The most famous California (and Southwestern) historian is Hubert Hugh Bancroft, but much of his research material was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Since then, California history has been reconstructed slowly through continuing work of the Bancroft Library of the University of California, the National Archives of Mexico in Mexico City, and the General Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Some of the source for the material contained herein contradict.
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San Diego is the seventh-largest city in the U.S., and like most cities of its size, is actually a collection of small towns within an amorphous metropolitan area. Its development was determined not only by geography but also by a series of distinct settlement booms fueled by gold, migration, and technology.
The history of San Diego is also the history of California. San Diego was the first European settlement in Alta California, and wouldn't have been so except for its natural harbor and location relative to Monterey.
San Diego's human history goes back to the land migrations from Asia across the Bering Strait land bridge. But much overlooked evidence established visits by Chinese mariners, who called Mexico "Fusang" long before Europeans arrived. There was probably more than one land migration from the north, as well as from across the Sierras and desert to the east. When Europeans arrived, they found native people whom they called the San Dieguitos or Diegueños. (The people called themselves Kumeyaay.) Historians trace the Kumeyaay origins to Arizona, so if other peoples were here before the Kumeyaay, they were gone or assimilated by the time the Spanish arrived. (Farther north, the Spanish encountered the Luiseño, the Cupeño, and the Cahuilla tribal groupings.) The Kumeyaay were therefore part of the large Yuma tribal grouping.
The California natives were paleoethnically classified somewhere between "high-savage" and "low-barbarian." (A savage lives like an animal. A barbarian makes tools and practices some sort of religion. Plains Indians were high-barbarian, Pueblo Indians were low-civilized, and Mayans were civilized.) Culturally, they were classified as "hunter-harvester," or one step above the Neolithic (Stone-Age) "hunter-gather." Although their preferred diet was small game (rabbits, hares, and small rodents) and seafood (shellfish and salmon), they mostly subsisted on acorns, roots, nuts, and berries, and zacate (wild grass) seeds, since they knew where and when such could be found at any given time. (The California black-tailed deer was nonexistent in the arid, treeless south, and were much less numerous in the forests than today. The puma (cougar) and grizzly bear ranged throughout the state, but were believed to be evil and were religiously avoided.) They probably practiced a primitive form of agriculture called "sow-and-let-grow."
Some texts describe them as nomadic, but this is not entirely accurate. They actually traveled along seasonal migration trails, and returned to regions previously inhabited when they knew their seasonal food sources would be available to support them, including seeds previously sowed. They even stashed "ollas", small clay vessels filled with water, along their trails to ensure reliable sources of water along their routes during arid periods. This lifestyle to which they had adapted over the millennia allowed them to subsist off the land with minimal caloric requirements and expenditures of energy. The California forests adapted to the periodic burns set by the natives to clear the migration routes and deprive game of their cover.
Since their rivers did not run in the summer, the southern California natives did not build the sturdy thule boats used by the northern tribes, but did use watercraft around the lagoons and estuaries. Therefore, fishing was restricted to what could be easily netted or scavenged on the beach (a dead sea lion or beached whale was cause for celebration). The women had developed fairly advanced pottery and basket-weaving arts. Their housing structures were crude, and were built primarily where trees or scrub provided inadequate protection from the elements. The men, when not at war, were mostly idle. Their lack of sanitation made them prophetically vulnerable to the diseases which would be introduced by the Europeans. Their lifestyle did not encourage housekeeping, because once their encampments accumulated excessive litter and waste, it was time to burn it or abandon it and move on.
The native population in California was more dense than in the remainder of the continent (perhaps numbering as much as 300,000 when the Spanish arrived), probably because of their ability to subsist off the land, and the mild climate which made famines rare. California was not the cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, beef, and poultry that it is today. In fact, it must have seemed pretty barren to the Spaniards when they arrived, as their survival depended upon a constant stream of supplies from Mexico. But the natives had evolved to subsist on a meager hunter-harvester lifestyle, which required about half the the daily caloric intake of the Spanish leathercoats. But hunter-harvesters had to be constantly moving from place to place, and expending as little energy as possible, while the European culture was one of settlement, and using heavy labor to force life-sustaining resources from the surrounding environment.
The romantic myth of the first encounters between the Spaniards and the Indians should be discarded for good. Forget about the noble savage meeting the shining conquistador on horseback. First, the Spanish soldiers were weakened and semi-starved from their 500-mile overland trek, and the sailors were scurvy-ridden. Second, the Indians appeared to the Spanish as filthy, wearing only tattoos and amulets. As the walking wounded meeting the trolls, neither side was much impressed with the other.
Today, there are eighteen separate reservations in San Diego county, more than any other county in the U.S..
Spain was once an imperial nation which was strong on navigation and exploration but weak on colonization. Her primary motives were apparently to enrich the monarchy and gain prestige for her mariners. This attitude had a profound effect on what was to happen to her claims in the New World, especially in North America.
Spain's view of conquest was a reflection of her outlook on civilization: maritime power, military power, and the church. To properly colonize, you had to explore and discover, then establish a military presence in the claimed territory, and finally build missions to convert the natives into Christian subjects of the crown. If the territory was distant and had few raw materials, as California was viewed, it was not worth much effort, in contrast with the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain, which were believed to contain vast quantities of gold and silver. The Anglo-Saxon notion of using distant possessions as a relief valve for troublesome or eccentric emigrants while expanding opportunities for commerce would not manifest itself for another hundred years.
Another view was the importance of her Far East trade. Spain had a highly profitable galleon route between New Spain and the Philippines (along with Japan and China), called the Manila Galleon. Exploration and conquest of the Californias was fully linked to the support and protection of this route.
