindly to ^li.ssion Life. — .\n Era of Tranqiiillity. — Number of Domesti- cated Indians at diilfeient Piriod-s. — Popidation ol each ML-isinn, a. d. 1S02. — Thriving 'I'imes. — Yankees Buy their Hides. — Fear of lOarMupiakes. — Drea. — 1 he Missionaries hasten to Destroy their Property. — Great Slaucrhter of Cattle. — The Culonisis Jlevolt, aud arc Kxiled. — The Territorial Leeislature turns over the Missions to Governor Figueroa. — Death of Kigneroa, a. d. ISijo T. . Pages 130 — 140 CHAPTEll XII. REBELLION, SECESSIOy, RESTORATION, PANICS. Custom-IIouse Quarrel. — Picvolution. — Alvarado and Isaac Graham capture the Capital, <. and Proclaim the Independence of Calii'oriia. — Alvarado crushes out a Itebellion ; is / appointed (Jovtrtior by Mexico, and Pecogniz.s Mexico again as the Central Power. — ^ Graham and other Foreiirners Arrested and Exiled, but "return again with Honor. — Go\ernor Miclieltorena arrives. — A 1 anie. — Comniodore Jones hoists thi- American Flaa at Monterey. — Hauls it down again, and Apidogizes. — Alvarado and ValUjo cap- ! turethe Governor's Ammunition.— Sliclultorena Invokes Sutters Aid.— Sutter obtains a "General Title" to certain Lands. — 'i'lie F Stockton. — Fremont as Governor. — Seven Weeks of Tranquil Sjilendor. — Kearny and Shubriik join to depose him. — Proclamation Ignoring the Conenga Treaty. — Fremont's Famous Kidi — Is refused an Interview with Ke.arny, except in Presence of Colonel Mason. — Fremont Disobeys Orders. — Stevenson's Itegiment Arrives. — Fremont goes East under Arrest. — His Trial and Sentence — llefuses the President's Clemency, and IJetires from the Service Pages IDS— 218 CHAPTER XVII. ^--1^\^ FRANCISCO AMERICANIZED. The Land Escipos Mornionism. — Terba Buena's Change of Name. — Its Newspapers. — Benicia. — First Alcaldis of San Francisco. — First Mayor and the Aynntamiento. — Pub- lic Meetings. — Overland Immigrants Snow-slaved East of the Sierra Nev.adas. — Terrible Siitlerings of the Uonner Party. — Meeting "(jf Indiirnation concerning Fremont. — Growth of San Francisco, and its Sudden Depopulation Pages 214 — 22-5 CHAPTER XVIIl. THE GOLD DISCOVERT. Gold Discovered at Coloma, January 19th, 1848.— Governor Mason's Visit to the Placers.— Ilis Report to the War Department. — How the News was Pcccived at the Ea?t. — Previous Hints of Gold in California. — Circumstances of the Discorery of 1S48. Tagea 220—2-34 CHAPTER XIX. GRAND RUSH TO CALIFORNIA. Peace between the United States and Mexico. — Terms of the. Treaty. — The California Fever a World-wide Epidemic. — They come in C(unpanies with stran-ro Ventures in Eotten Bottoms. — Isthmus and Overland Inmiigiants. — The Grumblers. — Theories of the Gol4. — Know Is'oihing ^■iet()ly. — First Election (or U. S. Senators. — Fremont and Gwin cliosen. — Failure to elect Fremont's Successor in 1S5I. — Wellcr elected in 1S.V2.— The Struggle of 1&54.— Broderiek beaten.— Gwin still kept out of the Vacant Seat in 1855. — Narrow Kseape Irom Henry S. Footers Election in l^oG. — How- San Francisco and Sacramento Vole. — The real liuling Classes. — Lynehings. — Increas- ing Violence and Crime ." Pages 413^431 CHAPTER XXX. TUE VIGILAXCE COMMITTEE OF ISoG. Assassination of "James King, of Win.," bj' Supervisor Casey. — Formation of the Vigil- ance Committee. — Newsi)aper Treatment of the Assas^ination — Great Public Excite- ment. — The I'ulpit on the Visilanee Movement. — Casey taken Iroiii the Jail by the People, — King's Burial. — Genirous Provision for his Family. — Casey and tlora Exe- cuted by the Vijrilance t'ouiiiiittee. — Biirial of the Exeeuti'd. — Biily Mulligan's Life, Dream, ; nd Suicide. — Governor Johnson asks for Feilenil Arms in vain.— The Com- mittee make some Im]>ortant Arrest.-. — Non-ariival of the expected Jteaction. — Ele- ments of Ujiposition to the Popular Movement. — A Law and Ordor Meeting. Pages 432— 4M ( ' II A P T E R XXXI. COLLISIOXS WITH THE STA TE A UTIIOUITIES. Governor Johnson proclaims San Fiancisco in a SUile of Insurrection. — He orders out the Militi:!. — Fort (iunny-Bags ereeteil. — t'ilizens intilion the (ioviinor to wiihdrnw l]is Proclamation. — He tiirows the Lespoii: ll/iljty on the " Insurgents." — (Jeneral Slierman Keslgns his Major Generalslil|( of Millti:i.— News of Conu'nssoian Ileibert's Murdering a Waiter. — Constitution and Metl.o.l of the Vigilance Committee. — lis .Arms and Funds! — Meetms of Sympathizers — (ireal \ i;;ilanee Mass MeetinL'. — The Patent Ballot-Box. — Governor Johnson ap|ieals to l'l•e^i^lent Pierce for Aid, but receives none. Pages 45.5 — 472 C 11 A P T ]J R X X X I I . rilE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE ASSUMES MORE DOUBTFUL POWERS. A C.ise of Piracy alleged. — State Arms seized by the Vigilants. — One of their Agents stabbed by j'udgx Terry. — A General Alarm. — Vigilants Capture the Armories. — Volney coirrENTS. XV E. Howard's Official Report df Affairs. — Jndcre Terry iii the Vigilants' Jail. — Commts- sioners Inmi Sacram-nf.<» plcafl for him. — I'he Governor Rcpiuliatcs the Coiiiinission. — Terry's Friends in the United States Senate. — Senators conwrninj: the Visrilanee Com- mittee. — Ubiquitous MmJowan. — The Banished trying to return. — Execution of Ileth- erinitton and Draee by the Vi^ilants. — A. A. Green jrets the I'ueblo Papers by a Strat- agem. — How tlie V^igilants fcot ihein from him. — Vigilance licspect for Kedeial Author- ities. — Judge Tcrrydischarged T Pages 47o — 498 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE VIGItAyCE COMMITTEE DISBAXDS. The Supreme Court resumes Worl^. — The Vigilance Committee preparing to surrender Power — Danger of being crowded into I'olities.— Grand Final Parade.— Address of the Executive to the General Committee. — Head-Quarters under Public InspectioiL — State Arms retained. — The "Pirates" Acquitted. — The Rooms closeil. — Results of the Vigil- ance Committee's Work. — List «f the Executed and Banished. — I'opularity of the Move- ment. — The Rev. Dr. Scott in Trouble. — Members annoyed by Suits. — The Proclamation of Insurreetion withdrawn Pages 499 — 517 CHAPTER XXXIV. PliESERVIXG TITE FRUITS OF THE REFORM Organization of the People's Party. — The Reformed City Government. — Better Times. — Comparis n of Muuicipal iCxjjenses before and after the Revolution. — Method of the People's i^arty Pages 5iS — o24 CHAPTER XXXV. FINANCIAL BREAKERS. The State's Interest not paid. — .\n Unconstitutional Debt — Vision of Tlireatenijjg Repu- diation. — The Debt assumed by a i^>pular Vote. — Restorasion of the Civil Fund to ihe State refused. — Indian War Claim admitted. — State and Local Debts, and what to show forthem I'asjes 5'25 — 531 CHAPTER XXXVI. LAND TITLES. Uncertainty «f Land Titles. — CongressionaJ Legislation concerning them. — Board ftf Land Commissioners.— Suffering en:aileOUTIy General Sumner. — The preat Union May Meeting, 1861.^ — The Press and the Pulpit for Union. — liev. Dr. Scott prefers Peace. — Important Services of T. Starr Kini.'. — His Method, Dx'ath, and Burial. — Politi- cal Parties on the War. — Downey's Fatal Sentence. — Democratic State Convention. — Edmund Randolph's Crazy Speech. — Stanford elected Governor. — G 'vin's Hypocrisy. — Latham rides two Horses, and is thi'own. — McDouf:all disappoints the Union Men. — Conner's Course. — Party Organizations sacriliccd fir Union. — Low elected Governor. — The Supreme Court Judpres. — California's Contributions to the Arm}'. — Gifts to the Sanitary Fund. — The SiMiilic Contract Act. — Adherence to a Metallic Currency. — Tax- ing the Mines. — Califoniians in the Army and Navy. — In Rebel Service. — A California Pirate. — Arrests of Disloyal Persons. — General Wricrht's prudent Coairsc. Pages 5S2— COO CHAPTER XLI. RESOURCES OF THE STATE, The Gold Yield. — Profit of the various Modes of Mining. — Late Rushes «>ut of the State. — Loss of Population in cert:vin Districts. — Useful Mineral Products of the State. — The Mining Slock Mania, lsG:J-"4. — An Irruption of Prospecters. — Valuable Mineral Dis- coveries. — Airriculture. — Manufactures. — E.vports. and Imports.— Arrivals and Depart- xires. — Insolvencies. — ^The Currency Pages 601 — 610 CHAPTER XLI I. Q'lTARRELS WITH XA TrRE.—COMPEXSA TIOXS FOR APPARENT MISFOR- TUXES. Earthquakes, Floods, and Drought.— The flood of lS61-"2.— Is there any Danger of another gufh? — Rainless Years — Compensation of Fires, Floods,. Droughts, and Rushes. — Much of the apparent Loss a real Gain to the Mining Towns Pa^cs 616 — 627 CHAPTER XLI 1 1. THE PEOPLE AXD TUE PROSPECT. SnlubritT of the Climate.— What Diseases are not TTncomiiion.— Society rapidly impniving. —The Schools.— Disproportion of the Sexes.— Sabbath Obsorvance.— The Dashaways.— The Wine Question.— Charities. — The Indian Remnant. — Failure of the Reservation System.— The Chinese Puzzle— Communications with the Atlantic States. — Overland jjajl —The Pony. — Telegraph across the Continent. — Awkward Task of the Historian. —The State on the Threshold of its Greatness.— Already a Mother of Ti^rritories and States ' PagesCJS— 044 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER 1. THE APPROACHES TO AND DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA. It was about half a century after Columbus chap. found America that tlie first discovery was made of Upper California. It was thirty-seven years later that the first Englishman set eyes on its soil. Still later, by one hundred and eighty-nine years, the first permanent settlement in it was successfully attempted. There was not enouorh known of its resources to attract much attention, until the American conquest of California, which occurred seventy-eight years later still, or three hundred and fifty-five years after the discovery of the New World. The statement of Herodotus, that winged serpents guarded the cinnamon-trees of India, though historically fabulous, was poetically true enough ; for though no such fantastic creatures as the historian described ever stood guard by any tree of earthly growth, the dis- 2 THE HISTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. • CHAP, eases that hover over the spice-gardens on the ^___^ verge of tropical jungles were scarcely less dan- gerous objects to encounter than winged ser- pents would have been. The dragons that so long protected from plunder or enjoyment the depositories of our California gold, the bound- less opulence of our Pacific resources, commer- cial, agricultural, and mineral, were the reports carried back to Spain and England by succes- sive navigators of intense cold in these middle latitudes, and of storms perpetually raging along our coast ; the concealment of our har- bors under thick and frightful fogs, behind reefs of outlying rocks or sand-bars, over which the breakers seemed to make a continuous breach ; on the east, a sturdier dragon still de- fied approach — desert wastes, and impassable mountains of great breadth, whose frosty peaks and ridges were unbroken, except at far-distant passes, that only the most careful search re- vealed. Durino- the course of three centuries the unceasing demand for safe harbors along the coast, the fact that pirates nestled in its sparse bays to the terror of lawful traders, sto- ries of pearls in the rivers and gold in the soil, the sharp rivaby of emj^ires conflicting for wider possessions, the assurance that whoever enjoyed its ports would control the avenues of the rich commerce of the Indies — all these mo- tives conspired in vain to tempt to its thorough DISCOVERY OF CALIFOElSriA. 3 exploration and settlement. It will never cease chap. to be a wonder how, so long after it was mapped, such a land lay hidden and almost for- 1500. gotten, while explorers rummaged all corners of the earth beside, and dragged the sea for fresh prizes in the domain of Geography. It was some years after the great Genoese found his new world before geographers com- prehended that there was room enough on the globe for the land of which we write. When Columbus argued to the professors of Sala- manca his pet and prolific theory of the rotun- dity of the earth, the wisest of them did not dispute its truth ; but he shared with them the error of allowing too little length for a degree of longitude. In consequence, he looked in the vicinity of Florida for Marco Polo's famous Island of Cipango — the Japan of our maps ; and the best charts of his day advanced the eastern boundary of Cathay or China as far east as the Sandmch IslaudsT So, when he came across the islands that picket the West- ern Continent, he had no doubt that he was near the threshold of the Eastern. When he had coasted scores of leagues along the south- ern shore of Cuba, and the crazy condition of his ships and his disheartened men made it necessary for him to turn to the eastward again, he took the sworn statements of all on board his fleet, from the captain to the ship-boy, in 4 THE niSTOEY OF CALIFOEjS'IA. CHAP, confirmation of Ms own opinion tliat they had visited the eastern extremity of Asia. On liis 1502. fourth voyage to America, in 1502, he diligent- ly searched from the Bay of Honduras to Porto Bello, for the strait that the Spanish geograph- ers believed must communicate between the Gulf of Mexico and a sea lying to the west- ward. But no such coveted outlet could he find, and he died firm in the faith that in cross- ing the Atlantic he had navigated the only ocean that divided the western edge of Europe from the eastern fringe of Asia. But as suc- ceeding explorers pried into and retreated from each laro-e river's mouth alono; the northern shore, investigated the whole curve of the Mex- ican Gulf, sought along the Caribbean Sea and up the broad La Plata, but everywhere in vain, for an opening westward, the islands, that most had held the new lands to be, grew beyond controversy into a continent — but not the East- « ern Continent, for the natives everywhere per- sisted in the story that to the westward (and many of them said, not fai' off) lay an ocean. It piqued the chart-makers and the hardy navi- gators alike that it could not be reached. 151 o. That honor was not Ions; reserved for Balboa, a noble Spaniard, who had settled with a colony of gold-seekers at Darien. In the year 1513 his guides took him to the top of a mountain, whence they told him that both seas might be DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTH SEA. 5 seen. Pushing up to its summit, he found it as chap. they had said. When the vision of a limitless _^_, expanse of waters to the south met his gaze, 1513. he feir on his knees, and, with uplifted hands, thanked Heaven for the honor of being the first European that had beheld " the sea be- yqnd America." Then descending to the shore, he waded waist deep into the water, and took possession of it, and all the lands it washed, for Spain. But the first European to sail on the waters of Balboa's " South Sea beyond America " was Fernando Magellan. This zealous and courage- ous Portuguese navigator had sailed as far east as the Malay Islands, where his countrymen were slowly effecting a settlement. But be- coming dissatisfied with the remuneration he was receiving for his services, he went over to Spain, and without much difficulty convinced the court, inflamed by reports of the mines in Mexico, where about that time Cortez was ■ urging his imperial conquests, that the coveted Spice Islands might be reached by sailing west- ward. There was a famous compact then ex- isting l)etween those maritime rivals, that what- ever new lands might be discovered beyond the meridian one hundred and eighty degrees west of the Azores, should belong to Spain ; and all east of that line were to be the prop- erty of Portugal. Spain could not resist the 6 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. (MAP. temptation to gain a point by iutiigue when ,___, projected on so grand a scale, and Magellan 1520. was speedily dispatched Avitli five small ves- sels to come up by a westward route behind the Portuguese possessions in the Malay Ar- chipelago ; and so, while adhering to the letter of the compact, to obtain a claim to that gar- den of the East which, without a question, the compact was intended to secure to Portu- gal- Arrived oif the South American main, Ma- gellan left no gulf or inlet unexplored that promised an opening westward. On the 21st of October, 1520, he entered the strait between the mainland and the Island of Tierra del Fue- go, which he named " The Strait of Ten Thou- sand Virgins," but which, ever since, has been known as the Straits of Magellan. He was sixty days threading this channel, crooked and thick-set with islands. Behind every headland *that he passed a new creek opened or a new river emptied. The tide rose and fell thirty feet. The water rushed backward and forward like a torrent. The overhano-ino: cliffs were capped with snow, yet a flaming mountain — so they reported — was generall}^ in sight on the south. At last from this hon-id place his little fleet emerged into an open sea, so calm, so gen- tle, so unlike the turbulent Atlantic, that he named it the Pacific. Once upon its bosom, COETEZ OX THE PACIFIC COAST. 7 liis course lay westward towards the Philip- chap. pines. Northward of his track no one yet had ,,___, sailed on all this ocean. 1521. But Cortez (in 1521) had completed the conquest of Mexico, and from the capital to both oceans the Spanish dominion was ac- knowledged. It was with no little curiosity that he awaited the return of the explorers he had sent out to find the western border of his New Spain. The next year he had the pleas- ure of announcing to his emperor that his agents had in three places discovered the South Sea. The responsive command to explore both coasts for an opening between the oceans, he welcomed as a relief from the languor that began to annoy him. It was comparatively an easy task to scour the eastern coast from Panama to Florida. But on the west he had work worthy of his genius ; for, first of all, there were his harbors to find, then his ships to build, and then a sea of unknown perils to navigate, which as yet no keel had ever vexed. But, to a man like Cortez, difficulties are a spur, and repeated failures are sharp incentives. He fitted ship after ship, and sometimes fleets of them, determined to know not only what sort of face the land he had conquered pre- sented to the west, but also to be sure that no strait were left undiscovered, north or south, by which Spain might reach the Spice Islands 8 THE IIISTOKY OF CALIFORXIA. CHAP, without doiil)lIng tlie Cape of Good Hope; ^_^^;^ and it was liis special purpose to inspect defi- 1534, nitely tlie stormy channel through the conti- nent where Magellan had passed from ocean to ocean. In 1534, one of his men, a mutineer and murderer, discovered Lower California, and was murdered there. Cortez had given to Be- cerra the command of one of two ships that were sent out to learn the fate of a missing vessel of a previous expedition. Becerra's crew mutinied under the lead of the pilot, Ximenes, a native of Biscay, who continued the voyage, crossed the Gulf of California, and landed. While near the hay afterwards known as La Paz, Ximenes and twenty of his Spaniards were killed by the Indians. The vessel, however, returned, with a good report of the country, its people, and its pearls. During the same year, Cortez, seeking for the Moluccas, which he thought to be no great distance off, conducted in person an exploring expedition to the north. He left Tehuantepec with four ships ; three of these were soon stranded alouo; the coast. The one in which he himself sailed reached the gulf and the peninsula. From that time the Gulf of Cali- fornia was known as the "Sea of Cortez;" though when, soon afterwards, it was more explored, it gained the name of the Bed or Vermilion Sea: perhaps from some resemblance LOWEE GALIFOENIA DISCOVERED. 9 of its outline to the Eed Sea that separates chap. Egypt from Ai^abia ; perhaps from the color of ^_^_^ its waters near its head, as seen after the Colo- 1534. rado had dis2:oro:ed into it a torrent more than usually turbid. Cortez hoped to plant a colony on the peninsula ; but the discontent that grew out of the sufferings of the little company from famine, from excesses when relief came, and from repulses by the Indians, made him glad to hear the appeals from Mexico for succor, that gave him an excuse to retreat from his undertaking and return. In 1537 he dispatched three ships, under 1537. Francisco de Ulloa, v/ho entered the Gulf of California, explored it to its extremity, then doubling the Cape, went up the western coast of the peninsula to about the twenty-ninth degree of north latitude. Ulloa, after a year's absence, brought back accounts of a bare vol- canic land, peopled by poor men — of " no coun- try, in short, worthy the second visit." And now the conqueror's conceit of rich islands and vast territories of unbounded wealth was quite deserting him. For all his princely outlays he was reaping no profits either of glory or of gold. But that very year Mexico enjoyed a fresh sensation. Of three hundred Spaniards, Avho, ten years before, landed in Florida to conquer it, four suiwivors wandered across to Cu- 10 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP, liacan, whence they were sent to the capital. There they told such stories of the pearls and 1537. other riches that abounded on the coast of the South Sea, that all Mexico was fired for explo- rations. Cortez and the Viceroy Mendoza, with equal zeal, sprang to new enterj)rises. But the projects of the two were irreconcilable, and the star of the viceroy was in the ascendant. Cor- tez remained chafing at home, harassed by the lawyers, while the viceroy perfected his ar- rangements to send off, for the conquest of " the countries and islands north of Mexico," an army of a thousand men by land, and another by sea. Orders were given for the two armaments to meet in latitude thirty-six. The land forces penetrated northward by way of Sinaloa and Sonora to where they found seven wretched towns, with a population in the largest one of but four hundred men. The houses, though constructed of earth and unhewn logs, were occasionally of several stories in height. These places they identified as " the seven large towns, inhabited l)y civilized nations, with mountains round about, rich in metals and gems," and " the large town of Quivira, with houses seven stories high, celebrated for its riches," ^vhich a zealous Franciscan had reported to exi^t, and oiT whose representations as much as on those of the Florida wanderers the ex2:)edition was founded. In three years the inland army re- DISCOVERY OF CALIFORIS'IA. 11 turned, sick, tliiuned, and disheartened, report- chap. ing a country barely tolerable, and but narrow- ,_^^_^ ly removed from the character of a desert. 1540. Meanwhile the fleet had achieved the disgrace of its commander by a very speedy return with- out the slightest advantage gained. They went, according to account, to the appointed place on the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude, which would have l)een up the Colorado River, above the Mohave Indian country ; they erected some crosses, buried some bottles containing letters, and then went back ao-ain. As we hear noth- ing further of this landing in so high a latitude, as it was not spoken of as a point beyond pre- ceding explorations, and as the commander of the fleet was disgraced, it is probable that there was some mistake about it, though that Alarcon was the discoverer of the mouth of the Colo- rado, about the year 1540, is not disputed. Cortez now embarked for Sixain, never to re- turn. Before he left, however, he saw himself deserted by one who had always followed his fortunes. Pedro de Alvarado, ambitious of rivalling Cortez as an explorer, having asked of the emperor and received a commission, con- tracted for the building of twelve ships, a gal- ley, and some smaller vessels, and for their thor- ough outfit with men, horses, arms, and pro- visions. To make his enterprise more sure, he allied himself with Mendoza, the viceroy, but 12 THE- HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. ' CHAP, sufferina: death at the hands of the Indians, I • • ^_^^_^ whom he had cruelly oppressed, his ships were 1540. left to rot iu their harbors, until Mendoza re- fitted a portion of them, two of which he sent, under Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a native of Por- tugal, to explore the western coast of California. 1542. Cabrillo left Natividad June 27, 1542. He touched on the peninsula of Lower California, ran up the coast, and often landed to question the docile Indians. In the Santa Barbara re- gion he saw large houses, and being told by the natives that in the interior there lived white men, he wrote those white men a letter, and gave it to the Indians to be forwarded. When about on the fortieth degree of latitude, he saw mountains covered with snow, and be- tween them a large cape, which he called De Mendoza (Mendocino), in honor of the viceroy. 1543. On the 10th of March, 1543, when in forty-four degrees, the cold l)eing very intense, his provi- sions exhausted, and his ships in bad condition, he turned southward again, and sailed back to- wards Natividad. The value of this expedition lay simply in the information it brouo-ht back of the trend and direction of the coast. Cabrillo fetched home no account of snug harbors, or of places proper to plant colonies in ; indeed, the impor- tant geographical facts of his discovery seem to have been soon forgotten. The date which DISCOVERY OF CALIFOKNIA. 13 marked an era — the starting date, indeed, in Cal- chap. ifornia history — was no era to the cotemporaries of Cabrillo. The viceroy sent out no succeed- 1543. ing expeditions. Being soon afterwards pro- moted to the viceroyalty of Peru, he had little further opportunity to extend his researches; and the solitary enterprise of his successor in that direction proved a perfect failure. The efforts that had been j^ut forth Avith so little profit for twenty years, to learn the configura- tion of the western coast of America, were in- termitted for more than half a century. The meaning of the word California, and how it came to be applied to the land we live in, is not to this day a settled matter. Vene- gas, tbe Jesuit historian, thinks that some words of the Indians having a sound similar to it, were mistaken ,by the Spaniards as the designation for the country, though investiga- tion showed that the Indians did not so call it. Others have supposed or guessed that the name was deliberately framed by the Spaniards from the Latin calida fornax — a hot furnace. But this is improbable, as the Sj)aniards were not in the habit of manufacturing names by any such classical process ; nor were men who were used to the heat of Acapulco likely to speak of any portion of California as a furnace, in com- parison with that oven of cities. The name first appears in the account writ- 14 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, ten by Bernal Diaz, of one of Cortez's expedi- tions, lie applying it only to the gulf. From 1543. this it seems to have spread to include all of the region that Spain claimed northward of Mexico on the Pacific, or west of the Gulf of California. If a geographer of the time of Cabrillo had attempted, to bound the region known as Cali- fornia, he would have said that it extended from the Vermilion Sea of Cortez and the ocean on the south, northward past Cape Men- docino, to the Straits of Anian, which separate America from the confines of Tartary; that eastward it was bounded by Canada, and on the southeast by a wild desert tract that cut off access to it from New Spain, above the ter- mination of the Vermilion Sea. FEANCIS DEAKE IN CALIFORNIA. 15 CHAPTER 11. 4 NOTABLE ENGLISHMAN IN CALIFORNIA. Hitherto there liad been three great induce- ments for prosecuting explorations in the North- ern Pacific : First, a desire to find a route from Europe to the Indies, the Straits of Magellan being the only water passage yet known, and a return through them from west to east being industriously represented as quite impractica- ble. Second, the hope of finding rich regions that would rival the Spice Islands in the prod- ucts of their forests, and the mines of Mex- ico in precious metals. Third, the ardent zeal of the Catholic sovereigns, inspired alike by policy and piety, to convert the heathen and give unknow^n nations to the Church. But now a new motive was added. A rich trade be- tween the Philippine Islands and Spain was sj)ringing up. Every year a great galleon from the Malaysian Archipelago crossed the Pacific to Acapulco, whence its freight was conveyed either to Panama or across the continent to Vera Cruz. To avoid the easterly trade-winds, this galleon made the coast of America as far 1543. 16 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP, north as Cabrillo's Cape Mendocino, where the ___, northwest wdnds ^veve generally blow'lng, and 1578. from which point there was still a long voyage of some eighteen hundred miles to Acapulco, with no known harbors on the "way into which she might put on emergency for supplies or repaii's. Then there were the Straits of Anian, much talked of by mariners and believed in by geog- ra^^hers, which were supposed to separate Asia and America ; and the fancy was that they led eastward to the Atlantic, somewhere about jS^ewfoundland. Suppose the Engiish, who were beginning to be a threatening power on the sea, should force that upper passage and some fine morning appear with a fleet off Aca- pulco or Panama ! What was to hinder their taking any port they pleased, or snatching all the plunder of captured galleon or sacked cities that they had the heart to cov^et or the ships to carry away ? Or if thei'e exist pro- found peace between England and Spain, the latter had not a single settlement north of Cu- liacan, and the doctrine was not then admitted, any more than now, that the planting of a cross in a land conferred a title to it that the next squatter sovereign could not cloud the day he took possession. As the Spaniards debated, the shadow of what they most dreaded stalked in upon them. DRAKE OIS^ THE PACIFIC. 17 England and Spain were at peace, but no chap. love was lost between them. Queen Elizabeth had no hesitation in smiling upon the under- 1573. takings of Francis Drake, who, '' on his own account, "syas playing the seaman and the pi- rate," "had got a pretty store of money to- gether," was fast earning the name of " Sea- King," and already " was very terrible to all Spaniards." On his third voyage to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, he was led to " that goodlie and great high tree " on the Isth- mus of Panama, from which both oceans are visible at the same time. As lie looked out on the vision that had so affected Balboa sixty years before, he was " ve- hemently transported with desire to navigate the South Sea ; and falling down there upon his knees, he implored the Divine assistance that he mio^ht at some time or other sail thither and make a perfect discovery of the same, and hereunto he bound himself Avith a vow. From that time forward his mind was pricked on con- tinually, night and day, to perform his vow." Five years later he set sail again, with great secrecy, for America, his fleet consisting of five vessels ; the largest of one hundred, the small- est of fifteen tons! His own "shij)" was named the Pelican : but afterwards s-loried in the designation of the Golden Hind. Three of the fi\'e survived to enter the Straits of Ma- 2 18 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, gellan, wliicli they threaded in the course of six- J^ teen days. This was in the fall of 1578. They 1578. found "what they call the Pacific, or Calm Sea,'' whip2^ed into fury by a tempest. The storm separated the adventurous vessels, and the Pelican it drove as far south as the fifty- seventh deo-ree of latitude. Nearly two months she was hurled l)ackwards and forwards about Cape Horn. Drake plainly made out that here the continent was at an end — that the Atlan- tic and Pacific met. Here, then, was a route, not an inviting one indeed, yet one that ships raiirht take to return from the Pacific towards Europe. It was a discovery of great value, for though by the time he made it a lost one of his own fleet had forced a passage eastward through the Straits of Magellan, he had ac- cepted as true the Spaniard's doctrine that such a thing was scarcely possible ; and no A^onder, as to this day, for sail-vessels, it is not often deemed practicable. After waiting duly for his delinquent ves- sels, Drake pushed northward in the Golden Hind alone. Off Arica, in the harbor of Cal- lao, and elsewhere, he plundered ship after shij:) of its silver, silks, and costly gums. He cap- tured the great galleon and appropriated her treasure, avoided Panama, paused at x\capulco, and refitted during a single day. But when the Golden Jlind ^^■as irettino; over- THE CLIMATE REVILED. 19 burdened with her precious freight, the ques- chap. tion grew troublesome, " What should he do with it?" He had no fancy for Cape Horn, i579. though that tedious way had no such teiTor for mariners a century later, as his name had at that time for all that sailed. He did not doubt if he retui'ned, that he would find a Spanish fleet waiting off the Straits of Magellan to sink him. As he had seen the oceans meet at the South, he believed they must meet, too, at the North. It suited his adventurous spirit to slip away from his enemies l)y a I'oad they never had heard of, and sail back into some old English bay, laden with a grand discovery, as well as with gold and silver, pearls and spices, from the Orient. Home, by a northeast passage, then, was his determination, and he soon found himself ofl' the coast of California in exceedingly cold weather. The Rev, Mr. Fletcher, chaplain of the buccaneer's fleet, writes a distressing ac- count of the inclemency of this wretched coast. If it had l)een his misfortune actually to enter the Arctic Ocean, where our bold whalers now- a-days rather like to summer, and occasionally even winter, he would have suffered from an exhaustion of his vocabulary of freezing adjec- tives before reaching Behring's Straits. On the 3d of June, 1579, in latitude forty- two — that is, the southern line of Oregon — the crew complained grievously of " nipping cold ;" 20 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. (;hap. the rigging was stiff, the rain was frozen. In ^^' hititude forty-four — that is, off Umjoqua City — 1579. their hands were benumbed, the meat was frozen when it was taken from the fire ! On the 5th of June they ran in sliore, and cast anchor in a bad bay, where, when the tbick, vile fogs lifted, they were not without danger from violent gusts and flaws of wind. Finding it no place to stay, they got to sea again as soon as possible. It was probably here, if the story which the Spanish historians tell is true, that he left behind him his Spanish pilot, Mo- rera, who afterwards made his way overland down to Mexico ; and a hard pedestrian excur- sion he must have found it — that first white man toilino; thronsfh thirty-five himdred miles or so of strange territory, the amazement of a land full of savages. Drake and his companions would seem to have gone as high as forty-eight degrees, and then to have been driven southward by a wind that they could not face. In thirt}--eight degrees they found a fit harbor, though there the low hills were covered with snow, entered it, and tarried thirty-six days. iVow it is possible that the Golden Hind hap- pened along our coast when our usually charm- ing weather was "not at home." Such mis- haps have occurred before now, that a climate has lost reputation because, at just the time THE CLIMATE OF CALIFORNIA. 21 when an observer was prepared to note it, botli chap. barometer and tbermometer agreed to depre- , ' eiate its average excellence. It may j^ossibly i.jT'j. have been a cold June that " tlie oldest inhab- itant " among the natives told of for half a cen- tury afterwards. But another explanation is quite as probable. The Golden Hind had been for months loiter- ing in the tropics. To men just emerging from the soft, southern gales, the winds of our tem- perate zone, though charged with only frost enough to make them bracing and grateful to the acclimated, are rasping. Drake's crew^ had no relish for the northern passage, no taste for rugged w^eather, and in their dread they met it half ^vay. Then Shasta and the Oregon moun- tain peaks, generally capped with snow in early summer, quickened their sensitiveness, and made them verily believe that they had prema- turely confronted an Arctic clime. Fletcher's excessive caution to prevent such a conclusion, itself suggests its probability. He argues the causes of the extreme cold, and an- ticipates the objection that they felt it the more from their recent arrival from equatorial regions. The general's admirable regimen, he says, secured them from any possible suffering on account of sudden transitions of lines of latitude; and then he speaks contemptuously of 5^oiu' " chamber company, whose teeth in a 22 THE 5IST0EY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, temperate air do beat in their heads at a cup ^'__, of cold sack and sugar by the fire." The 1579. sprightl}^ chaplain had the whole story to him- self: there "were no previously written accounts for his to conflict ^vith, and it must be admit- ted that he made a good apology, and all the more plausible for being indirect, for the aban- donment by Drake of his deliberately formed purpose to go home to England by the Straits of Anian. Those much-talked-of Straits, we know, as happily for our curiosity they did not, lead up to a frozen ocean which, may as well, for all commercial purposes, have no connection with Atlantic waters. Drake troubled his head no more about them, for on leaving the California coast the Golden Hind steered for the Philip- pines, and so, by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, went back to Europe — the first craft that ever made the circuit of the globe with the same commander on board who took her out of port. Drake named all the land he had seen here- abouts JVew Alhiony the white clifts reminding him of his native coasts, and suggesting the happy compliment that his loyalty seconded. English books after that spoke of New Albion as " Drake's land, back of Canada." But where is the bay that Captain Drake — it was later that he was knighted and was caDed Sir DEAKE IN SAN FEANCISCO BAY. 23 Francis — spent those tliirty-six days in? Yfhere chap. is the quiet nook so shielded from raw winds, ,_^_ so free of fogs and gusts, so altogether pleasant 1570. and secure that even Chaplain Fletcher, with his bones aching from past cold, has for it no word of abuse ? From time immemorial, until lately, it was presumed to be San Francisco. But Humboldt, in correction of the common belief, remarked that Drake's port was farther north, under the parallel of 38° 10', and was called by the Span- iards Puerto de Bodega. Later writers, in cor- rection of Humboldt, hold that it was a curve in the coast under the lee of Point Reyes, and which, on the modern maps, is marked as Drake's Bay. In support of this theory, it is urged that Drake's Bay is in latitude 37° 59' 5'', which corresponds within a minute to the statement of Drake's chronicler, who made the latitude 38° ; that the cliffs in the vicinity of that bight are white, resembling England's in the neiirhborhood of Dover, and that if he had I'eally entered San Francisco harbor he would not have been silent as to its excellence. These reasons avouM seem quite insufficient to rob San Francisco of the claim to Drake as its discoverer. Its latitude is 37^ 59', to which that given by Drake's chronicler is quite as near as those early navigators, with their compara- tively rude instruments, were likely to get. 24 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP. The cliffs about San Francisco are not remark- ,__^_, ably wliite, even if one notable projection, inside 1579. the Gate, is named "Lime Point;" but there are many white mountains, both north and south of it, along the coast ; and Drake named the "whole land — not his landing-place alone — " New Albion." They did not go into ecstasies about the harbor — they were not hunting har- bors, but fortunes in compact form. Harbors, so precious to the Spaniards, who had a com- merce in the Pacific to be protected, were of small account to the rovino* Eno'lishman. But the best possible testimony he could bear as to the harbor's excellence w^ere the thirty-six days that he spent in it. The probabilities are, then, that it was in San Francisco Bay that Drake made himself at home. As Columbus, failing to give his name to the continent he discovered, was in some small measure set right by the bestowal of his name upon the continent's choicest part, when poetry dealt with the subject, so to Drake, cheated of the honor of naming the finest harbor on the coast, is .'slill left a feeble memorial, in the name of a closely adjoining dent in the coast line. To the English, then, it may be believed, belongs the credit of finding San Francisco Bay, though the Spanish had long before named and mapped points on the coast farther north. Of DRAKE CLAIMS THE LAKD FOR ENGLAND. 