Spain's first visit to Alta California took place during one of several exploratory missions in search of a northern passage from the Pacific, to shorten the galleon route. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo landed briefly in 1542 and made the first claim to the region, but never explored past the bays and inlets. Spanish explorers employed a simple naming system based on the liturgical calendar, and any new place was named after the saint whose feast day fell on the day of discovery. So when Cabrillo sailed landed in 1542 he named the place San Miguel. Although he eventually sailed all the way to the Russian River, Cabrillo discovered Monterey Bay (a place he called Punta de los Pinos and Bahía de los Pinos) but missed San Francisco Bay (probably due to fog in the Golden Gate). He died en route to his starting point in Navidad (now Acapulco) from a broken arm suffered as a result of a fall on San Miguel Island (and not from a hostile encounter with natives on nearby Santa Catalina Island, as popularly believed). Since he never found a northern passage, his voyage lost its significance, and many of the names he chose for his discoveries were forgotten (see below).
Many California history books skip sixty years to the next mission, but there was an intervening, if less important exploration in 1595-96. Due to the prevailing winds and currents, the return routes for the Manila galleon brought the heavily laden ships close to the Pacific Coast of North America, and the few glimpses afforded the sailors led to the belief that a northern passage must exist somewhere along that complicated coast. Spain was also worried that the bays and inlets could be taken over by a foreign naval power and used to threaten the galleon. So the viceroy assigned the task of charting the bays and inlets to a returning galleon commanded by a capable Portuguese navigator, another Rodríguez known as Sebastián Rodríguez Cermenho. Rodríguez did an excellent job, took his mission seriously, and made several important discoveries. But he realized that his ship was too heavy to get close enough to get a good look at the rugged coast, so he put in at Drake's Bay to construct a smaller vessel! In spite of his efforts to protect his galleon (the San Agustín), it was driven ashore and wrecked with all its cargo. His primary mission destroyed on the shoal, he continued with his secondary mission aboard his makeshift launch, the San Buenaventura. So why was he forgotten? For one thing, the wrecked galleon didn't please the Spanish Council of the Indies, teaching the Spanish to never again use a clumsy merchant vessel to explore the California coast from the north. For another, a mission undertaken six years later by an ambitious Basque sailor would overshadow all previous explorations. But the log of Rodríguez would influence the course of all future expeditions.
Sebastián Vizcaíno obtained permission from the Viceroy of New Spain, the Conde de Monte Rey, to conduct a pearl-diving expedition to Alta California with the condition that he seek out and record the locations of safe harbors along the coast. Vizcaíno was neither navigator, general nor admiral, but an ambitious adventurer who had recruited three ships and capable crews. He set out from Acapulco in two separate attempts, first in 1596 and again in 1602 (the first attempt was a failure for several reasons). He landed in San Miguel in 1602 and, in violation of his orders from the viceroy, changed the name to San Diego de Alcalá (whose feast day is November 12), and coincidentally the name of his flagship. He also landed in and explored Bahía de los Pinos (which he renamed Monte Rey, along with everything else) and Carmel Bay. His exaggerated description of Monterey Bay ("finer than Cádiz, ample water and timber, protected from wind") would become legend and be remembered for a long time.
By now, Spain had learned a lot about Alta California: its coast was extremely rugged, with no exceptional harbors (except possibly Monterey); prevailing winds and currents made sailing along the coast from the south extremely difficult; it held no promise of mineral wealth; its natives were more primitive than any the Spaniards had yet encountered (except the Apaches), producing nothing of value for trade or plunder; it was cold (the North Pacific-California current chilled the ships like an icy wind, and the Spaniards were acclimatized to the tropics and semi-tropics); it was frequently lashed by storms (their explorations may have encountered at least two major ENSO events); and it was distant, not on the way to anywhere. All of this added up to the realization that colonization would be an extremely expensive proposition, since resupply of any new presidios would require dedicated resources which could not be spared.
The three phases of colonization are discovery, conquest, and settlement. For two hundred years, Alta California hardly got past the first phase. Even the capable and charismatic English privateer named Sir Francis Drake, who called the west coast of North America "Nova Albion" (New England) failed to arouse much more than romantic interest in this distant territory.
These difficulties would eventually play into the hands of the yet unborn United States.
Gaspar de Portolá and José de Galvéz
When Carlos III was crowned King of Spain in 1759, he was concerned about Spain's empire and felt that Spain had slipped in status as a power, and she had suffered greatly from her conflicts with France. While England's colonies were thriving, Spain's viceroyalties were languishing. Also, Russian trappers from Alaska settled in Fort Ross, and English settlers began moving westward into Oregon. Concern for the security and profitability of the Manila Galleon once again called for reforms in Baja California and control of Alta California. So Carlos III set about improving the navy and military, rebuilding Spain's economy, and shoring up the empire, starting in New Spain, especially Baja California. He saw how successful the English colonies were, so he wanted his reforms to be equally successful in Baja California. He tasked José de Gálvez, his new Visitador General (Inspector General) of New Spain, to carry out his reforms, and appointed Don Gaspar de Portolá governor of Baja California.
Portolá began his rule of Baja California by expelling the Jesuits from the missions. The Jesuits, who had by now established all of the missions in New Spain and Baja California (many at their own expense), and had been successful in Paraguay, had amassed a great deal of wealth in their Pious Fund, which caused suspicion and jealousy within the Spanish court. (Some European rulers suspected that the Jesuits planned to overthrow the European monarchs.) Among the important Jesuit missionaries were Padres Salvatierra, Ugarte, and Kino. But while the Jesuits built a fair number of missions (23 in Baja California alone), the rate of conversion was low, and many missions failed and were abandoned. Also, the Jesuits were opposed to the entry of whites (except clergy and soldiers), preferring instead to colonize through conversion. The Franciscans, with their vow of poverty, were seen as better suited for missionary work, more amenable to colonization, and less threatening to the monarchy. So a Franciscan friar from Majorca with years of experience and success with missions in New Spain, Fray Junípero Serra, was appointed President of the missions in Baja California. Fray Serra arrived in Baja California from Vera Cruz, and met up with a team of missionaries which included Fray Francisco Palou, Fray Guillermo Vicens, Fray Juan Crespí, and thirteen others.