2t> tliis, however, Drake was ignorant, and in chap. • TT Queen Elizabeth's name he took j)Ossessiou of the ,____, land, and erected a monument in token of the i579. fact — " a plate nailed upon a faire great poste, whereupon was ingraven her Majestie's name, the day and year of our arrival there, with the free giving up of the province and 2:)eople into her Majestie's hands ; together with her high- ness' picture and arms, in a piece of five-pence of current English money, under the plate, whereunder was also written the name of oui* general." The natives, who were robust, powerful, un- suspecting, and kindly, lived in huts by the water-side, and were found huddled around the fires in their huts, midsummer though it \vas. The men were naked ; the women wore deerskin blankets over their shoulders, and mats of rushes around their bodies. They brought to the Englishmen presents of feathers and to- bacco, harangued them with speeches, and, mis- taking them for something more than mortals, proposed to worship them. This the visitors declined ; and, to show that they too were sub- jects of a Higher Power, they themselves had divine worship in the presence of the Indians. Then, with much ceremony, with singing and dancing on the part of his attendants, the king of the Indians approached and placed upon the admiral's head a crown of feathers, and made 26 THE HISTOEY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, him a present of liis whole kiogdom ; all which "■ the admiral accepted in the name of his sov- 1579. ereiirn, and in memorial of it, as well as of his visit, erected the monument spoken of above. The narrative proceeds : — "Our necessarie business being ended, our general, with his com^^anie, travailed up into the countrey to their villages, where we found heardes of deere by 1000 in a companie, beins: most larore and fat of bodie. We found the whole countrey to be a warren of a strange kind of Connies. * * * The peoj^le do eat their bodies, and make great accompt of their skinnes, for their king's coat was made out of them." — " There is no part of earth here to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver." All this is very extraordinary. The deer have not yet vanished from the wooded parts of the land. The squirrels still remain in count- less numbers, to annoy the farmers in the val- leys. But about the gold ? The Europeans of that day had very con- temptuous notions of any portion of the New World which did not sparkle witli gold or sil- ver. The chronicler of Drake's vo3'age remem- bered that, and wrote : " The earth of the coun- try seemed to promise rich veins of gold and silver; some of the ore being constantly found on digging." It is ungracious to question the EAKLY EEPOETS OF GOLD. 27 veracity of travellers who brought home so chap. many indisi^utaljle truths ; but it is significant, ._^_ that the Indians whom they met wore no 1579. golden ornaments, as the natives of lands usu- ally do where gold is so very abundant ; and none of Drake's successors have had any similar good luck in their explorations of the vicinity that it is supposed he visited. 28 THE HISTORY OF CALtFOENIA. CHAPTER m. VISCAmO'S EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE CALIFORNIA. COAST. CHAP. The time had come, wlieo, unless Spain ^^^' would consent to let go quietly a vast region 1596. that might be a baiTen desert, or might be an El Dorado — unless she would see her bitterest foe inherit, before her own decay, an immense terri- tory that she had eai-ned by discovery — unless she would see her Indian j)ossessions fronted by her spoiler, the time had come for action. In 1596, Philip II., from Madrid, forwarded a dis- patch to Monterey, Viceroy of JVIexico, conjuring him to explore and seize California. In accord- ance with this command, Viscaiuo, ^vith three ships, sailed from Acapulco, crossed over to the peninsula, established a garrison, built a small church, and out of the branches of trees con- structed some rude huts at La Paz — a name given to the ba}' and the new settlement in token of the peaceful reception that they re- ceived from the Indians. But speedily they ran across the misfortunes that seemed to be VISCAINO AT SATSr DIEGO. 29 inseparable from all enterprises in the Gulf, cnAr. and were compelled to return, abandoning the settlement before the expiration of the year. igo2. Philip in., hearing the result of the attempt, gave orders to survey the ocean side of the peninsula. Viscaino, cheerfully accepting the charge, left Acapulco with three vessels, in the spring of 1602, for an expedition that proved I602. notably successful. The unceasing head-winds made the passage up the coast tedious and slow, but that gave the better opportunity to survey it faithfully. At Barbary Bay (near Cape St Lucas) he found a well-behaved people, incense- trees, pearly shells, and salt. About Magdalena Bay he found friendly though naked savages, frankincense, and eatable mussels. He stopped at several points before reaching Cerros Island, where there were " affable Indians," some pearls, little wood, and brackish water. On Cerros Island they observed a bald, painted mountain, for its sides were streaked with diiferent-colored veins ; and a seaman, who, because he came from Peru, was presumed to be a judge of precious metals, gave his opinion that it was entuely made up of gold and silver ! They saw^ as they sailed, " ill-smelling but precious amber enough to load a ship." On the 10th of November they entered the harbor of San Diego, where they saw a forest of tall, stj'LQght oaks, shrubs resembling rose- 30 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP, mary in savor, and many fragrant and whole- ,^_i_, some plants. They stopped here ten days, and 1602. were deliglited with the mildness of the climate, the excellence of the soil, the look of the land, which they accurately surveyed, and the docility of the Indians, who besmeared their bodies with paint and loaded their heads with feathers. The harbor abounded with fish, the flats with shell- fish, the woods with game. At sea again, they saw frequently the smoke of fires burning on the hills, which they inter- preted as sure tokens that the country was in- habited, and as invitations for them to land. On the Island of St. Catalina they saw savages who had a temple, and worshipped idols with, sacrifices ; who sold fish to those who dwelt on the mainland, and were shrewd thieves. When in Santa Barbara Channel, the cazique offered to give the strangers ten wives apiece if they would settle among them. Occasionally they wenrt on shore, and had mass celebrated. The harbor, where they anchored on the IGth of December, 1602, under the Point of Pines, they named Monterey, in honor of the viceroy who managed the fitting out of the expedition. From this point, one ship was sent back to Acapulco to report progress. The others, after a tarry of eighteen days, during which time they had made out that the place furnished fine, large pines fit for masts, and oak excellent for VISCAIlSrO AT jrOlSTTEREY. 31 ship-timber, that the harbor was secure against citap. all winds, and that the natives were so docile that their conversion would be easy, pushed 1602. still farther northward. Disease, however, had thinned their numbers and weakened most of those who still survived. Sharp pains were continually shooting along their bones. They were painfully sensitive to the keen, cold winds. Purple spots broke out upon their flesh. Their teeth were loosened in their gums, " even so that, unawares, they spit them out." To tell their story in a word, they were sadly afflicted with scurvy. In twelve days after leaving Monterey, a favoral^le wind — it was about the only favor of the sort they could boast — carried tlie flag-ship " past the 25ort of San Francisco ;" Imt, the smaller vessel having been separated from her, the ship put back into that port and waited. The barefooted Carmelite who accompanied and wi'ote the story of the expedition, clearly states that the flag-ship "put back into the port Francisco," where a ship, that was sent out from the Philippine Islands to survey the California coast, had been driven ashore and lost, eight years before. The pilot of that lost ship was chief pilot of Viscaino's vessel, and he affirmed that, from the wreck, large quantities of wax and several chests of silks had been landed. 32 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, The reader is naturally puzzled, at first, on riT • ___^ seeing the name used as familiarly as if our 1602. matchless harbor were already well known to the Mexicans, especially as the writer speaks of some place in this very vicinity. But there is not the slightest probability that Viscaino entered the harbor of modern San Francisco. " The flag-ship," says the record, " came to anchor behind a point of land called La Punta de los Keyes." Doul)tless it was the bight outside and north of the Heads. It is not possible that Vis- caino, who was on a hunt for harboi-s, could have sailed through the Golden, Gate into the best harbor north of Acapulco, without making spe- cial mention of so perfect a place of safety. He would have felt that his expedition was an en- tire success, if he had been able to report to the viceroy that, at the very jjoint where the great circle of the trade-winds touched the coast, he had found a good retreat and recruiting-place for the Philippine galleon, where wood and water were easily oljtaiued, and abundant secu- rity furnished against every storm. He who had spoken so glowingly of the harbors of San Diego and Monterey, would not have neglected a eulogy on that of San Francisco, if he had ever seen it. He would not have spoken of it only as a place where a ship had been driven ashore by the violence of the wind. Drake may have entered it, and yet not be struck with its VlSCAmo'S EXPLORATIONS. 33- capacity to accommodate a fleet, for lie was chap. sated with tlie sight of natural wonders. Gold ,_^J_, and adventure were liis objects — not safe anchor- leoa. ing-places. Wherever it was, Viscaino finished his sur- veys in a day, and moved on again slowly to the northward. On the 12th of January, he made some high, red mountains, and beyond them, farther northwest, some snowy moun- tains, which he judged to be Cape Mendo- cino. But herg they encountered one of the i603. dragons that had guarded the coast so long. They fell in with a violent gale, accompanied with sleet, and it was intolerably cold. There were but six persons on board able to keep the deck ; all the rest were down with scurvy. On the 19th, they saw high mountains, cov- ered with snow, which, from their color, and the fact that they were seen on the eve of St. Sebas tian, they called Cape Blanco de San Se- bastian. The smaller vessel went, probably, as high as the mouth of the Columbia Kiver, where, finding they were beyond the point to which the viceroy's instructions authorized them to sail, and with a sickly crew, the officers put about to return to Acapulco. At the high- est point that they reached, they found a large river, its banks covered with ash-trees and willows, whose pleasing appearance tempted 3 .34 TlIE HISTORY OF CALIFORJSIA. CHAP, them to land ; but, the currents hindering them, ■ they turned toward the south, and sailed for ieo3. home, firmly believing that the cuiTent which they could not stem was the Strait of Anian, through which the fabulous ship had passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The flag-ship, in returning to Acapulco, kept before a favorino; wind near enouQ-h to shore for the explorers to see that the coasts were cov- ered with verdure, and, from the fires, they judged them to be populous ; but the crew were too much thinned and enfeebled to permit the closer examination they had proposed to make on their return. Viscaino was exceedingly anxious to repeat his expedition, but before doing so it was ne- cessary to obtain the permission of his Span- ish Majesty. He went to Spain, and urged the affair at coui't with great assiduity. He met a courtier's fate. He was promised, and promised again, rebuffed, encouraged, and put ofl^ until, quite disheartened, he retui*ned to Mexico. In a subsequent letter of Philip IH. to his agents in Mexico, we find how much better report Viscaino had made of the Pacific coast than had ever before been given. He represented the country as carpeted with verdure, the climate mild, the land covered with trees, the soil fruit- ful. The chief subsistence of the people weie TISCAIISro's FAVOEABLE EEPORTS. 35 the spontaneous products of the earth and the chap. plentiful objects of the chase. Their clothing ,_^_^ was made of the tanned skins of sea-wolves. 1003. They had an abundance of flax, hemp, and cot- ton. He heard that in the interior there were large towns, silver and gold, and veins of other metals. The monarch, apparently, labored under the impression that Viscaino visited the coasts of Japan and China, which he evidently thought were but a little distance off. He ordered a search to be made for Viscaino, and, if found, that the command of a new expedition be given to him. The veteran in his retirement heard the news with joy, and prepared with alacrity to engage in fresh enterprises, but, being suddenly overtaken with a fatal illness, the royal commands wei'e never executed. Worse than that. The charts that Viscaino made with so much difficulty, were carelessly treasured, or, in their transfer to Spain, were lost, and in a few years the results of his costly explorations were forgotten. It was one hundred and sixty-six years be- fore the harbor of Monterey was visited again, and San Diego, "well watered and well wooded," and its bay, " spacious enough to con- tain many ships," and the smaller bay contig- uous to it, passed as entirely out of mind as if they had never been mapped. Such sorry 36 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOKNIA. CHAP, results could scarcely have come of such III • ' ■> , '_, o-rand undertakiriQ-s if there had been news- 1G03. papers in those days, to serve up, in popular form, the story of brave adventurers, or i^rint, in solid columns, the official reports of their officers. f ATTEJIPT TO COLONIZE THE COimTKr. Z1 CHAPTEK IV. UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO COLONIZE THE COUNTRY, It was a great grief to Spain, wlien there was chap. leisure "between lier wars to consider it, that ._^J_, California could not be conquered and peopled. 1683. During many succeeding years, traders fre- quently sent down pearls of great value, ob- tained on the west coast of the gulf. There were current many stories of inland discoveries to the northward, and of the wealth that ad- venturers found. Then there were pirates infesting the Pacific, making their head-quar- ters in the California harbors ; and these, though quiet the rest of the year, were sure to sally out when the Philippine galleon was due. Attempts were repeatedly made to re-discover the harbors already described, and bring them into use ; but all were in vain. There was a well-planned effort made for the conquest of California in 1683, which, for a while, promised fairly. It was under the com- mand of Admiral Otondo, though its spiritual government was intrusted to Father Kino by the Jesuits, upon whom it was conferred by 38 THE niSTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP, special warrant from Spain, and -svitli tlie for- lorn bope that, by a joint effort of Clinrcli and 1683. State, a permanent settlement of tlie country might he effected. They sailed up the gulf, and once more California was taken possession of in the name of the Spanish Majesty, with the usual imposing ceremonies. The admiral spent his time in coastwise and inland explorations, while the religious members of the company, making La Paz their head-quarters, and having erected a church but three months afterward near San Bruno Bay, set to work learning the languages of the natives. It was very tedious, but the learners were in earnest, and it was not long before they had translated into the Indian tongue the chief articles of the Christian creed. They did not escape the difficulty alwjiys experienced by missionaries in finding native terms to express ideas of which the untutored heathen has no conception. On one occasion they took some flies, and, putting them under water in the presence of the Indians, waited till the insects seemed to be dead ; then, placing them on the warm ashes in the sunlight, told the natives to watch until they came to life agaili. As one after another the flies were restored to vitality, and began to stretch themselves and clean their wings for a flight, the exclamation of the watchers was accepted as the proper word by which to render the idea of resurrection. FAILURE OF THE ATTEMPT. 39 But there came a drouirlit of eighteen months' chap. duration. Hardships innumerable followed, and so much sickness, that the most sanguine 1G83. debated whether the enterprise must not be abandoned. Just then came orders for the ves- sels to put to sea, t6 take under convoy the Phi- lippine ship, for which the Dutch privateers were waiting ; and so was precipitated the end of an effort which had cost three years of time and large appropriations of the vojal revenue. The viceroy next endeavored to engage the Society of Jesuits to undertake the reduction of California, promising them, as material aid, $40,000 a year, to be paid annually out of the king's treasury. The chapter thanked him for the honor conveyed^ in the invitation, but foresaw too great inconveniences in taking upon itself such rugged temporal engagements, and declined. It professed a readiness, however, always to supply the necessary missionaries to accompany any future expedition that might be planned. Thus, after nearly two centuries of repeated, costly efforts, it was resolved on the part of Spain that the projects which Cortez and the kings attempted in vain must be abandoned ; and California was left to the unrestrained ten- antry of its naked natives ; though the most fabulous reports of its wealth were credited, and every year the absolute necessity to the 10 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP. East India trade of a o^ood harbor on the coast IV T 1 ,^___^ was made the more apparent. 1683. The mountain system of Ui^per California, when studied on the modern maps, furnishes much apology for the incompetence of the Span- iards to effect an earlier settlement, and espe- cially for missing the best harbor. A series of mountain ranges lies almost parallel to the coast ; indeed, for most of its extent, the surf beats the broadside of a rocliy mountain. There is only one perfect, noteworthy iissure in the range, and that, widened by the currents, con- stitutes the Golden Gate which opens into San Francisco Bay. At the Point of Pines the range strikes the sea. Between that point and the Santa Cruz range the ocean excavates the Bay of Monterey. To the same fact, that the moun- tain ranges are not exactly parallel with the coast, we are indebted for the roadstead of San Luis Obispo, the Santa Barbara Channel, and the Bay of San Diego. When the old naviga- tors, sailing northward, saw the peaks of a dis- tant range draw nearer and nearer to the sea, they might naturally expect it soon to strike the sea at a sharp angle, and just north of that they would look for anchorage. But at San Francisco the range is abruptly broken. It is an exception to the rule, and they failed to note it. Remember, too, the thick fogs that so often HAILUEii OF Trilu ATTEMPT. 41 veil tlie Golden Gate, and it will seem less chap strange that these early navigators missed it. , ^_ The Jesuit historian, in commenting on these 1683. repeated failures, sees the hand of Providence, for the glorification of religion, in the fact that not until majesty and power and wealth had exhausted their resources, and confessed their inability to cope with it, Avas the work done. In the same spirit, the American Christian sees that it is Providence who now will send a suc- cession of earnest, indefatigable, religious men to wi'estle with and subdue the land ; and after them, a race of quiet, easy, comfortable priests to possess it, tame its wildness, bring to view the mild, serene enjoyments so natural to it, travel unsuspicious over its hoarded wealth, seed and stock it, and plant vineyards in a few favored spots ; develop, though feebly, its agri- cultural resources, and then, with scarcely a struggle, surrender all to another people, of a reformed faith and more progressive practice. 42 THE inSTO^lY OF OArjl!DE:aA. CHAPTER V. EXPERIMENTS OF THE JESUITS IK CALIFORNIA. The Father Kino, or Kiihn (as it was in his native German), who attended Otondo in his "^^ unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony and a mission at La Paz, was not a man to retreat from a project once undertaken. While hold- ing the professorship of mathematics in a Span- ish college, highly esteemed, quietly enjoying a life of leisure, and with a prospect of a large fortune before him, he was taken exceedingly ill. When lying, as he supposed, at the very verge of death, he made a vow to Saint Francis Xavier that if he should recover, that saint shoukl be the model of his life. lie did re- cover, resigned his professorship, and came to Mexico. But before long he grew jealous of the tranquillity of his new career. He em- braced with delight the hardships promised in Otondo's expedition, and certainly had no cause for disappointment in that respect. When the barrenness of the land and its utter poverty forced its abandonment, he, if no others, was ENTHUSIASTIC PlOi!fEEES. 43 determined that it should be only temporary, chap. He was inflamed mtli a desire to conquer Cali- ,_^ fornia for the Church — an object to which he 1697. devoted his life. He travelled widely through Mexico, persuading, pleading, arguing with his Jesuit brethren, to enlist their sympathies with his. That he might the better accomplish his ends, he sought and obtained the appointment of " Superintendent of the Missions of Sonora." Their contiguity to the land which it was his ambition to convert gave him facilities, no other way attainable," for watching over and devising means to subdue the barren Canaan of his hopes. Fortunately, as he travelled on one of his mission tours he met, and infected with his own zeal, Father Juan Maria Salva Tierra, who soon became his equal in enthu- siasm. For a while the two struofSfled in vain. The Society of Jesuits, the Viceroy of Mexico, the King of Spain saw in it nothing but a chi- merical experiment, in which, with an empty treasury, there was no temptation to embark. But in 1697, eleven years after Father Kino began to preach his project, Salva Tierra was authorized by the Jesuits to raise contributions for the spiritual conquest of California. He found a valuable colaborer in Father Juan Ugarte, professor of jDhilosophy in the College of Mexico, a shrewd manager of temporal affairs, who undertook to act in Mexico as 44 THE HISTOPwY OF CALIFOEXIA. OHAP. agent for the conquerors while tliey were in the field. 1697. It was not long before the funds were pour- ing in, and when they accumulated sufiiciently an expedition was fitted out. There were but two conditions required of the colonists by the royal council : first, that they must not waste any thing belonging to the crown, or dra^^'■ on the treasury, without the king's express order; second, that they were to take possession of all territory in the king's name. They were empowered to enlist soldiers for their guard at their own expense, and to appoint officers of justice for the land they should conquer. Salva Tierra and his little company of six sol- diers and three Indians crossed the gulf from the mouth of the Yaqui, and pitched their fii'st encampment, which tliey called Loreto, on the Bay of San Dionysio, thirty miles south of San Bruno. It was a place green with trees and grass, and rich in its convenience to springs of fresh water. The barracks for the garrison were built, and the tents for a chapel set up, before whose door was planted a crucifix, and on it displayed a garland of flowers. On the 25th of October, 1697, possession was taken of the country in the name of the king. Father Salva Tierra at certain hours of each day read to the Indians, who gathered for the purpose, prayers and parts of the catechism, LIFE AT THE MISSION. 45 wliicli lie translated to the best of his ability, chap. with the aid of the papers that the mission- ,__J_, aries of Otondo's expedition had preserved. 1097. Then, in order to learn their language, he wrote down their discourse. The Indians were very much amused with the blunders that lie made, but he took their banter kindly, and made fine progress. When these labors of the day were over he distributed to each Indian an allowance of boiled maize, and so teacher and taught made a very good start. It was scarcely a month, however, before the Indians, wh() greatly admired the boiled maize, and were even willing to take the catechism to get it, began to pilfer from the corn-sacks, and so improve upon the daily half-bushel allow- ance. The attempt to prevent this provoked them to jDlot the murder of the whole company, that they might get all the corn. This calam- ity being happily averted, the Indians called their brothers from many miles around, to take counsel how to crush out the little colony. These were tough times with the handful of soldier missionaries. They were obliged to keep constant watch, and they suffered sadly from the intense heat of the sun by day, and still more from the heavy rains at night ; against which, being misled by the continued drought that Otondo reported,' whence they inferred that it never rained in California, they had 46 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOFviaA. CHAP, made no provision. Still, when tlie assault came, ^_^ l^ they were ready for it, and the ten men of the i69T. garrison withstood the attack of the five hundred savages. When the enemy retreated, the pious victors saw to their amazement that the pedes- tal of the cross had caught most of the arrows, \vhile the cross itself and the chapel tent were untouched, and only two of the soldiers were wounded. The Indians, driven back now by force, were afterwards won to friendship by kindness ; and Salva Tierra's letters to Mexico were so full of modesty and gratitude for the preservation and success of the mission, that to four of them was accorded the honor of publi- cation ! And now for two years all things went smoothly. The missionaries widened by de- grees their circle of influence, and made an occasional tour of exploration into the interior. The next trouble was one that the native doc- tors or sorcerers stirred up, because their craft was in danger; for they very naturally and correctly suspected, that if the strangers should introduce a new religion, the prophets of the old would find their occupation gone. So thinking, they encouraged a rebellion ; but the appetite for boiled maize, of which they could of course get none while hostilities were main- tained, brought • the rel^els to terms again. Once the vessel with supplies from the main TROUBLE AT THE MISSIOI?". 47 failed to arrive before the whole stock was chap. reduced to three sacks of poor meal and three ._^_. of maggoty maize. Fortunately, the twenty- 169T. two soldiers that constituted the camp were " cheerful and devout," and the supplies came before their courao-e failed. There was a solitary grumbler in the caifi^, however, whose letters home did much mischief among the friends of the mission. The worthy captain of the garrison had been compelled by a trouble in his eyes to return to Mexico. His successor felt his subordination to the fathers irksome, and in his correspondence found much fault- with their management. His representa- , tions might have produced no bad effects, if there had not already grown up in Mexico much jealousy of the Jesuits. Other expedi- tions, said their enemies, sent home many pearls; this one sends none. Their faithful friends claimed that that fact showed the dis- interestedness of the missionaries. Rather, an- swered the disaffected, it proves that they con- ceal the treasures which they gather ; and, be- sides, that they are pretty busy at something else than the state's business, one might guess, seeing that no creek or l)ay or harbor has yet been found by them for the great galleon to seek shelter in. Meanwhile, no help towards the new con- i7oo. quest came from the civil government. Once 48 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, the viceroy and general assembly tendered ^' ^ an appropriation so contemptibly small that ivoo. Father Ugarte declined to accept it. Philip v., on his accession to the throne of Spain, ordered that six thousand dollars a year be paid towards the object. In 1701, Mary of Savoy expressed her highest admiration of the enterprise. She deemed it already a grand success, for she had learned that for fifty leagues about the Indians were brought to a settled obedience, that four towns had been founded, that they counted six hundred con- verts and two thousand adult catechumens. But, since the treasury was already exhausted by an expensive effort to conquer Texas, and save Pensacola from falling into the hands of other nations, neither the king's order nor Mary's good wishes brought a dollar to the famishing conquerors of Lower California. Father Ugarte, despairing at last of state aid, o;athered what contributions he could in Mexico, and proceeded in person to the field. This was about the close of the year 1700. He took his station at St. Xavier, in the inte- rior, and henceforth the professor of philos- ophy dedicated all his energies to the work of teaching and civilizing half-naked savages. There was a little good land about his mission, and he determined to make the most of it. The first thing in the morning, the Indians, MEEEY SAVAGES. 49 young and old, were gathered into churcli for chap. mass. Then came breakfast of pozoli, and ,___, tlien work. 1700. It was easy working with such a master, for he claimed the hardest task for himself. He was first in the trench with his spade ; at fell- ing trees, no one handled the axe so well ; at splitting rocks, he was the handiest Avith the crow. His good-nature infected his company, and when he liimself began to tire, he ordered all hands to rest. He was patient as the day was long, but they must not trifle A^ith him out of season. Once, at prayers, he was annoyed at seeing his whole congregation full of merriment, evidently at his expense. He kept on with his duties as if he saw nothino- amiss, until he was sure that the cause of the giggling was a stout, full-grown Indian, who was a sort of bully among them. The meek but muscular mission- ary said nothing, but suddenly catching the stout savage by the hair of the liead, swung him to and fro, till the others, thinking their turn might come next, ran frightened out of the church. But when he learned that they had laughed because of his mispronunciation, and the comical misuse of words that the wags of his class led him into, he possessed his soul in patience, and chose more carefully his philo- logical advisers. The savages could not but be charmed with his shrewd and kindly ways. 4 50 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. cnAP. And be made not only the little patcli of rich soil about the mission, bnt the rough, craggy 1707. desert around it too, wave -^vith golden grain and corn, and the vines of his planting yielded a small stock of generous wine. In 1707, while New Spain was suffering with drought, he was eating bread of his own raising. The stock was not enough to last the year, but sufficient to lessen essentially the charges for supplies from abroad. The horses and sheep, brought over from the opposite coast, increased rapidly. He made distaffs, spinning-wheels, and looms, and imported a weaver to teach his Indians the mysteries of that art. "Who," he gayly wrote, " who would have dreamed of any such thing !" Yet Ions; before U^-arte had eaten bread of his own makino' all the missions would have been blotted out but for the untirins; zeal oF Kino, who, from his Sonora settlements, was sending over continually grain, cattle, furni- ture — every thing that he could muster to sup- ply their wants. California was his field, and he only tarried in Sonora that, with its fertility, he mig^ht relieve the barrenness of the land where his affections lay. But frequently it occurred that all the sur- plus proceeds of a harvest, shipped for the Cali- fornia missions, were lost or damaged by the dangerous transit of the gulf Kino early con- cluded that the salvation of the California mis- NEW ITISSION ENTERPRISES, 51 sions, wlilch could not become self-supporting in chap. many years, hinged on this question: whether or not California was joined to the main land 1707. He believed firmly that it was, and in this faith he constantly pushed up his missions to the northward. He gathered the Indians into vil- lages, travelled among them, won their confi- dence, and slowly extended his peaceful con- quests in that direction where he thought— perhaps in the latitude of Monterey, perhaps of Mendocino — he would be able to turn south again, and carry on the chain of Christian settle- ments, till the last link were established mth Loreto and its circle. He met few difficulties in the Indians themselves, but an abundance from his commercial countrymen. The Apaches, at this day such a terror to travellers, gave him no trouble ; but avaricious Spaniards were the plague of his life. These fellows studied to keep the Pimos rebels and enemies, that they might have an excuse for making slaves of them. At his earnest solicitation, the Audience of Guadalaxara agreed that none of his converts should be obliged to work in the mines or on the public lands for five years after conversion. Charles V. extended the term of exemption to twenty years. And yet Kino was sadly morti- fied to see his baptized converts dragged off without mercy to the mines, in spite of the agree- ment — in violation of the king's explicit order. 