Gálvez then arranged two land expeditions and three sea expeditions with the intention of establishing a mission and a presidio in each of the two known bays charted by Vizcaíno in Alta California. The presidios would serve to prevent Russian settlers from moving in and threatening Spanish argosies sailing to and from the Philippines. These expeditions were not only the most important, from the perspective of California history, they are the most revealing of the hardships endured and determination displayed by the Spanish in preserving their colonial power.
The starting point for the land expeditions was Loreto, in Baja California Sur, a Jesuit mission and the Baja California beginning of El Camino Real. The embarkation point for the sea expeditions was San Blas, at the end of El Camino Real on the mainland (with a stop at La Paz on the peninsula). The land expeditions were headed by Capt. Fernando Javier de Rivera y Moncada (accompanied by Fr. Juan Crespí) and Don Gaspar de Portolá (accompanied by Fr. Junípero Serra). The ships were the San Antonio, San Carlos, and San José. The objective was Viscaíno´s famous bay of Monte Rey but first they planned to first establish a waystation presidio and mission near a harbor charted by Vizcaíno halfway between Loreto and Monterey, in a place he christened San Diego de Alcalá. Monterey would become a support base for the establishment of other missions, and other presidios where a military presence was deemed necessary. (Only four presidios were finally established along El Camino Real: San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco.)
The San Antonio was the first to arrive at San Diego, on April 11, 1769. The San Carlos arrived a few days later, on the 29th. On May 14th, Rivera's party arrived, and on July 1st, Portolá's party arrived (after having stopped at Velicatá for Fr. Serra to establish a mission there). The San José was never seen again. The sea parties were severely weakened by scurvy (two-thirds had died) and the land parties were ragged and shrunken by the desertion of natives. Portolá and Serra picked a site to erect their cross on a defensible hill overlooking the river and bays. (The original presidio and chapel site is still undergoing archaeological excavation.) Then they rested and recuperated. The first oranges in Alta California were planted by Junípero Serra in San Diego. Whether he was aware that these fruit were essential for combating scurvy is not recorded.
The San Antonio set sail back to for San Blas for supplies, and the San Carlos would set sail for Monterey when her crew was well enough. On July 14th, Portolá set out for Monterey by land, with Capt. Rivera, Fr. Crespí, and Fr. Gómez. Fr. Serra stayed behind in San Diego. Portolá planned to follow the coast along well-established Indian migration trails, rededicating the route El Camino Real along the way. By following these trails, he knew they would be always be near sources of game and water, and the friars knew they would encounter natives. By following the coast, they might catch sight of the San José.
However, by hugging the coast, the party ran right into the Santa Lucia Range in Big Sur (near where San Simeon is today). They took a full ten days crossing the range into the Salinas River valley before heading north again. It took the party 38 days to reach Monterey Bay, but Portolá's scouts, observing the bay from the north, never recognized it. Starving and dejected, they continued northward, stumbling onto San Francisco Bay. They turned around before reaching the Golden Gate, and were back in Monterey Bay in November. There they camped in El Estero, and explored the piney Monterey Peninsula and Carmel River for an entire month, keeping an eye to sea for the San José. However, in a bleak November, this place didn't fit Vizcaíno´s description of a beautiful bay and harbor, so neither Portolá nor Crespí recognized it. They erected a couple of crosses (one on a hill above Monterey Bay and another on a hill above the Carmel River lagoon) and they set out for San Diego, but knowing that the rugged Big Sur coast was just south of them, and figuring that the San José was lost, they returned via an easier inland route.
Portolá arrived in San Diego in January 1770 in terrible shape and and was ready to give up, even abandon the San Diego outpost, as supplies there were so low, the San José was lost, and the San Antonio had not yet returned from San Blas. Rivera was dispatched to the peninsula for supplies. However, Fr. Serra listened to Fr.Crespí's descriptions and became convinced that the piney peninsula was Rodríguez Cabrillo's Bahía de los Pinos and Vizcaíno's Monterey Bay. And with the arrival of the San Antonio with fresh supplies on March 23rd, Fr. Serra was able to talk Portolá into a second expedition. This time Fr. Serra would go along, and would travel by ship while Portolá and Fr. Crespí would go by land party over the route used for the return trip. They departed San Diego in April and arrived in Monterey on May 24th, 1770. When Portolá and Crespí found the crosses they had erected the previous winter, and could now see the beautiful bay in May, they must have been chagrined. The San Antonio, with Fr. Serra aboard, appeared on May 31 and the Monterey Presidio and Mission San Carlos Borromeo were inaugurated on June 23rd, 1770. Fr. Serra used this mission as his home base (eventually moving it to Carmel) and laid out his plans for founding future missions.
Portolá's work done, the military authority for Alta California was passed to Don Pedro Fages, commander of the Catalán Volunteers from Spain. Aristocratic, strong-willed, and dictatorial, Fages was the wrong personality to put in charge of Fr. Serra and his Franciscan friars and the Leatherjackets of Loreto. The zealous Serra had no patience for a Spanish aristocrat who meddled in the administration of the missions, the treatment of the Indians, and even the locations of the missions themselves. And the Leatherjackets, experienced frontier soldiers (many of whom were mestizos), were treated poorly by the Catalonians, and many deserted. Captain Rivera, commander of the Leatherjackets, avoided Fages as much as possible.