52 THE HISTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. oiiAP. But Fatlier Kino knew that in Mexico, and among those who were regarded as authorities, iroo. there were many who denied the premises of his reasoning, and were sceptical as to the con- nection of California with the main land, upon • which he presumed. More to satisfy their doubts than any of his own, in the year 1700 he made up a party of friendly Indians, and proceeded to the junction of the Gila and the Colorado, crossed the Gila, where fifteen hun- dred natives came out in a body to see him, and ascended a mountain, whence he saw nothing but laud to the westward. The natives, too, assured him that the first " big water " in a westerly direction was the South Sea. 1701. The next year he repeated the journey, ac- companied by Salva Tierra, and both were 1702. satisfied on the point. The year following, Kino once more took the excursion, and made his own assurance trebly sure that California was not an island, as the maps of that day had it, under the name of Islas Carolinas. But the course of our story must wait no longer on the movements of Father Kino, the life as they were of the land to whose spiritual subjugation he was entirely devoted. He abated no jot of his first zeal, remitted no effort that could forward his cause, until, in lYlO, he died. 1704. The seventh year (1704) of the California A PEKILOUS YEAR. 53 missions was near to Leing their last. The sup- chap. plies were spoiled on the way. The garrison grew discontented. Matters came to such a 1704. strait that Salva Tierra called the fathers to- gether, and plainly put the question whether they should surrender to the impending famine and go home. Not that he for a moment med- itated joining himself in any retreat, but it seemed like submitting to a company of men whether or not they would consent to stay and starve. The fathers, with one voice, agreed to take the risks and stay. Nor upon consulta- tion would one of the camp consent to go, un- less the fathei's would. So Ugarte gathered a force of soldiers and Indians for a raid into the woods ; and on the fruits of the forest and the roots that they dug, they managed to subsist until supplies arrived. This peril passed, Salva Tierra went over to Mexico on business of the mission. There he heard bad news — that he was promoted to be provincial. He sent on at once, asking 23ermis- sion to resign his new post, but meanwhile exerted all the increased influence that the position gave him to forward the California interest. He waited on the viceroy, pleaded the king's warrants, urged the arguments two centuries old, but won only promises. He pre- pared a bold and earnest memorial to the Assembly, just about to meet, in which he set 54 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. OHAP. forth the policy of supporting what was so well ^ ■ begun, and rei^resented the impossibility of con- 1711. tinuing the settlements unless a more generous liberality were extended them. For seven and a half years they had been allowed three ves- sels ; now two of them were lost, and one could not answer the purpose. He contrasted the luckless, fruitless, wretchedly misconducted ex- pedition of Otondo, who had the royal treas- ury at command, with the economy and success of this. He pictured the barrenness of the country. From the time of Cortez the peopling of it was tried in vain ; but, the holy Virgin of Loreto aiding, the land was subdued at last and settled. He showed how certainly all would be lost if the fathers had not the power to appoint and displace the commander of the military. He dwelt uj^on the danger of insur- rection if, under any pretence, the Indians were compelled to fish for pearls, and he asked that twenty-five soldiers and a captain be put at the service of the missionaries. The cost of the enterprise to that day was one million two hun- dred and twenty-five thousand dollars, exclu- sive of the "foundation" of six missions, which amounted to sixty-eight thousand dollars more. Of these sums the treasury had paid only eigh- teen thousand dollars. As to the Idner's suq- gestion to establish a gairison on the western coast, for the relief of the Philippine ships, he SALVA TIEPtEAS PLEA. 55; proposed tliat, without tlie expense of a new chap garrison, a siil:)sicly of thirteen thousand dollars be paid to the fathers, which would enable 1711. them to push the settlements across to the west- ern coast. As to the condition of the country, he assui'ed them that the sovereign was now possessed of fifty leagues in circuit, where all was so profoundly peaceful that the fathers tra- versed it alone without a guard. Three routes to the Pacific had been discovered, and a dis- tance of two days' journey along the ocean coast had been surveyed. But the viceroy, who listened with politeness, meant no relief. His royal master needed all that could be spared from the treasury, for the greater part of Europe was leagued to deprive him of his crown. Perhaps the viceroy was influenced by the common scandal of the time as to the insatiable avarice and wealth of the Jesuits ; more probably he thought he made a better case for himself with the king, by remitting money to Spain, than he could by carrying into effect his pious orders, which did not need to be enforced to gain for majesty an abundance of credit. But, whatever his motive, California got no favors from him. The churlish viceroy died in 1711, and the Duke de Linacres succeeded him. The duke had an hereditary aftection for the Jesuits, and would have strained a point to forward their 56 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP, enterprise; but in his official capacity he could do nothino;, for all the kino-'s schedules had 1711. been so carefully secreted by his predecessor that they could not be found. However, he testified the sincerity of his professions by giv- ing: by will one-thii'd of his estates to the Cali- foruia missions, and then, as the climax of his excellent behavior, died in I7l7, and gave them an early enjoyment of his bequests. The missionaries, meanwhile, kept themselves busy ; now Father Piccolo was directing all their energies to secure the supplies for their subsistence ; now Father Ugarte was laborious- ly surveying a new route to the ocean; now all were eng-ao-ed in induciuo; the Indians at a dis- tance to exchano-e their wild life for the habits of the settlements, and now founding new. mis- sions. Salva Tierra had at last obtained his dis- charge from the office of provincial, and re- turned to share the perils of his brethren. Scarcity of food was the dark shadow that was always approaching, or just behind them, but 1717. seldom entirely out of sight. At one time the small-pox made terrible ravages among the natives. The sorcerers whispered that the fathers poisoned the children with the baptis- mal water, and the adults with extreme unc- tion, and thence came seditions and revolts. Then the vessels were lost. Then again there A statesman's view. 57 would be a burst of sunshiue ; supplies would char arrive, and peace follo^v iu the wake of plenty ; _J_, and so, with alternations of good and bad for- 1717. tune, tliino;s went on until 1717. In the autumn of that year all the peninsu- la was visited by a hurricane, which did great damage to the missions. Father Ugarte's house and chiu-ch were le\^elled to the ground. A Spanish boy at Loreto was reported as taken up in a whirlwind and never seen more ! If (says the chronicler) in former ages such hurricanes were frequent in California, it is not surprising that all its mould was swej^t away, leaving its rocks bare, and its plains and valleys covered with heaps of stones. But a more remarkable event than the hur- ricane notched this year as noticeable. A new viceroy had arrived at Mexico, charged by the minister Alberoni — afterwards cardinal — to lend eveiy encouragement to the Sonora and California missions ; to establish garrisons on the South Sea coast at all practicable points, and, if possible, to induce the formation of set- tlements up the Colorado and Gila Hi vers. Al- beroni believed that the settlement of Califor- nia would tend to develop immensely the trade with the Philippines, and that in return that trade, after a nucleus on the coast were once formed, would build up California. His instructions on these points wonderfully fore- 58 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. shadow the destiny of the coast that we are seeing fulfilled to-day, though of course the glory and wealth of Spain were the ol>jects to 1)0 attained by all the means that he suggested. The viceroy desired to second with spirit all that was commanded him, and, that he might do so intelligently, sent for Salva Tierra to visit Mexico. The noble old pioneer, though afflicted with a very painful disorder, and stooping with the weight of years, immediately started. He paused from sheer necessity at Guadalaxara, and was never able to renew his journey. Two months he suffered there the sharpest agony ; then, perfectly contented, resigned his breath. The whole city assisted at his burial, and every friend of California mom'ned her loss in his death. Jayme Bravo, who attended the good father through his illness, pushed on to Mexico, and answered, a good deal better than was feared, the purposes for which Salva Tierra had been summoned. The viceroy's council and the Assembly, with the greatest generosity, granted, so fiir as resolutions could do it, all that was asked, but forgot the necessary appropriations ; and so the treasurer, who was a very strict economist where his own interests were out of question, declined to pass over any funds. Then Alberoni, being made cardinal, left Spain WASTED LABORS. 59 for a different order of business, and thus his chap. grand scheme for California collapsed. v.--,—' In 1722 clouds of locusts invaded Lower 1722. California, and consumed every green thing. The Indians, being short of food, turned the in- vaders to account for that purpose, and from this cause, as they alleged, came the general epidemic, of which great numbers of them died. The next year an epidemic dysentery raged with great havoc. But no opportunity for making explorations was ever omitted. The Pacific coast had been surveyed, from St. Lucas to the latitude of Cer- ros Island, and three tolerable harbors, with wood and water convenient, had been discov- ered. Maps, charts, and minute draughts of the result of every tour were forwarded to Spain, but it is doubtful if royal eyes ever vouchsafed a glance at them. Valuable papers of this sort were either treated carelessly and soon lost, or, if deposited in the state archives, it was so difficult to gain access to them, that their information failed to enter into general circulation. So it happened, that during this century there were many important discoveries and re-discoveries ; and the country was still, at the end, almost the Unknown Land that it was at the beginning. As to the insular or peninsular character of California, there was scarcely less diversity of GO THE HISTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. OFTAP. sentiment than if Father Kino had not three ^- &e3iferal times during:: his life established the 1722. point. Even Father Ugarte thought there might possi]:)ly be some channel between Loreto and the mouth of the Colorado, through which the Abaters of the Gulf issued into the ocean. The doubt at last bred in him the determina- tion to know the truth. But he had no vessel to make a survey with, no money to purchase one, and no timber at hand to build one. Being in earnest, however, he procured a gang of ship- masters, climbed with them over the mountains, found in a secluded spot trees that they pro- nounced fit for the purpose, cleared a road into the slough, cut and dragged the timber to the landing, and constructed a vessel, of no great dimensions indeed, but a stancher craft than they were accustomed to see in those parts; and though it about exhausted their provisions and money, it cost less than to have bought her equal in Mexico. This pioneer Cali- fornia coaster was named The Triumph of the Cross. Taking an open boat along as a tender, Father Ugarte and a company of twenty men set sail in the Trium])h^ on an expedition from which they did not return until they had thor- oughly explored both sides of the Gulf to the mouth of the Colorado. It proved a voyage full of perils and hair-breadth escapes. As FATHER TJGARTE's DEATH. 61 they neared the upper end of tlie Gulf, the tide chap. rolled impetuously at the flood over an immense ,_^J_ extent of flat country, and currents of great 1722. strength swept around the rocks. The water was poisonous to their flesh. One day it was as dark at noon as it usually is at midnight ! They had thunder and rain, and waves of fright- ful height. Once they were terrifl.ed by the close approach of a water-spout. It was a great comfort to the men, as the fiercest of the gales that they encountered was raging, to see St. Elmo's fire hoveriuo; around the cross at the mast-head. Out of all their troubles they were safely delivered, and they returned well satisfied that they had seen the end of the Gulf, and that there was no way for its waters to reach the ocean except southward. As to the people on the shores, they noticed that those on the east were cruel and malio-nant, but on the west they were gentle, friendly, and just. Father Ugarte made no more exj)editions, built no more vessels. In 1730, when seventy years 1730. old, after thirty years of missionary life and service, he quietly died. If he had lived four years longer, he would have thought the sun of a brighter day wa rising on his rugged land. For, in 1734, the 1734. Philippine galleon for the first time visited it, turning in to St. Lucas with only water enough' on board to last two days longer, and her crew 02 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. down with scurvy. The missions furnished her with water, fresh fruit, and vegetables, and 1734. most of the crew were recovered before she re- sumed her lazy course toward Acapulco. Here were demonstrated at last the benefits of the mission to East Indian commerce. When the story should reach Mexico, it must com- mend the policy so long pursued without en- couragement, and give a fresh impetus to the work of settling tlie country. But it worked precisely an opposite result. The Philippine trade itself was in Jesuit hands. The owners of the cargoes of the galleon were the monks of Manila. They had their enemies in Mexico, and these found now a new reason for frowning on the missions. Their influence was sufficient with the Government to prevent the dispatch of garrisons to protect the later settlements. The Indians, no longer restrained by moral means, since the fathers had no physical force to make it respectable, rose in rebellion, de- stroyed the four missions between La Paz and St. Lucas, and gave crowns of martyrdom to Fathers Carranco and Taraaral. The mission- aries returned to Loreto, which was the capital of the province, and their settlements for a while i"an to waste. The next year's galleon, putting in to St. Lucas, found all desolate that was shortly before so flourishing, and, indeed, A REBELLION. 63 thirteen of ter men, wLo went on shore with- chap. out suspicion, were murdered by the insur- ^,J_, gents. 1736. The Yaquis came over from the continent to aid the missionaries, and the Governor of Si- naloa tendered his help. It was not, however, until after he had spent two years in learning that coercion was the only method of dealing with insurs-ent Indians, that he took the fa- thers' advice, treated the rebels as enemies, whipped them soundly in battle, and restored peace. Philip V. assumed the cost of repressing this outbreak for the royal treasury, and he made some spasmodic efforts to complete the reduction of California. Ferdinand VI., with all his power, seconded his father's efforts. He essayed, but without success, to settle the pen- insula by means of emigration from Mexico. He ordered that the soldiery be entirely subor- dinate to the clergy. He suggested to the Jesuits the propriety of doubling the number, of their missionaries, and, in accordance with Father Kino's plan, sweeping the circle of their establishments from Pimeria to California. But the provincial replied, that the utter bar- renness of the reQ:ion around the head of the Gulf, and the experience of fifty years, made it quite useless to repeat that attempt. Still, Father Consag, in 1746, explored anew the 64 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP. Colorado, with a view to the practicability of establishing an overland route from California 174G. to Sonora. Meanwhile, the order remitted no effort to maintain the missions that were estal^lished, and found new ones. In 1745 they numbered sixteen. Their sio-nal iires on the mountains guided the annual galleon into St. Lucas Bay, and the products of their thin soil furnished the fresh supplies that her scurvy-stricken crew re- 1758. quired. In 1758 the Indians, for a tract three hundred leagues northward from St. Lucas, were tamed and converted — that is, they did no harm to the whites, worked a little under the orders of the fathers, and were supported in part or entirely by them. Life at the missions passed off very quietly, in about this way : — Every morning the sexton, or catechist, as- sembled the Indians in the church, where the Te Deiitn was sung, mass said, and catechism rehearsed. Then came a breakfast, for all who were punctual at church, of corn, boiled, bruised, macerated in water, and Avarmed again — they called the dish atole. Then all went to the work of the day, or to the woods. At noon, they who fed at the public table had pozoli — simple boiled corn — with meat, and " vegetables in theii* season." At night, there were devo- tions again in the church; and, after that, more LIFE AT THE MISSIONS. 65 atole. Every Sunday they walked in proces- ohap. sion around the village, and then to church, v_.^_ where, besides prayers, catechism, and singing, 1Y58. they heard slm23le sermons. The father was head laborer, head cook, school-master, physician, and priest. In every new mission he was attended by a soldier, who was vicegerent in the father's absence ; for small faults he whipped, for larger ones he im- prisoned the offender, or put him in the stocks. Whipping, from the way it came into vogue, was always very popular. The captain of the garrison at Loreto once detected a thief, and ordered for him a very severe punishment. Just as sentence was about to be executed, Salva Tierra interfered ; the captain consented to change the punishment to flogging, and the na- tives were filled with admiration that so inno- cent and superficial a substitute could satisfy justice. The captain of the garrison was also captain of the coast ; but in all things he was subordi- nate to the fathers, which was a grievous offence to the sword. The soldiers and sailors complained about being denied the privilege of diving for pearls, of which every fifth one found was the Idng's perquisite ; l)ut diving, the mis- sionary firmly prohibited. Nothing so much prejudiced the natives as to find the foreigners running off with this source of their wealth ; — o 5 G6 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORmA. CHAP, uotliinfi: would sooner entail scandal on tLe mis- sions. He encouraged diving by the natives, 1758. on their own account; but neither sailors nor soldiers must engage in it. Everywhere, the children were the first care. Some from all the missions came up to Loreto, where they learned reading, writing, singing, and Spanish ; and were promoted, as they earned the honor, to be church-wardens or catechists at home. The priests furnished their parishioners with coarse clothes and blankets. Those who could work were insti'ucted to do so, and the product of their labor was their own, except only the wine, which the father saved for his personal and medicinal uses. But, as the very best of them would waste all they gathered, if left in their ■ hands, the father saved it for them in a common store, distribu- ting it as their necessities demanded, or occa- sionally helping out some other mission not quite so able. As it was found impossible either to subsist the entire population wlio would attend service, as was first intended, or to find profitable work for them, the policy adopted was to feed the chief, the aged, the sick, and the children from six to twelve years old, and to give a certain allowance to all the rest, provided once a week they came to receive instruction. This was done to induce them to keep together in villages, rather than to stray THE JESUITS IN LOWER CALIFORIflA. 