The situation became so serious that Fr. Serra made a special trip to Mexico City for an audience with the new Viceroy, Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa. In spite of severe illness, Fr. Serra made it to Mexico City and presented his 32-point Representación to the Viceroy. Bucareli was impressed by the dedication of the humble friar, and issued his Reglamento which would become the basis for governing Alta California for several years.
The reforms instituted by the Reglamento included: removal of Fages as military commander and replacement by Rivera; the removal of soldiers as requested by the missionaries in moral cases; and transfer of all authority over the Indians (except crimes of blood) to the missionaries.
Bucareli also recognized the starvation-threatening logistical problems of the missions, and tasked Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza, at the presidio of Tubac, in Arizona, to open a land route to Alta California from Sonora, and to establish a permanent settlement in San Francisco. By this Reglamento, Bucareli established himself as the greatest hero who has ever appeared in California history.
With Rivera now in charge, families began settling in San Diego and Monterey.
No greater frontiersman ever existed in American history than Juan Bautista de Anza. First, he blazed an overland route from Tubac, across the Colorado Desert, the Colorado River, the snow-capped Sierra Nevada, and into the Mission San Gabriel Archangel. The route now known, he returned to Sinaloa, and assembled a group of 240 settlers, plus mules and livestock, and made the trip again, on October 23, 1775. This time the Colorado was higher than before, and he found a new way across, re-blazing the trail, and arriving at San Gabriel with 244 (some births were added to the party). Not only did he cross scorching desert, rapid river, and snow-capped Sierra, he arrived without a single casualty. In addition, he befriended every Indian tribe he encountered on the route, recognizing that the success of future crossings would depend upon peace and cooperation with the natives.
Some of his party settled in Monterey, but most went on to establish the first settlement in San Francisco, in July, 1776, at the time of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. De Anza chose the site for the presidio and Mission Dolores, and conducted important explorations of the East Bay and Santa Clara Valley.
On his return trip, he received word of the Yuma Indian revolt in San Diego, and lent 20 of his veteran soldiers to the Presidio of San Diego. Coincidentally, two ships arrived in San Diego from San Blas, with 25 soldiers on board, under Bucareli orders to improve the defenses at the presidio. Although still vastly superior in numbers, the Indians respected the Spanish resolve, and the revolt ended, never to start again. Had the revolt succeeded (and it could have), Spanish settlement of Alta California would have ended, with additional historical implications for Mexico and the United States.
California
schoolchildren learn about the missions in the 4th grade. This is
because it was the mission system, not colonization or settlement, that
spread Spanish influence throughout Alta California. Spain did not
have teeming masses of people clamoring to sail or trek all the way to
Alta California to start a new nation. The risks and hardship weren't
worth the potential rewards. Also, New Spain (Mexico), and Río de
Plata (Argentina) were much closer to Spain, self-sufficient, and
wealthy. Beyond Río de Plata, around Cape Horn, came Chile and Perú.
And finally, at the end of the world, was Alta California. Although
it was situated alongside the trade route to the Philippines, Alta California
was far too distant and primitive to arouse interest among potential colonists. So
although pioneers were few, there were plenty of indigenous peoples, and
they could be Christianized and civilized. There were also Spanish friars
of the Franciscan order in New Spain, with a vision. Their vision
was to build missions, convert the natives to Christianity, teach them
how to run a European agrarian economy, and then turn over the mission
lands and property. The fact that most of the friars had little experience
in farming (especially in areas of scant and seasonal rainfall) and even
less experience in government would be fateful.
Fr. Serra had a pretty good establishment plan, developed earlier with Gálvez. When completed, all the missions would be separated by no more than a day's travel, so that travelers could rest for the night without needing a costly military escort. But rather than constructing the chain in sequence, a bisecting approach would be used, to occupy the vast territory as quickly as possible. San Diego was already built halfway between Loreto and Monterey. The next mission would be halfway between Monterey and San Diego; and so on. At least that was the plan.
Fr. Serra eventually founded nine missions, the last being San Buenaventura (which was planned to be the third as it was exactly halfway between San Diego and Monterey, but Fages had other plans). Fr. Serra traveled 24,000 miles in Alta California in the task of founding and supervising these missions. Fr. Fermín Lasuén founded another nine, two more were founded by other priests, and the 21st (San Francisco Solano) was founded in 1823 by a San Francisco priest looking for a warmer climate.
Plenty has been said about the impact of the missions on the Indians. Most of it has obsessed on the religious conversion, but evangelization had much less impact on the native culture than agriculture and disease. Also, it should be remembered that the friars made contact with only about ten percent of the indigenous inhabitants in their 54-year campaign. The real trauma came when the Americans arrived.
The fact that the natives were less civilized than any other indigenous cultures the Spanish had encountered in New Spain presented advantages and disadvantages. One advantage was that the Indians were loosely organized, and unskilled in military arts, so they could never pose much of an insurrectionary threat. The disadvantage was that an agrarian culture was alien and illogical to them. There was usually enough food to be gathered, if you knew where and when to gather it, and your dietary needs were simple (and you didn't mind eating vermin and grasshoppers). The idea of staying in one place and forcing nature to comply with your needs at that location must have seemed absurd, especially when it involved tilling a hunting ground. Agriculture to the Indians required the expenditure of an excessive amount of energy for a limited gain. Cultivation was backbreaking. Dams had to be built to collect and divert the water. Structures had to be built to store the grain. Corrals to be built to keep the livestock. Why do all this labor when wandering and scrounging (by the women) allowed you to gather all you needed? True, farming had some advantages. The sturdy wooden and adobe structures made comfortable shelters. And less time migrating and hunting allowed more time for craftsmanship. But the harsh, arduous mission life took its toll on the health and lifespans of the mission Indians.
Disease probably killed a third of the natives. Not quite decimation, but devastation nonetheless. Only the northern tribes escaped a massive loss in population. (One of the missions was built primarily as a hospital for sick natives.)
In economic terms, the mission system was simply a feudal plantation system. It was deeply rooted in Catholicism in the sense that Catholic economic thought was zero-sum: there is only so much wealth to go around. Those who weren't already wealthy could at least improve their lives if taught to be self-sufficient. With the seeds of Spanish civilization planted in native soils and cultures, Spain could continue her search for gold and new trade routes. But the Protestants weren't hampered by this theory. Some of them not only believed that they could make a decent living, but could actually become wealthy if they worked hard enough growing, finding, making, or trading things that other people wanted to buy. Nor were they hampered by authoritative micro-management by their mother country. After learning her lesson with Jamestown in 1607, England had decided to let her colonies run themselves as long as they paid their taxes. This ability to create wealth under a laissez-faire system gave the English colonies advantages over the Spanish ones.
The mission system was supposed to be a means of expanding the empire, and not a permanent institution. That's why they were called missions. A Spanish decree in 1813 gave the friars ten years after a mission's founding to turn over the mission lands and property to the native peoples. But the Franciscans were no more successful than the Jesuits and they were either unwilling to comply or the Indians weren't ready, or both.
Colonization and Settlement
The English colonies were economically better off than the Spanish ones, and this may have contributed to their political maturation as well. (Political thought was not strong in Catholic societies, where intellectualism was the domain of the clergy.) On the other hand, the Indians were probably better off under Spanish rule (see below), even though the Spanish would fail in their plans to create self-sufficient societies.
Most of the best land in Alta California was owned by the missions. Some missions were highly prosperous, and manufactured a number of goods (primarily byproducts of cattle ranching, Indian crafts, and wine) which led to an influx of outsiders and the establishment of pueblos. Others were desperately poor and suffered from floods, drought, earthquakes, famine, disease, and revolt.
Some large tracts of land were grants by the Spanish Crown to individuals in return for service (primarily military) to Spain. (France, the other Catholic colonial power, had a similar tradition.) The lands were granted to commoners, since titled aristocrats were already entitled to estancias in Spain. But the real land grant system that shaped California was not yet born.
Colonization of Alta California, therefore, was slow. Recall that Spain's approach to native populations differed from England's. Whereas the English never included the Indians in their plans (except to coexist with, displace, or even exterminate them), the Spanish saw them as potential subjects and Catholics. In fact, the Spanish were ready to welcome any newcomer who conformed. Complicating the pace of settlement (and hampering commerce) was a prohibition against non-Spanish ships harboring in California ports. Finally, non-native women were few, and would have been non-existent had not Fray Serra been successful in convincing the presidio comandantes to allow soldiers to bring wives. In spite of this, people began filtering into the pueblos as ships arrived from the East Coast and South America. The cultural makeup of the pueblos reflected their maritime roots and trade routes. Before long, the pueblos was made up of Spanish, European, Indian, Afro-Hispanic, Chinese, and Filipino residents.
Nothing much happened in San Diego for several decades after its founding. Conversions were slow. It's hard to attract coverts when the reward for baptism is to labor in a field under the hot sun. In 1774, the padres decided to move the San Diego mission farther up the river where the valley narrowed to a gorge and the river could be dammed for a more reliable water supply (and also to get closer to the Kumeyaay rancherías). A revolt in 1775 burned the mission, and Serra returned to rebuilt it with adobe in 1777. No English or Russians invaded, so the Spanish soldiers began building homes at the bottom of the hill closer to the river, and the Pueblo de San Diego was born. This is now called Old Town. But San José and Los Angeles had already been established as pueblos, so San Diego was neither the first pueblo nor by far the most important.
The presidio-mission system and the Mexican Revolution were the two factors that determined California's destiny, which was to secede from Mexico. The Californios didn't participate in Mexico's war against Spain, a point which Mexico City was not to overlook. Few Californios wanted to be ruled from Mexico City, which was incredibly distant, which had thrown off its institutions (such as the crown and the church) without replacing them with something better, and which had social and economic problems of its own. Although the Mexican Constitution was based on the U.S. Constitution, the Mexicans were ill-prepared for self-government. The ideas of liberty and independence were in vogue, but the powerful clergy and military control of government were deeply entrenched in the Mexican way of life.
The new Mexican government formed a federation and granted statehood to all territories except its farthest outpost, California, which remained a province. Her governors were appointed and sent in from Mexico City. This didn't set well with the Californios, who adopted their own identity which was neither español nor mexicano. While they claimed allegiance to Mexico, and received the governors without protest, they maintained a closed society, attempting to preserve their unique way of life as distant from Mexican rule as they were from Mexico City.
Since the church was associated with the rejected Spanish colonial system, and Spain's 1813 decree was ignored, her lands were secularized. The Mexican secularization decree authorized the governors to give half of the mission lands, livestock, and tools to the Indians and parcel out or sell the remainder. The Franciscans were allowed to keep the church and church property, but supervision was turned over to a government-appointed administrator, and the Mexican land-grant system was born.