67 about the mountains, driftino; hither and thither chap. without any home. Seeing that not the church ,___j^ only, but all the parishioners were to be sup- 1758. ported, these missions were very costly experi- ments to their faithful patrons. When the contributions for their support amounted to $10,000, the sum was invested at home as a "foundation," and the five per cent, interest was transmitted to the missionary as his salary. Afterwards, instead of investing the principal, it was devoted to the purchase of a farm, which was mana2:e(l for the missions' account. Really, since 1735, there had been no great dif- ficulty as to the finances. The Jesuits had received some large donations, which were ad- ministered shrewdly — they purchased some pro- ductive real estate, and afterwards, added to it mines, factories, and flocks. This property was held sacred to the California enterprise, and was called the " Pious Fund." Whatever they may have to answer for on i767. other parts of the continent, the Jesuits certainly earned a good name in Lower California. True, none but Jesuits were the historians of their career on the bari'en peninsula, but their version is confirmed by Indian tradition, and by all the mute witnesses that remain after the workman is gone, and testify of his faithfulness or his treason to his trust. But King Charles of Spain saw Jesuitism 68 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOET^IA. CHAP, steeping in the politics and controlling the ^_^_ interests of the realm ; and, to save his throne, 1767. he expelled the order from his domain. The decree was instantly enforced in the provinces of Mexico ; and the Jesuit establishments in California, and their pious fund, were turned over, in 17G7, to the Franciscan monks of the College of San Fernando, at Mexico. Father Juuipei'o Serra was selected as the president of the missions under the new order. He set out at once for his field, and on the 1st of April of the next year, at Loreto, took possession. In the manuscript records of the Loreto church stands the entry that Serra made on the next day : "We are in the mission and royal presidio of Loreto, capital of this penin- sula of California, sixteen religious priests, preachers and apostolic missionaries ; ""' * * the fathers of the Company of Jesus having been expelled, for reasons known to his Ma- jesty." If thus the Franciscans came in without a compliment to their predecessors, the Jesuits went out saying " the grapes were sour," and wasting no adulations on the land they were quitting. Father Begert, a German, who had spent seventeen years in the land, relieved his mind of a load when he got back to Europe, by publishing at Manheim, in 1773, some " His- torical Sketches of the American Peninsula of FRANCISCAISrS UNDERTAKE THE MISSIONS. 69 California." He pronounced it a miserable land, not wortt. the trouble of describing — a land of chaparral, thorn-busiies, bare rocks, and 1769. sand-hills, with a brutish people, whose Christi- anity was all on the surface, but whose habits of laziness, lying, and stealing were ingrained. They had no words to express the most homely virtues, yet had so small a share of such virtues that the lack was not annoying to them. Be- gert's book must have made the bones of Kino and Salva Tierra rattle with indignation in their graves, that a Jesuit should come to sjjeak in such a strain of the poor land and the poorer people whom they offered themselves to save! The Franciscans girded themselves to their work with enthusiasm, but a rival order, the Dominicans, began to clamor for a share of the field, and at last obtained a royal edict requir- ing one or two of the missions to be surrendered to them. The Franciscan warden explained how indivisible the interests of the missions were, and proposed, instead, to cede the whole to them; for they had, by this time, another project at heart. So the Dominicans took pos- session of the Lower California missions, and the Franciscans retired altogether into the un- known land to the northward — our own Upper California. This concludes oui' dealings with Lower California. The impatient reader may deem 70 THE HISTOKY OF CALIFOENIA. OHAP. all wiitten on this subject impertinent to a _^'^ history of California. But really it is an es- 1757. sential part of the story. The bald Pacific coast of California presented a front that Span- ish enterprise could not penetrate. The Jesu- its were then invoked to flank it with their mission strategy — to approach it gradually, by civilizing the rude tribes of the penin- sula, by ascending the Colorado, by subdu- ing the deserts, and planting settlements at convenient distances from Cape St. Lucas north- ward, until the goodly land described by Vis- caino were reached and subjugated. Father Venegas's History of California^ published at Madrid, 1757, was the record of this grand flanking enterprise. His California was not the peninsula alone, but all the unknown land north of it, though repeated failures led the Jesuits at last to relinquish their long-cherished hopes of going much above tlie mouth of the Colorado, since every new advance northward separated them farther from their base of sup- plies. Accompanying Venegas's History, published at Madrid, 1757, was a curious map, which shows at a glance wliat the pioneers thought our western world was like. The outlines of Lower California are laid down with general accuracy. The Colorado, a little a):)ove the mouth of the Gila, stops short. But the most A MAP OF CALITOENIA. 71 curious feature is a grand sea — an ocean situ- ated within the continent of North America- stretching from Mexico, in the latitude of Cape 1757. St. Sebastian, up to the latitude of the southern point of Greenland, and twenty-five degrees in width. Two straits connect this mediteiTanean sea with the Pacific, in latitudes forty-three and forty-six. From the course of the Colorado it is evident they thought future discoveries would lead it up to this great sea, which on the northeast, by a river and through two lakes, connects with Hudson's Bay. Midway between Cape Mendocino and Monterey is the Cape of Pines, and behind it, on the north, a deep inden- tation in the coast — the only thing that looks like San Francisco. Hudson Kiver makes a clean breach across to the St. Lawrence, and New England is an island. 72 THE HISTORY OF CALUFOENIA. CHAPTER VI. OCCUPATION OF UPPER CALIFORNIA BY THE FRANCISCANS. CHAP. Before tlie Franciscans had consented to ,_^_, give up Lower California, Jose de Galvez, the 1768. new visitor-general, and afterwards minister- general for all the Indies, had arrived, bearing an order from the King of Spain to rediscover by sea, and make a settlement at San Diego. Galvez, who seems to have been a man of marked ability and enterprise, at once under- took the execution of the king's design, and he found in Father Junipero Serra a faithful and enthusiastic co-operator. Studying the spirit rather than the letter of his instructions, Gal- vez with all haste prepared two expeditions, one to go by land, the other by water; and, to make success more sure, he divided each of these in two, to start separately, but all to meet at San Diego. His fleet consisted of two vessels, the San Carlos., of not more than two hundred tons, and the San Antonio^ both of which were brought over from San Bias for the purpose. GALVEZ AND JUNIPEEO SEEEA. 73 The San Carlos was the flag-ship. She oiiap. sailed from La Paz January 9th, 1769, Father ^_^_ Junipero having first blessed the flags, and 1769. Galvez delivering a cheering address to the embarkino- adventurers, who numbered in all sixty-two persons. Her commander was Don Vicente Villa. Among those on board were Friar Fernando Parrou, father missionary; Lieutenant Pedro Pages and twenty-flve sol- diers, a baker, two blacksmiths, a cook, and two tortilla-makers. Her manifest, which is still to be found in the State archives of Cali- fornia, includes Indian corn and flour, crackers, home-made sugar, peas, beans, rice, hams, fish, chocolate (but no cofi^ee or tea), a little brandy and wine, plenty of dried meat, one thousand dollars in small coin, candles for the churches, fish-oil and lamp-wicks for light, and supplies of other sorts sufficient to aftord very comfort- able living, for both cabin and forecastle, du- ring a long voyage or a, tedious delay on a desolate shore. Galvez accompanied the San Carlos in a little vessel as far as Cape St. Lucas, and saw her fairly to sea, with the wind in the right quarter, before he turned back. The next off was the San Antonio^ which started from Cape St. Lucas on the 15th of February, commended, as her consort had been, to the patronage of St. Joseph. Her com- mander was Juan Perez, who was born on the 74 THE HISTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP. Island of Majorca, and had already won fame as ^^' a pilot in the Philippine trade. Among her 1769. passengers were two priests. The Sau Antonio had been thoroughly overhauled at St. Lucas, Galvez himself seeing that not a barnacle was left on her, and that her keel was as sound as on the day it was laid. She carried ornaments for the church ; all sorts of utensils for tent, house, or field; flower, vegetable, and fruit seeds for the garden and orchard, and grain for the valleys. Indeed, all that was thought necessary for the foundation of at least three missions was dispatched in one or the other of these vessels, or overland. The land expedition was placed in command of Gaspar de Portald, who, at the time, was Governor of Lower California, and a captain of dragoons. The next officer in rank was Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada, who was captain of a company of foot-soldiers. Rivera had made the tour of the northern missions in the preceding fall, and collected men, provisions, horses, mules, and two hundred head of cattle, with which to stock the unknown country they were to settle. On the 24th of March he left the frontier mission for the northern wilderness. In his company were Father Juan Crespi, a pilot who under- took to keep an itinerary, twenty-five foot-soldiers who wore leathern bucklers, three muleteers, WHITE MEN ENTEK CALIFORNIA TO LIVE. 75 and an unnumbered host of Christian Indians, ■^> from the peninsular missions. Last of all started Governor Portala's com- 1769. pany, in May, — Father Junipero, though in wretched health for a journey into the desert, being punctually at the rendezvous. These four detachments reached San Diego, but not precisely in the order of their starting. The first vessel in was the San Antonio. The San Carlos arrived twenty days behind her, having lost, by scurvy, all of her crew but one sailor and the cook, and several of the soldiers. Rivera's company was in by the 14th of May, and PortaM's, after a pleasant jaunt of forty-six days, at a time of year when the landscape is most charming and the weather most delicious, came in sight on the 1st of July. There was a Julyi. great time in San Diego on that day, when all who were alive of the two hundred and fifty that made up the total of the four expeditions met again. The vessels fired salutes, the sol- diers discharged round after round for joy. The 1st of July, 1769, is marked in the almanacs as the birthday of both Wellington and Napoleon, but it is memorable in our history, as Randolph, in his admirable Outline of the History of Cali- fornia^ well remarks, for a greater event than either — it was the first day that white men entered Upper California with the purpose to live and die there. 76 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOEXIA. Just as soon as the mutual congratulations were ended, the work of foundino; a mission iVG'j. commenced. For this the process was to select " ^ ■ a suitable spot, and take formal possession of it in the name of Spain. A tent was erected, or an arbor, or booth, or rude log-house con- structed for a temporary church, and into it the sacred ornaments were carried. A cross was planted before its entrance, a j^atron saint was named, a clergyman for the post designated. Then all the premises were sprinkled with holy water, the candles were lighted, mass was said and sung (the soldiers with their fire-arms doing duty for the organ, and the smoke of exploding gunpowder answering for incense), and a ser- mon was preached. The next task was to draw in the Indians. Presents of cloth and food served to catch the adults, and bits of domestic sugar captivated the children. The natives were to be convinced that the stransrers came as friends, to j)rotect them from their enemies and to do them good. As their confidence was gained, they were to be allured away from their idle wandering habits, persuaded to settle in villages near the mission, instructed in farming and the simple arts, taught the elements of the Catholic faith, and, as soon as they consented and seemed disposed to their new life, to be baptized and reckoned converts. Father Junipero consid- GOVERlSrOrw PORTALA at SATJ FKANCISCO. 4 4 end himself fairly started in this work in a chap. fortnight after his arrival at San Diego. ^L. Leaving him at his labor of love, than which 1709. nothing could more delight him, the San Anto- nio^ with all the sailors who were able, was dispatched to San Bias -with tidings of what had been done, and to fetch up additional sup- plies. It is a significant intimation of the perils of the coast, and the state of navigation in those times, that, though she made the trip in twenty days, she lost nine men on the way. Meanwhile, Governor Portala, with soldiers, July u. priests, muleteers, and Indians, sixty-five per- sons in all, and a pack train of provisions, started on the 14th of July to rediscover Mon- terey; for Galvez had charged him to accom- plish the never-executed scheme of Philip III., so carefully laid down one hundred and sixty- three years before. Over six months PortaM was gone on this errand. He stopped at Mon- terey and set up a cross, but never dreamed it was the place he sought. Pushing still northward, he came upon a land- locked, hill-encompassed bay or lake. East- ward the land rose gently to a lofty range of hills, beyond which peered the blue peak of a far-distant mountain. On the north were mountains ; on the west high hills, whose sandy slopes descended even to the water's edge. They said they recognized this as a spot which 78 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, had been described, though where, or in what, does not appear. That it was a fit place for a 17G9. mission was clear to them all. J" y- Then the priests remembered that when Gal- vez had suggested the three names that were to be given to the three missions that they were to found, Father Junipero had exclaimed, with much grief in his countenance, " But is there no mission for Father St. Francis V and that Galvez had replied, gravely, as if it were not a sudden thought, " If St. Francis wants a mission, let him show us his port, and we will put one there." They accepted the token; good St. Francis had guided their errant steps and brought them to this port, so they named it San Francisco. This is the first un- questioned account of a visit to San Fran- cisco. That Sir Francis Drake had spent several weeks here, recruiting, has already been shown as probable. That Viscaiuo did not visit it, has been shown as equally probable; and yet PortaM's company recognized the place from the descriptions, and, curiously enough, before they had made out whether the broad sheet of water at their feet was a lake or a bay ! It seems possible, although this is only a sur- mise, that the port may have been visited casually by some of the Spanish navigators, whose oral descriptions, coinciding with Fran- TROUBLES AT SAN DIEGO. '79 CIS Drake's written accounts, led tliem to speak chap. of it as San Francisco — the given name of the ,_.^__, discoverer being preserved in a form not offen- 1769. sive to the prejudices of the Spaniards, and calculated to secure a saint's protection; but afterwards, as the minutiaB of their story faded into indistinctness, the glowing accounts still surviving were presumed to refer to the har- bor of Monterey. So, much of the eulogy that was originally spoken of San Francisco harbor may have been put to the credit of Monterey ; yet, when the former place was revisited, the locality was recognized as already described under the name it now bears. Portald and his company returned in about six months, and thrilling news they heard from the little party that had guarded the San Diego Mission. The Indians, coveting the cloth which the missionaries only doled out to them very judiciously, took every opportunity to steal it, and even cut out pieces of the sails of the ves- sel. Of course the missionaries protected their property by force. On the 15th of August, Aug. 15. the Indians came down in full fighting feather and began pillaging. The score of whites and their Christian Indian retainers from Lower California flew to arms, whose explosions soon commanded peace. In the struggle, one of the priests was wounded and a Christian Indian killed. The savages saw the strangers were 80 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA CHAP, too mucli for them, and treated tliem from tliat ^__^ time, for a long while, as their kind superiors. 1770. But other troubles, and not of Indian origin, ^^^'^'^^- awaited the San Diego pioneers. Provisions fell short, and the sad resolution was taken at last, that UDless supplies came by the 20tli of March, they must abandon all and return home. Providence kindly remembered the dispirited company, for on the very day before the one set for the abandonment of all, the Sa7i Anto- nio sailed into the harbor with supplies in abundance. PortaM now started again northward by . land, and this time found Monterey without a question, and was satisfied of the fact. The Sa)i Antonio, too, ran up the coast, with Father Junipero on board, and entered Monte- rey harbor eight days after Portald, on the 31st of March. Here again they took possession in the name of the king, hung up their bells on the trees, rang them out merrily, builded the chapel, blessed all, said mass,. sang the Veni Creator and a Te Deum. Portalii, in the San Antonio, returned to Mexico, taking with him, or sending overland under Rivera, the whole of the company, ex- cept Father Junipero, five priests, Fages, and thirty soldiers. The Indians told those who remained, as they sat under those dark Mon- terey pines, ghostly stories of how the crosses FATHER JUNIPERO. 81 slilned that eacli white mau wore on liis breast chap. the first time they had passed through there, not knowing the place ; and of the gi'eat cross that ivTo. was pLnnted hj Portahi before he knew he was at the spot he coveted ; how it would grow at night till its point rested among the stars, glis- tening the while with a splendor that outshone the sun ; that when their superstitious dread of it wore off, they had approached, planted arrows and feathers in the earth around it, and hung strings of sardines, as their choicest offer- ings, on its anns. It was like a gala day when Galvez, at the palace of the viceroy, surrounded by distin- guished citizens, heard from the mouth of Por- tald that Monterey had been discovered, and that three missions were estal)lished in Upper California. The bells of the cathedral and of all the churches were rung for joy, and every generous pulse in New Spain beat faster for the glorious news. Father Junipero did not stay long at Mon- terey ; but, establishing a mission close by on the Carmel River, made that his residence, though he spent much time in travelling about the country, looking up wild Indians, and winning them fi'om their savage ways, establishing mis- sions, watching his convert^, and baptizing the little ones. He was the president of all the missions in Upper California until his death. 