By reading the historical markers erected at the missions along El Camino Real, the visitor would get the impression that secularization was the worst thing that could have happened to California under Mexican rule. Nothing could be further from the truth. Secularization was the most important event in California history before the gold rush, and was necessary to start the territory´s transition to a republic. It was never intended to ruin the missions, but to convert them to parish churches and to privatize their lands. The progressive governors carrying out the program envisioned the Franciscans establishing new missions in the frontier (most of the native population had neither been converted nor even contacted) and allowing pueblos and ranchos to develop in the former mission lands. Even most of the Franciscans supported the plan, a momentous concession compared to the violence and bloodshed taking place in Mexico. Secularization was the first and most important land reform program in Latin America. However, as with most land reform programs, things didn´t always go according to plan. Recognizing the problems as they occurred, the governors slowed the program down, hoping to ease the transition, which was unexpectedly hard on the mission Indians (who had become dependent on the system) and their own treasuries (which began to lose revenues as manufacturing ceased).
The execution of the new Mexican land-grant program was another factor that influenced California's destiny. First, while subdivision was intended to attract settlers, Governor Figueroa allowed his Californio friends to effectively carve up most of the land amongst themselves. And as for the missions themselves, the Indians were free to come and go, so most of them went. With the loss of their economic system (particularly its labor force) the friars moved on as well, and the missions fell into ruin, were used for livestock, or stripped for building materials. Without the mission infrastructure or management, manufacturing came to an end, and the Indians over time gave up on agriculture on their rancherías as well.(Many of the rancherías in San Diego County are reservations today.) They ended up slaughtering more than three-fourths of their livestock. California had reverted to a cattle economy that traded hides and fallow for imported goods. This system was destined not to survive.
Two kinds of Yankees settled in California, and they are classified primarily by their means of arrival. The seafarers, merchants, and traders arrived by sea and settled in the ports of Monterey, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco Bay. The frontiersmen came over the Sierras or down from Oregon. The first class assimilated into the Spanish culture: most learned Spanish, observed the local customs, became Catholic, and married into the Californio families. In short, they became Californios. The second class, however, were barely literate (even in English), were anti-Catholic (even if not practicing Protestants), and held contempt for the local culture, unable to distinguish it from Mexican. Both classes were instruments of Manifest Destiny, but where the first merely wanted to imbibe the California culture with Yankee concepts of industry and democracy, the second yearned for a Texas-style rebellion. The first were represented by Walter Colton, John R. Cooper, Thomas Larkin, Hugo Reid, Stephen Foster, and William Hartnell. The second were represented by Robert Semple and the "Bear Flaggers."
Americans settlers began to arrive in larger numbers. Even before the Gold Rush, they soon began to outnumber the Californios. This was the fourth and final factor that determined California's destiny.
If the Yankee society was complex, the Californio was even more so. The vast size of the province led to divisions among the families, the most obvious being geographical. Over issues such as immigration, mission lands, trade, taxation, and regional autonomy, the two major camps were called arribeños and abajeños, referring to whether they lived in the upper or lower part of the province. The arribeños included the Peraltas, Berreyesas, Castros, Alvarados, Alvisos, and Vallejos, while the abajeños included the Picos, Bandinis, Lugos, Garfias, Dominguez', and de la Guerras. Their rivalry, lack of unity, and innate hospitality prevented the Californios from building a coordinated defense against the political and cultural onslaught they were about to face.
Even if Mariano Vallejo had been successful in uniting the Californios, their small population was already a great disadvantage. California never developed the patrón/peon plantation system common throughout Mexico and New Mexico. Most of the rancho labor was performed by family members and Indians. Although there was some mixed blood (Spanish-Native), a large mestizo population never developed. Most vaqueros were mestizo, but as with all cowboys, their families were few in number.
Although the Californio culture was virtually wiped out by Yankee and Mexican immigration, some of its buildings survive, and yes, even some of its music.
Republic and Statehood
Mexico City wasn't happy with California, with its chummy, aristocratic, pro-Spain families and defiance of Mexican decrees. But the Californios had the upper hand against the distant, weak Mexican government. They brazenly replaced a Mexican-appointed governor with one of their own, Pio Pico. And some fatefully allied themselves with the American settlers prior to the Bear Flag Revolt in June, 1846. Not long afterwards, Commodore John Sloat landed in Monterey and claimed California for the United States against zero Mexican resistance.
History revisionists are increasingly claiming that the U.S. "stole" California from Mexico. Actually, Mexico lost a lot more territory than just California. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed by the U.S. and Mexico in 1848, increased U.S. territory by two-thirds, including California and the land of six other Southwestern states, while Mexico was cut in half.
But Mexico never really ruled the territory, which was never granted statehood status in the federal republic, and was administered as a sparsely settled, remote, and primitive frontier province (which it was). Besides, Mexico was a country in turmoil. From independence through 1847, Mexico endured 50 military regimes, five constitutional conventions, and three constitutions. Mexico was unable to govern a territory that also did not want to be governed by Mexico. France also had imperial designs on Mexico. California was ripe for the taking, and President James Polk and others believed that if the U.S. did not acquire California, Great Britain or France would.
The U.S. had offered $25 million for California, but Mexico rejected it. After the war, the U.S. paid $18 million. The biggest mistake the U.S. made was not paying the full $25 million and annexing Baja California as well. After all, many citizens of Alta California had family and land holdings in Baja California, and vice versa.
Although the Californios were happy to be free from Mexico, they would not yield to the gringos without resistance. Recall that the Californios admired the Yankee institutions but few Yankees. General Andrés Pico assembled a force in San Pascual (near San Diego) that routed General Stephen W. Kearny's forces. This battle would alter the image the Yankees had for the Californios and lend status to their later dealings with the U.S. government. The Treaty of Cahuenga signed by Andrés Pico and John C. Frémont gave Californians equal status with the Bear Flaggers. (Frémont had ambitions to the governorship, but he was later court-martialed by Kearny.)
The first governor was General Kearny, who respected the Californio culture and traditions, and did his best not to antagonize the new American citizens. As a military man, he faithfully observed the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the rights it guaranteed for the Californios. Kearny was followed by two other military governors (Colonel Richard B. Mason and General Bennet Riley) before a state constitution could be drafted and approved with Californio participation.
Who knows what might have happened in California history if gold had not been discovered in 1849 at Sutter's Mill. The situation changed irreparably with the ensuing gold rush. The state capitol was moved from Monterey to Sacramento to be closer to the claims and the action. Newcomers from Mexico, Chile, Peru, Australia, Europe, China, and the American frontier arrived by the thousands on a daily basis. The Americans exerted their influence more strongly than the others, until peace was shattered by racial and ethnic conflict. Xenophobia was pandered by the press and politicians, and lawlessness ruled while bad laws were passed which disfavored all but the Yankees, who became the majority. The Americans treated the Californios as foreigners in their own land.
As for the ranchos, they became victims of a second "land reform" program. With statehood came another American institution: laws and courts. New laws challenged the validity of the Mexican land grants, and shyster lawyers figured out ways to get rich off of the besieged landowners, which included not only the Californio families, but also Thomas Larkin, Abel Stearns, and William E. Hartnell. While litigation wrested a fourth of the land from the rancheros, adventurous squatters grabbed at least that much. Even Gen. Mariano Vallejo, a Californio patriot and first state senator, lost most of his land in the Sonoma Valley. The Peraltas were swindled out of Rancho San Antonio by their "benefactor," Horace Carpentier. Carpentier then subdivided and sold the land, and became mayor of the resulting city, called Oakland. A few ranchos still survive today (the Rancho de la Guerra in Santa Barbara and a couple of others in Big Sur come to mind) but the remainder are remembered only by their place names still portrayed on California maps to this day (Martinez, Moraga, Vallejo, Alviso, Alvarado, Peralta, Castro, etc.), or as parks or tourist attractions, such as the Rancho Los Quiotes and Rancho Agua Hedionda in Carlsbad, and Rancho Guajome (a Bandini-Couts rancho) in Vista.
Not even a brief history of San Diego history should omit mention of Juan Bandini and Cave Couts, yet many do. These two men were the most powerful and influential figures in the pueblo long before Alonzo Horton arrived.
Juan Bandini was Peruvian-born and the son of José Bandini, an
Andalusian of Italian descent, who first arrived in San Diego as captain of a trading
ship, and decided to settle here with his son after Mexican independence. Juan eventually
became a cacique and the owner of vast ranchos from Tijuana to the San Bernardino
Mountains. He built a large, fashionable two-story house in Old Town (today a Mexican
restaurant) in which his wife hosted fabulous fiestas, and he raised cattle and sheep
across the harbor on Coronado. As a politician and rancher, don Juan had many grand
notions befitting a Yankee businessman, but he lacked the Yankee business acumen (or luck)
and some of his ventures nearly ruined him. He admired Yankee institutions, but disliked
Yankees, although his daughters married Cave J. Couts, Abel Stearns, and Charles H.
Johnson.
Don
Juan's sons-in-law eventually assumed control of the Bandini fortunes
before too much had been lost to moneylenders. One son-in-law was Cave
Johnson Couts, a cavalry colonel and Tennessee native, assigned to
Fort Stockton (formerly the presidio) in 1846. Cave Couts is a descendant
of Cave Johnson,
Postmaster General under James K. Polk. Cave fell in love with the beautiful
Isidora Bandini, and married into the Bandini clan. Col. Couts, a distinguished
West Point graduate, commander of the "Black Dragoons," and
an accomplished cartographer, became a Californio and attempted to manage
the Bandini lands along with his brothers-in-law. His experiences were
not without friction with clan members, vaqueros, majordomos, and the
Californio lifestyle. While the decline of the old order took its toll
on the Bandini clan, the Yankee sons-in-law managed to profit, and they
ended up with not only Don Juan's lovely daughters, but most of his land
and properties as well.
After the gold rush panned out, people got down to pursuing real occupations. It turned out that more people got rich servicing the miners than the miners themselves, and thus California's capitalist traditions were born. The cattle ranchers prospered by switching from the production of tallow and hides to beef for the growing population. Northern California (San Francisco née Yerba Buena) boomed, but Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego remained sleepy outposts. In spite of its relaxed, Spanish pace of life in a delightful climate, Southern California was largely spared the first population boom, primarily because it lacked mineral wealth for mining, rainfall for farming, and convenient sources of water for pueblos. But a few people who made stops in San Diego en route to San Francisco on the S.S. Orizaba took a look around and decided to settle down.
When the railroad magnates (Crocker, Stanford, and Huntington) built the transcontinental railroad, fewer ships stopped in San Diego and Los Angeles. A rail line eventually made it to Los Angeles, but a plan to build a railroad from Phoenix to San Diego never materialized, and speculators went bust while the city went into decline.
But a new breed of speculators (Alonzo Erastus Horton and William Heath Davis) took one look at San Diego's harbor and decided that San Diego could be a major port city. So Horton bought up a lot of waterfront land and established "New Town," relegating the pueblo to "Old Town." What Horton did was a blessing, because today Old Town, although it sits in the crotch of two freeways, remains a fascinating historical artifact of Early California.