6 82 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOENIA. CHAP. When a new mission was to be established he ^_^J_, would take a couple of priests, an escort of sol- 1784. diers, and a train of mules, packed with tke necessaries for a journey, and the furniture for a church. Then, wandering over the moun- tains, and peering into all the pleasant valleys, until he found a place to suit, he would hang the bells on the trees, and himself pull lustily the rope, while he shouted, "Hear, hear! O ye Gentiles ! come to tlie lioly cliurch." Then, having set up the church tent, blessed and dedi- cated it, and appointed a pastor, he would go out bunting for parishioners. He lived until the year 1784, when, at his own mission on the Carmel, he died. This venerable Franciscan pioneer was a man worthy of the work he undertook. He was the son of humble parents, who resided in one of the islands of the Mediterranean, and from his childhood was educated for the church. He showed a wonderful faculty for attaching to himself the affections of the natives, and seemed by his presence to charm them into a new mode of life. It is said that, even before cultivated audiences, he would hammer his breast with a stone, and hold his ilesh in the flame of a can- dle, to show that pain had no terrors in view of the love for Christ that filled him. In tra- velling, which he usually did on foot, though lame from a chronic ulcer on his leg, he wore PALOU'S LIFE OF JUNIPERO. 83 sandals and never stockings. The visitor-gen- eral's -proposal for an expedition to the north of his desolate field in Lower California chimed 1784 exactly with his desire, and Galvez himself did not more urgently strive than he to make the undertaking a success. When he came up to Portala's rendezvous on the Lower California frontier to start for San Diego, he was so lame that he could scarcely mount and dismount from his mule. Portald gave orders for a litter to be made for his conveyance, hut the tender- hearted father wa)uld not hear of burdening the Indians to carry him. After a prayer that this cup might be spared him, he called one of the muleteers and asked him what to do for his sore foot and leg ; but the muleteer modestly demurred that he was no sui'geon, and was only equal to the task of curing the sore backs of beasts. "Then consider me a beast," said the father, " and my limb as his back." The muleteer, under shelter of this fancy, ventured upon the cure, and applied to the ailing limb a salve of mashed herbs and tallow. The next raornins: the father was in excc41ent condition and royal spirits. He mounted his mule and rode off, apparently as well as the rest them. Junipero's life was vrritten ]>y a devoted friend and admirer, Father Francisco Palou, the first priest w'ho had charge of the Mission Dolores, and his book was doubtless the first 84 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, book written at San Francisco or in Upper ^^' California. It was published in Mexico in 1787. 1787, and witli it a map of the country, wbich shows the nine missions and the three presidios, and the road between them, all lying near the coast, while to the eastward was a blank. Before Father Junipero Serra rested from his labors he had founded eio-ht missions. Their location speaks loudly for the judgment and taste of the fathers. They occupy the very choicest valleys that snuggle between the coast ranges. Generally convenient to the sea, or, if not, close by the stream that dries up latest during the long droughts, their vicinity is green when the other plains are parched. The best pasturage, the fattest land, the prettiest valleys to look down upon from the mountain passes, or up toward from the sea, were chosen for mission sites. Perhaps the least desirable of all them for purely mission purposes was the one at San Francisco. Though the Fran- ciscan order owned no richly freighted gal- leon annually sweeping down the coast, and generally needing a harbor, yet it was so charged with the traditional policy of Spain, that the Bay of San Francisco pleaded for a mission on account of its position. Indeed, Father Junipero long had his eye on the sites of both San Francisco and Santa Clara, and when he went to Mexico to straighten up some MISSION DOLORES FOUNDED. 85 other matters, lie obtained a promise from the chap. viceroy that they should be founded so soon as ._^_ communication was opened with them from 1773. Montere}^ by land. Captain Juan Bautista Anza effected that in 1773, reported the fact to the viceroy, and returned with quite a company of families in 1776. Meanwhile the Scm Carlos had gone up the coast, and by actually entering the Golden Gate, or the Gulf of the Farallones, as they called it, in June, 1775, demonstrated 1775. that the land-locked l)ay — whose two arms stretched, one to the north till it met another great bay into which St. Francis river, fed hj five other rivers, flowed, and the other south- easterly some fifteen leagues — was open from the Pacific for vessels to sail into it at pleasure. On the 17th of September, the presidio of San Francisco was founded. An expedition was organized to explore the interior — a portion to go by water up San Pablo Bay, a portion by land. The latter strayed into one of the canons of the Diablo range and discovered the San Joaquin Valley. On the 9tli of the next month, October, 1776 — year ever memorable as the date of 1776. American Independence — the mission " Dp los Dolores de Nuestro Padre San Francisco de Asis" was established. There were several Saints Francisco — Fi-ancisco of Paula, Francisco of Sales, and Francisco of Asisis, the founder 8(3 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. (51IAP. of the order of Frauciscans. This mission was , ^__, in honor of the sufferings of him of Asisis, 177G. and to av^oid confusion it soon came to be known as the Mission Dolores, while to the presidio and the fort cluns: the saint's name. The first site chosen for the mission was near the " la- goon," back of Russian Hill; but the winds were so bitter there that soon it was removed to the spot on the creek where the crumbling old church and some of the houses that sur- rounded it still stand. It was the sixth in the order of the founding of the Upper California missions, and as late as 1802 was the most northerly of the eighteen then in existence. The order of the establishment of the twenty- one missions in Upper California was as fol- lows : — San Diego, July 16, 1769. San Carlos de Monterey (soon removed from Monterey to the Carmel River), June 3, 1770. San Antonio de Padua (thirteen leagues from San Miguel), July 14, 1771. San Gabriel (near Los Angeles), September 8, 1771. San Luis Obispo, September 1, 1772. San Francisco (Dolores), October 9, 1776. San Juan Capistrano (between Los Angeles and San Diego), November 1, 1776. Santa Clara, January 18, 1777. ORDER OF MISSION ESTABLISHMENTS. 87 San Buenaventura (southeast of and near chai'. Santa Barbara), March 31, 1782. J^^_ Santa Barbara, December 4, 1786. 1787. La Purisima Concepclon (on the Santa Inez Kiver), December 8, 1787. Santa Cruz, August 28, 1791. Soledad (on the Salinas River), October 9, 1791. San Jose, June 11, 1797. San Juan Bautista (on the San Juan River), June 24, 1797. San Miguel (on the Salinas River), July 25, 1797. San Fernando Rey (near, and northerly from, Los Angeles), September 8, 1797. San Luis Rey de Francia (thirt.een and a half leagues from San Diego), June 13, 1798. Santa Inez (twelve leagues from Santa Bar- bara), September 17, 1804. San Rafael (north of San Francisco Bay), December 14, 1819. San Francisco de Solano (Sonoma), August 25, 1823. 88 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER VH THE ABORIGINES. CHAP. When explorers come upon a new land, if ^^^' tliey iind it heavily timbered, or the intervals 1776. rank with wild grass, they know that cultiva- tion will make it yield richly of grains and fruit ; bat if it bear no trees, or only scraggy and stinted ones, and a thin, scant herbage on the open country, they condemn it as unfit for all farming purposes. Californians have the best of reasons for hoping that the aborigines of a land do not indicate, by the degree of their nobleness or degradation, the style of men that will be produced under civilized auspices upon the same soil ; for, of all wretchedly debased and utterly brutal beings, the Indians of Cali- fornia were the farthest fallen lielow the averajxe Indian type. They were neither brave nor bold, generous nor spirited. They seem to have pos- sessed none of the noble characteristics that, with a slio-ht colorino- of romance, make heroes of the red men of the Atlantic slopes, .and win for them om* ready sympathy. We hear of no THE ^iBOEIGIXES. 89 orators amons^ them, no bold braves terribly chap • • VTT resenting and contesting to tlie last the usurpa- ,___, tions of the whites. They were "Diggers," i776. filthy and cowardly, succumbing wdthout a blow to the rule of foreign masters. As redeeming them from utter brutality, it is refreshing to see occasional glimpses of humor in them, and a disposition to make fun of the missionary when his back 'was turned. But under the father's eye they cowered like children on the low benches before the old-time pedagogue ^yielding the ferule. Perhaps the mild, motherly sort of treatment which priests met them with, dis- armed them. Perhaps, if they had been subject to the rouo;h handlino; that the Indian tribes generally received from English settlers, they might have fired up, and displayed some of the violence and savage fury that make us respect the Indians of the East and the North. Per- haps it was in part because they were treated as children, that they grew into simple, childish ways. They were as contemptible physically as intellectually, and evinced as little traces of conscience as of a reasoning faculty. To Drake's party they showed a disposition to offer sacii- fices, thinking the sea-king's jolly tars to be veritable gods. Venegas thought the Lower Californiaus to be the most stupid and weak, in both body and mind, of all mortals. But the 90 THE HI3T0EY OF CALIFOEKIA. settlers of Upper California, who had seen both, thouo-ht the northern natives far inferior to the 1776. southern. Humboldt, from all his I'eading, con- cluded them as low in the scale of humanity as the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land. Though m many respects one people, the gibberish they spoke varied widely in different localities. Those about San Diego could not understand a Word of the language of those sixty miles north, and every high mountain-range divided dialects. I« all tlieu' customs, their religious notions, and their habits, the residents of diiferent val- leys differed, though not widely. Father Bos- cana, of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, left a pretty full account of the Acagchemem nation, who constituted his parishioners, and who seem to have been about the best of the whole, though that may be simply because they found a more affectionate historian than did any of their brethren. Mr. Robinson, the translator of Boscana's paper, presumed that the descrip- tions might be taken as true, with some slight variations, of all the tribes in Upper California. We may tak(^, then, the picture of the tribe that occupied the sea-coast forty or fifty miles below Los Angeles, as representatives of the people whom the missionaries found in Uppei' Cali- fornia, and whom Father Junipero learned to love as if they were his own flesh. They held that the inferior regions were once ABORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY. 91 on a time married, and their children were the chap. sand and soil, rocks, stones, flints for their ar- ^_^_ rows, trees, herbs, grass, and animals. There 1776. was a phantom whom they called Chinigchinich, an orphan from the beginning, who could see in the darkest night as clearly as at noon. This powerful being defended the good and chastised the bad ; he was always and everywhere present, but hailed from the stars as his home. Him they regarded as the creator of their race, and as their great Captain. The land where they lived was the first land made — they seemed to believe that there was very little beyond it. The sea was at first but a fresh-water stream, coursing around their little earth ; but the fishes, putting their heads together, agreed and man- aged to break a i ock, inside of which was gall ; emptying this into the river, the waters grew bitter, and swelled to an ocean, and the thought- ful fishes were rewarded with plenty of room and a wholesome pickle to sport in. To the great Captain, or god of the long name, they accredited all the precepts of morality that they taught their children, and to his com- mands they traced their customs and mode of life. He told them to build a temple ; so in every town, close by the chiefs house, was the oval enclosure, made of the branches of trees and mats, surrounded by stakes of wood driven into the ground, which constituted the temple. 92 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. ("HAP. It was a very sacred spot, within or near whicli no irreverent act was ever performed ; for the 1V70. god himself was there, in the person of a coyote- skin, stuifed with feathers, claws, talons, and beaks, which doubtless symbolized the strength, swiftness, fierceness, and power of the birds and beasts from which they were taken. They worshipped him with grotesque dances and hideous yells, or sometimes in perfect silence, squatting in most awkward attitudes in his preseDce, and retaining one position while the ceremony of adoration lasted. His temple was the " city of refuge," where the most outrageous criminal was safe, and after one visit could go free, though the crime might be punished upon the descendants of the offender at once or after the lapse of generations ! The boys were whipped with nettles, and laid upon ants' nests, that the stings of the insects might make them courageous under the infliction of pain. They were branded by burning raoxas upon the fleshy part of the arm, to put them above the consideration of trifling ailments. They were forbidden to warm them- selves at a fire, lest they came short of the toughness of men ; and, until they were heads of families, ceitain food they must not touch. To violate any of these orders, would let loose the Evil Spirit on them, and provoke the ire of the god. CUSTOMS, MANXEBS, DRESS. 93 The 2-irls were trained to work irom infancy, chap. . VII At ten, to heighten their beauty, their busts ,_^^_ and faces were tattooed, the flesh being pricked irre. with the thorn of the cactus until it bled, and a soft charcoal rubbed in, in lieu of India ink. On arriving at womanhood, they were placed on a bed of branches over some heated stones that were lain in a hole in the ground, and there kept with little or no food for three days, while ancient hags danced around the pile, singing songs well calculated to inspire the Avretched, perspiring beauties with a sense of the vast responsibilities that pertained to their new condition. Betrothed by their parents in infancy, they were married with a good deal of ceremony, and divorced without any, at their own or their husbands' will. A skin thrown over his shoulders constituted the full dress of a gentleman. Mats made of squirrel-skins twisted into rope, sewn together, and tolerably fitted to the person, was a fine lady's common dress. Add a fringe of grass reaching to the knees, hang ornaments of beads and shells upon her neck, and varnish her face with colored mud, and she was dressed for a grand occasion. The San Francisco Indians are said to have used a much more simple style of dress, plastering their whole bodies with mud, especially in the cooler months of the ^'■ear — though, if this were so, the fashion came in 94 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, vogue probably after Drake's day, or was re- served for winter. 1776. The men made bows and arrows, baskets, and nets for fishing, killed some small game, and fished a little, when the mood was on ; but most of the work was done by the other sex. The women went to the woods, gathered the acorns that were a staple of food, picked the berries, dug the edible roots, gathered the fire- wood, cooked, kept house, and cared for the children. The a3);a5 they mashed, wet up with water into a dough, and cooked between hot stones. Buckeyes they rubbed down with water into a thin, gruel, and boiled by throwing hot stones into the mess. They held it a god- send when a whale was stranded on the coast : it relieved them from the necessity of work for weeks ; for, like most gourmands who prefer their game a little high, they thought the blub- ber improved by moderate age ! Dancing was a very important part of all their entertainments and of their worship. Ex- cepting at a few special feasts, the dances were generally veiy modest, the sexes dancing apart from each other, though in the same room. Their god was a great admirer of a vigorous dancer ; so dancing was a virtue, and this virtue at least was popular. War was never their passion ; but if one of a tri})e stole a squirrel or an ornament from another tribe, they generally NATIVE MEDICAL PEACTICE. 95 indorsed his tlieft, and maintained their honor chap. with their arms. The war beius; ended, the ^^^- ^ -m- . -^^' thief was dealt with as he deserved. Yet it 1775 appears that they lived very peaceably most of the time, and did very little quarrelling. On occasion of their grand feasts, scalps taken in war were exhibited on a pole planted on a tem- ple. The women and children who were cap- tured in w ar generally stayed Avitli their captors for life. Every tow^n had its chief, but he enjoyed very little consideration in the town councils. If he transgressed his authority, they deposed him. His person was held in veneration, al- though his advice might be treated vvdth sov- ereign contempt. Their medical practice was exceedingly sim- ple. Herbs, crushed or bruised, and applied as a poultice, was the treatment for most external diseases. For slight internal ailments they smoked the same herbs, or whipped the part affected with nettles. For serious diseases the cold-water bath was a common remedy; that failing, the patient was laid upon the dry sand, or ashes, and a fire kindled near his feet, which was kept blazing night and day. By his head was placed a cup of water, or some gruel. His friends then sat down by his side, and waited in patience until he recovered or died. Of course, they had their quacks, who per- 96 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. LHAP. formed wonderful cures througli the medium __^ of a perfect faitli and the entire control of the 1776. patient's imagination — thus swindling him away from under the power of disease. Some writers speak of the sweat-house as the never- failing remedy for the Indian, whether his ail- ment were little or great. It was supposed to add very largely to the mortality of the tribes ; but their ancestors, " the authorities," believed in it, and to the sweat-house they went, whether afflicted with typhus or tooth-ache, a fit of indi- gestion or the small-pox. When one died, he was either buried or burned, according as the custom of the locality was. Where burning was the fashion, the corpse was laid upon a pile of fagots', in the presence of the friends, and the bows and arrows, and whatever the deceased cherished as his property, were laid beside him. When the pro- fessional burners announced that all was con- sumed, the friends retired outside the town to do their mourning — the doctor accompanying them, and chanting the story of the fatal sickness, while they wept. After three days and nights, they returned home and cut their hair in token of their loss. If the departed were a distant relative, the rule required that it be cut half its old length ; if it were a parent, wife, or child, the head must be shaved close. They thought Death was a being who took THEIU IDEA OF DEATH. 