Except for the narrow San Diego River valley (called Mission Valley) and the harbor, San Diego presents difficult terrain for settlement. And the valley wasn't ideal, as the river tended to flood during ENSO years. The entire region surrounding San Diego is made up of canyons, ridges, mountains, and mesas. Only the San Diego River flowed all year, but wasn't navigable. It had no large flat basin as does Los Angeles and no large fertile valley (with abundant water resources) as does San Jose. So development of the pueblo followed the relatively level terrain easily traversed by beast and foot, and the agricultural development followed the narrow Mission Valley up to the ruins of the mission. Anyone who lived anywhere else, such as up on a mesa, had to follow a strenuous road or trail up a steep incline, which would invariably be impassable in winter. But some pioneers built houses up there anyway, especially on Inspiration Point, and the hardy souls enjoyed the solitude, harbor views, availability of land, and cleaner ambience in exchange for the inconvenience.
There was an island across the harbor connected to the mainland by a long, narrow strip of sand now called the Silver Strand. The Coronado Islands (North and South) were a natural barrier island that protected the harbor. The only access to it from town was by boat, but no one really wanted to go there, much less settle there. Juan Bandini used the land for sheep and cattle ranching.
The harbor, while protected and large, contained a huge, smelly marsh called "Dutch Flats." (This area contains the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and Lindbergh Field today.) And the San Diego River emptied into another estuarial marshland north of Point Loma called Bahía Falsa (False Bay). (This area is now an aquatic recreational/resort area called Mission Bay.) In fact, the mouth of every river in the area was either a reedy marsh or fetid lagoon. (The mouth of the San Luis River is called Agua Hedionda, or "smelly water.") No one wanted to live near the water.
Since the resort industry had not yet been born, beachfront property had no value. Coastal soil was poor and was frequently overcast in the early summer with a low, marine cloud layer. And farther inland was a scorching desert. In between was the pueblo of San Diego.
At the turn of the century, San Diego consisted of Old Town and New Town, with Uptown between them and Middletown on the slope above New Town. Old Town fell into neglect, as Victorian homes and mansions emerged in Middletown and Golden Hill. Then the electric streetcar (trolley) arrived. This technological achievement, which preceded the paving of streets outside New Town, was the stimulant for the first housing and development boom in San Diego. Not only did it shorten the distance between the "towns," it made some of the hilltops more accessible. Above Old Town and Uptown, the trolley was built to Mission Hills. Suddenly the mesas above town became desired places to live. The Victorian Era had ended, and was replaced with the Arts and Crafts Movement. The streets of Mission Hills were paved, and the once-rural land was subdivided for the construction of Arts and Crafts homes, many of which were large and stately, but most were simply modest and graceful.
Balboa Park was created out of City Park, and became the site of the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-1916. Graceful bridges were built across the canyons that sliced through the city.
Then Hillcrest was developed, while North Park was materializing above Balboa Park, and boomed with construction of bungalows and bungalow courts for the working class. The trolley ended across a canyon from Hillcrest and above North Park at University Heights, and San Diego seemed to be through with its expansion for the time being. The result was a patchwork of neighborhoods, each with its own commercial district. Residents could meet their day-to-day needs without traveling more than a couple of trolley stops. Since each neighborhood was a mini-urban area, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Chicago School of architecture and urban planning dominated, the concept of "suburbs" as we know today had not yet materialized.
A postwar land boom began, accompanied by increased use and ownership of automobiles. Where the trolley ended, a boulevard continued eastward toward El Cajon. El Cajon Boulevard was San Diego's third major expansion route. It paved a formerly hardpan route into Normal Heights and across another canyon into Kensington. Mass-produced and tract homes were constructed to meet the needs of young families moving into the areas but weren't willing or able to pay the higher prices for real estate. Mobility provided by the automobile made cheaper land more accessible.
Long before the Interstate Highway system was born, Southern California had freeways. In the Los Angeles basin, the freeways were elevated above older streets and boulevards and were named for their destinations. In San Diego, the constraints imposed by geography dictated the construction of the freeways down in the canyons, such that today, nearly every canyon in San Diego (even one that goes through Balboa Park) has a freeway in it, and nearly every freeway (except the one in Mission Valley) runs through a canyon.
In the 1960's, Old Town was recognized for its historical significance, and preservation efforts began, beginning with its designation as a state park. Today it is a thriving tourist attraction.
Tijuana is the most misunderstood city in the Metropolitan San Diego area. First, the name. It's similar to Spanish for Aunt Juana, or Tía Juana, the name of the first rancho, and maybe that's why many of us mispronounce it. But the natives (Cochimie) say the name comes from their word tiguan which means "close to water." The area which was once referred to as the Cochimie Ranchería Tiguan by the missionaries became Rancho Tía Juana after secularization passed the land to Santiago Argüello.
Tijuana is Mexico's most visited city, its fourth largest (would you believe 1.5 million [est.] inhabitants?), its fastest growing, and sits aside the world's busiest border crossing. However, it's a border town, meaning its history has more to do with its position relative to the border than to its own character and inhabitants. As a border town, Tijuana owes its existence to the border, and would probably be just a suburb of San Ysidro otherwise. In fact, it didn't actually exist until 1889, when the Argüello family, envisioning a tourist mecca, divided their Rancho Tía Juana into a city grid and called it Tijuana.
Tijuana started successfully as a tourist destination, as it offered lots of things you couldn't get in the U.S., and at a lower price, and it continues to attract Americans looking for value or vice, or both. Today, it also attracts southern Mexicans and Central Americans, looking for work in one of the 600 maquiladoras, or failing that, a way across the border. (The maquiladoras pay four times the Mexican minimum wage.)
As a border town, Tijuana also shapes the impression many visitors have for the entire country of Mexico. If an American were to travel to Europe and be told by a European that a visit to New York is sufficient for a foreigner to gain an appreciation for the United States, he would understand the problem.
Although manufacturing is now more important than tourism in Tijuana, Baja California remains a tourist mecca.