97 away a person's breath, and after that there chap. was no more of him forever. The 2)unishments that they feared from their god were almost 1776. entirely physical, and pertained to this life. Still, they thought that the heart of a good chief went up, after death, among the stars, to enlighten the earth; hence, that the stars, comets, and meteors, were the hearts of great Indians departed. Common men had no such honor awaiting them, and the chiefs only at- tained it by virtue of the fact that, after death and before being Ijurned, men who practised a modified cannibalism as a profession came and, with much ceremony, consumed a small portion of their flesh. 7 98 THE HISTOKY OF CALlFOEiaA. CHAPTER Vin. DETAILS OF THE MISSION SYSTEM. But degraded as was the Indian, the whole theory of the Spanish cou(;[uest required, and 173^ the first principle of the missions was, that he should be trained in the simple arts, educated in the elements of letters and religion, and be made a citizen. The fathers succeeded in teaching him to plough and plant, to sow and reap, to raise corn, to make wine, to weave cloth, to dress leather, to manufacture soap, brick, and tiles ; l)ut they never could bring him out of his stolid ignorance. The project of manufacturing him into a valuable subject of Spain was an utter failure. In other of her Indian possessions this had been done, but in California it could not be. Yet, throughout the career of the missions, throughout the rule of the. Church in California, the Indian was always treated as the object of SQ licitude_ ^jid kindly care. If he was a slave of the fathers, it -vv^ that he might become a subject of the crown. THE MISSIONS. 99 In tlie political system of the country, his chap. weakness and wants were scrupulously consulted. v_^_, The missions were to grow into towns ; the pre- I78i sidios were for their defence; and the pueblos were established only when it was found that the Indians were not competent to sustain the missions and the pi-esidios without a heavy draft upon the Government at Mexico. The first grant of land made within California was 1775. to a Spanish soldier, in consideration of the fact that he had manied a native convert. This care for the Indians, as the prospective subjects and sacred occupants of the soil, was never in- termitted until the revolution came that over- threw the missions themselves, and California was distracted with the civil wars that followed its attempt at independence. How many Indians there were in California when the missions were in their glory, there are no means of knowing : not because they were a floating population, for those near the coast, at least, seldom drifted far beyond the horizon of their birthplace ; but they were not reckoned worthy of being counted until converted. They were more valuable than beasts only as they were suscej)ti] )le of conversion. The missions were built upon one general plan, though they differed in the expenditures upon them. In the centre was a handsome church, generally built of adobe, whose tinsel 100 THE HISTORY OF CALIFOEXIA. oiiAP. and pictures, marble pillars for tlie altar, and ofold and silver plate, must have struck the In- 1781. dians as exceedingly fine. Close by the chui'ch were the residences of the clergy, store-houses, granaries, shops for blacksmiths, weavers, and soap-makers, all of which were built of adobe and roofed with tiles. There were also large gardens, and pens for cattle and horses. Two or three hundred yards away was the " ranche- ria/' sometimes an adobe structure, sometimes a collection of wigwams made of poles, which had this advantage over the adobe house, that when they became altogether filthy, they could be burned down, and new ones put on their site. Close by the raucheria was a building for a garrison of half a dozen soldiers, with their families. About the mission as a centre, the best land of the vicinity, generally a tract of some fifteen miles squai'e, was set apart to it for a farm, where the thousands of sheep and cattle grazed and pastm^ed. But this was not all that the missions claimed. Their boundaries touched each other. From the sea-coast to the moun- tains, from San Diego to San Francisco, all, with a few exceptions to be hereafter named, was claimed by the priests as mission property, without reference to the number of the estab- lishments. Over each mission was a presiding fathei', who had a control of its affeirs that was almost THE mSSIONS AND PRESIDIOS. 101 absolute, being responsible only to tlie presi- chap. dent of the missions and the college to which ^^ ■ he belonged. The ground was tilled, the cattle 1781. killed, the cloth woven, the vintage nourished or neg:lected, as the father dictated. If he we^;e blessed with worldly wisdom, his mission flourished, its Indians were fat and contented, and its treasury full. If he had no mind for such matters, unless indeed his assistant clergy were wiser than he, spiritual and temporal affairs alike went amiss, the Indians suffered from nakedness and hunger, and fumed with discontent ; converts were not multiplied ; the buildings went to decay ; the mission got a bad name. To give greater protection to the missions, wdiich were mostly inland, four presidios, or military establishments, were planted at as many sea-ports — San Diego in 1769, Monterey in 1770, Sin Francisco in 1776, and Santa Bar- bara in 1780. The presidio was an enclosure of from two to three hundred yards square, sur- rounded by an adobe wall of about twelve feet in height. In this square were a chapel, store- houses, residences for the officers, and barracks for the soldiers. Upon the walls were mount- ed sundry small cannon. Near the anchoring- ground and aside from the presidio was gene- rally a fort of rude construction, also mounted with cannon. The presidio was, in theoiy, 102 THE HISTOEY OF CALrFORTTIA. cnAP. manned by seventy soldiers, but that maximum was seldom reached ; most of the numl^er rated 1781. as cavalry, and a small portion as artillery. Tlieir commander had military jurisdiction over a certain number of missions and the pueblos within his limits. Thus the Presidio of San Francisco, as late as 1835, had within its juris- diction the town of San Joso and the six mis- sions about the bay. The commandant stood in the j^lace of the viceroy throughout his dis- trict. He must assist the missionaries and protect their charge, but in no way interfere with them. One of the objects of Father Junipero in j^^g visiting Mexico was to bring to an issue a dis- pute concerning the mutual rights and relations of tlie military and the ecclesiastics. The law of the latter toward the Indians was kindness ; the former looked down on the red men with scorn, and abused them accordingly. They made the Indian men work, the squaws carry burdens, the children Avait upon them, and punished them all promptl}^ if they tried to avoid work. The priests had complained to the viceroy of the behavior of the soldiers ; the military had complained to him that the priests were meddlesome, and in the habit of transcending their powers by dictating to their equals. The viceroy took the priests' part, invoked the military to preserve harmony. PRIESTLY AND MILITAEY AUTHORITIES. 103 to help the fathers cheerfully, ti give them chap. aid, escorts, and supplies, and to treat the In- _^_ dians so kindly tliat their example would com- 1773. mend their religion. The most explicit advices failing to j^roduce the desired harmony, Juni- pero went personally to Mexico, and, from the Convent of San Fernando, issued the gravest charges against the soldiers, and Don Pedro Pages, their chief commanding officer. Then Pages was peremptorily ordered by the viceroy to remove any soldier at tlie demand of a mis- sionary, and to leave the entire management of the Indians to the priests. After that, though there were occasional jealousies, the positions of the two powers were pretty well defined, and there was not nmch conflict be- tween them. The commander of a presidio had authority to grant building-lots to the soldiers and other residents within the space of four square leagues of head-quarters, where it could be done with- out encroaching upon the mission. It is not certain that this right was ever exercised by the captain of the San Prancisco presidio, but probably it was at San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey. There were a few farms set apart for the use of the presidio soldiers, but the military did not take well to farming; and, excepting for grazing purpo^^es, this land was very little used. 104 THE IIISTOEY OF CALIFOENIA. CFiAP. The soldiers were an undisciplined, riotous set ,_^ of fellows, mostly mutineers or deserters from 1781. tlie Mexican army, or felons transported to the wilderness because the prisons of Mexico were crowded. Still, miserably mounted and shock- ingly equipped as they were, they answered every purpose that was required of them. The timid Indians only needed the shadow of an army to keep them within the bounds of pro- priety. When the converted Indians were dis- posed to relapse into heathenism, and ran away, the soldiers went out on a grand hunt and brought them in again, and with them all the wild natives that they could corral. Once, at San Diego, the Indians rose, murdered sev- eral persons, and burned the mission-houses. The soldiers, with a few " terrible examples," soon restored tranquillity, and this was the only occasion for any warlike demonstration to quiet insurrection during the early history of the settlements. At each presidio a certain number of pack- mules were kept for the government service, and four horses stood saddled by day and eight by night, ready to carry dispatches in any direction. To relieve the Government of Mexico of the heavy burden of supplying the presidios with recruits and rations, there were established, in Father Junipero's day, the pueblos of San Jose THE PUEBLOS. 105 In the nortla, and of Los Angeles in the south, chap. Later, in 1795, the Marquis of Branciforte or- dered a commission to select a pueblo site in iV95. the vicinity of San Francisco. The commis- sioners reported that San Francisco was prob- ably the worst place in all California for the purpose, and so the " Villa of Branciforte" was established near the Santa Cruz Mission. It never grew to any consecjuence. Portions of its adobe ruins are still pointed out to the visitor to that pleasant sea-side retreat. These pueblos were reckoned of little account — a necessary evil, whose growth l)eyond a cer- tain point was to be discouraged. Each pueblo had its common lands, where the cattle were pastured, and whence the fuel was obtained. Each settler was entitled to an inalienable homestead of two hundred varas square, a cer- tain number of cattle, horses, and poultry, a stipulated quantity of agricultural implements, a salary at the outset, and, for five years, ex- emption from all taxes. In return, he engaged to sell all the products of his lot, beyond what his family required, to the presidios, at a fixed price ; to keep a horse, saddle, carl)ine, and lance, and hold his own person in readines=5 for the king's service, on demand. After five years' occupation, he must pay an annual rent of a bushel and a quarter of corn. For the first two years after the establish- 106 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, ment of a pueblo, it had an alcalde or judge, ,_^_, and other town officers of the governor's ap- 1761)- poiutment. After that, the officers were elected by the jjeople, subject to the governor's ap- proval. The settlers were mostly soldiers whose term of service had expired. These free towns, which were originally intended to be subservient to the presidios, as the presidios in turn were but the servants of the missions, were naturally eyed ^vith jealousy by the mis- sions ; especially, as to them were attracted all straggling foreigners, and the trappers and hunters who wearied of their adventurous life, and were disposed to settle, and end their days in a semi-civilized fashion. Very naturally, there were occasional collisions between the ecclesiastic and the militar}^ authorities ; and there was a law-suit of tedious length, brought by the college at Mexico to which the priests belonged, before the viceroy, because the pue- blo of San Jose was established nearer the mission of Santa Clara than Fatlier Junipero thought to be wholesome for his Indians. But here we are verging upon ground that the lawyers of California, and especially of San Francisco, have disputed about too much for any one not of the profession to travel over it witliout great risks. Early in the career of San Francisco, it became a question of importance, whether or not it was ever a pueblo. The COLO:>'IAL HISTOEY IX THE COUETS. 107 Supreme Court of the State decided that it was chap. one ; and the Federal Court of the district has _,^_ pronounced a like decision. Long as the liti- 1709- gation lasted, it was not without some redeem- ing results. The legal investigation of the pue- blo question, on which hangs the title of the city as the successor of the alleged pueblo to the greater part of the lands in its suburbs, threw a deal of light upon the system under which California was settled, developed mau}^ curious historical facts that were buried in the Spanish documents of the State archives, and explained other thino;s, of which the full records were lost in the bustle of the American occupation. Dwinelle's " Colonial History of San Francisco," published in 1863, was the argument of John W. Dwindle, in the United States District Court, for the city's pueblo claim for four square leagues of land. There are those, and Mr. Dwindle appears to be among them, who h;)ld that the Spanish and jMexican system for settling California con- templated a threefold occupation of the land : by the religious pioneers, building up missions and drawing the natives around them ; by the military, making the influence of the presidios meet each other and cover the whole country ; and by civilians, congregated in pueblos. On this theory, all tbree were alike, if not equally, cherished by the Government, as nuclei of popu- 108 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAP, lation and srrowth into a State. If that were VIH ,_^_, really the theory of those who began the settle- 17G9- ment of California, the failure of the Indian to grow into a citizen caused the mission element so early to outgrow the others in importance and influence at Mexico, that very soon the pueblo was deemed an intruder, and the pre- sidio only tolerated as the prop and defender of the missions. Still, it is clear that the mission was never intended to be a permanent institution under priestly control. Just as soon as the converted Indians were educated up to the capacity for self-government, the missions were to be con- verted into pueblos. The " religious " priests — that is, priests who had taken the three vows of a " regular order " — vows of chastity, obe- dience, and poverty, and were consequently held ill law as " civilly dead " — were to be succeeded by the " secular clergy," and the mission church- es would become parish churches; — in short, the missions were to be secularized. It had been presumed, at first, that ten years would suffice to carry a mission up to the point where it could be secularized ; Imt the priests loved the missions too well, and their Indian converts were too stupid for that. A few missions, forced by the impatience of the Government, struggled into the pueblo state, but soon ^vent to decay. On the other hand, the original pueblos flour- SEVERAL KIISTDS OF PtJEBLOS. 100 ished finely, and several presidios grew so rapid- chap. ly in spite of ecclesiastical objections, that they _^__, assumed the rights and privileges of pueblos. 1769- Much confusion has orio-inated in the some- times loose, sometimes precise meaning of that word puehlo. It seems to have worn all the vagueness of our word town, and like it to have had also a specific meaning. The same term was applied to a settlement of straggling In- dian huts, and to an incorporation v/ith powers precisely defined. Moreover, a pueblo might be aristocratically called a villa, like Branci- fbrte, or a ciudad^ like Los Angeles ; l^ut under whatever name, it still was a pueblo, with its privileges determined exclusively by the num- bers of its " reasoning " population. California, when first settled, was a depart- ment of the kingdom of Spain, and to the viceroy at Mexico its governor was responsible. In 1776, it became one of the " Internal Provinces," which were ruled by a commandante-general. When, still later, the Internal Provinces were divided into Eastern and Western Provinces, it formed a part of the Western, and then its capital was either at Arispe or Chihuahua. Still later a few years, the old order was restored, and the gov- ernor of California, residing at Monterey as the capital, was directly responsible to the viceroy. Events travelled slowly in those times, and it took many years to furnish a ch^^pbr of his- 110 THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. • II AP. tory. Each subordinate officer was a despot, until liis suj^erior's order came. Loyalty was in- 1709- stinctive, and the v^ery distance of the supreme au- ■ thority added dignity and weight to his behests. The King of Spain forwarded his order to the viceroy, who sent a copy to each Spanish dependency ; so that a command, intended for Peru, came through to California, and was filed here as well as there. Among these old kingly communications preserved in our State archives, Randolph quotes one for the furnishing of the royal park with some of the deer that abound- ed, as was said in the neighborhood of San Francisco ; and another, that would have l)een more useful in Nicaragua than here, announc- ing that a cei'taiif arelibishop had happily dis- covered that when the jiggers have burrowed into the human flesh, it is sure death to the in- sect to anoint the part affected with cold olive- oil ! So, in every corner of Spanish America this royal remedy against jiggers was heralded. To reach here, it had travelled a long and crooked circuit, from the king to the viceroy, to the comman