we call San Francisco.
What a mighty surprise was that sixty miles of peaceful water that had so long remained hidden from European explorers, baffling the anxious gaze of Cabrillo, the faithful explorations of Ferrelo, the eagle eyes of Drake, and the earnest search of Vizcaino!
Pushing steadily on toward Point Reyes, Ortega encountered a second surprise, when from the Presidio hills he looked down on beautiful Golden Gate, whose rumpled waters seemed to say:–
“No farther can you come. We keep guard here.”
Seeing that it was quite impossible for him to reach Point Reyes, Ortega decided to return to Portola. He found the commander and his party so weakened by sickness and the lack of food that it had been decided to explore no farther, but to return at once to the southern mission. After a painful march of sixty days the party reached San Diego.
Bitter was the disappointment of Padre Junipero Serra at the failure to found the mission of Monterey. he did not believe, as many of the party reported, that the bay was filled up with sand. Keener still was his grief when Portola, after looking over the supply of food, announced that unless the ship San Antonio or the sloop San Jose arrived by a certain date with provisions, they would have to abandon Upper California and return to the peninsula.
The padre at once called the people together for a nine days’ session of prayer and other church services at which to pray for the coming of the relief boat. Portola, though he attended the services, went steadily on with his preparations for departure. On the morning of the day before the one set for the beginning of the march toward Lower California, the padres went to the heights overlooking the bay, where they remained watching and praying. At sea a heavy fog hung over the water. Hour after hour passed as they gazed out on the lovely bay. Noon came, but they would not return to the mission to rest or eat. The afternoon wore away, the sun sank in the clouds above the horizon, then, as all hope seemed gone, the fog was lifted by a sunset breeze, and there, far out at sea, they saw a white sail. The good men fell on their knees in thanksgiving, while their Indian servants ran to carry the news to camp.
This vessel, the San Antonio, brought not only abundant provisions but fresh orders from Galvez to hurry the work at Monterey. The settlement of Upper California was now made certain.
An expedition by land and the San Antonio by sea immediately started northward. A few weeks later Padre Junipero wrote to Padre Palou: “By the favor of God, after a month and a half of painful navigation, the San Antonio found anchor in this port of Monterey, which we find unvarying in circumstances and substance as described by Don Sebastian Vizcaino.”
They even found Vizcaino’s oak. Indeed, it is said on good authority, that the oak remained standing until 1838, when the high tides washed the earth from its roots so that it fell.
Soon the land expedition arrived, and one June morning in 1770 the members of the two parties, all in their best attire, were gathered on the beach for the purpose of founding the second mission. It must have been a pretty scene,–the stanch little vessel San Antonio, gay with bunting, swinging at anchor a short distance out, while on shore were grouped the sailors in the bright dress of seamen of those times, the soldiers in leather uniform, the governor and his staff in the handsome costumes of Spanish officials, and the padres in their gray robes. Close beside the oak a brush house had been built, bells hung, and an altar erected. While the bells tolled, the solemn service of dedication was held by Padre Junipero, and so was founded the Mission San Carlos de Borromeo at Monterey.
Near each of the earlier coast missions there was also founded a military station called a presidio, a name borrowed from the Roman presidium. The word meant a fort or fortified town. These presidios were intended to guard the safety of the missions from the wild Indians, and to defend the coast from ships of other countries.
After the religious services Governor Portola proceeded to found the presidio and take formal possession in the name of the king of Spain by hoisting and saluting the royal banner, pulling up bunches of grass, and casting stones, which was an ancient manner of taking possession of a piece of land or country. The presidio of Monterey was for a long time the site of the capital of Upper California and therefore most important in the history of the state.
For the sake of better land and water the mission site was soon removed about six miles, to the Carmelo River. Although not so wealthy as some of the missions, it was the home of Padre Junipero Serra, president of all the missions, and so its history is especially interesting.
The news of the settlement of San Diego and Monterey was received in Mexico with great joy, and it was resolved to found five more missions above San Diego. Four of these were San Gabriel, near the present site of Los Angeles; San Luis Obispo, farther north; San Antonio; and San Francisco. Before leaving the peninsula, Padre Serra had asked Galvez, “And for Father Francisco, head of our order, is there to be no mission for him?” To which Galvez had replied, “If Saint Francis wants a mission, let him cause his port to be found and it will be placed there.” When the beautiful bay was discovered by Sergeant Ortega, it was thought that this might be the harbor Saint Francis intended for himself, but before naming it for the head of the order it was necessary that it should be explored. Although two land expeditions were sent up for this purpose, they were unsuccessful; and it was not until August, 1775, about four months after the eventful battle of Lexington had taken place on the Atlantic coast, that white men first entered the Bay of San Francisco in a ship.
Lieutenant Ayala of the Spanish navy, with the San Carlos, had the honor of conducting this expedition.
He reached the entrance to the bay just as night was coming on. Not liking to trust his vessel in a strange harbor, he sent forward a boat to make explorations, and then, as it was a little slow in returning, he daringly pushed on in the darkness into the unknown water. His small craft bobbed and plunged in the rough water of the bar, darted through Golden Gate, and came safely to anchor near North Beach. Soon after this exploration it was settled that here Saint Francis should have his mission.
Padre Junipero Serra appointed his friend Francisco Palou, who had now joined him in his work in Upper California, to make this settlement, and on the 9th of October, 1776, there was founded in that portion of San Francisco known as the Mission District, at the corner of Sixteenth and Dolores streets, the mission of San Francisco. This is often called Mission Dolores from the name of a small lake and stream beside which it was built. To-day the name San Francisco rests not only on the old mission building, with its white pillars, but on the beautiful city which is the metropolis of our western coast.
As fast as possible Padre Junipero hastened the establishment of missions, choosing those places where there were the largest native settlements. In the vicinity of Monterey Bay there were, besides the San Carlos mission, Santa Cruz on the northern curve of the bay, and in the fertile valley back of the Santa Cruz Mountains the missions of Santa Clara, San Jose, and San Juan Bautista. Farther south on a lonely height stood Soledad, and much farther south, San Miguel.
The Indians along the Santa Barbara Channel, of whom there were a great many, were more intelligent and industrious than in other portions of the country settled by the missionaries, and here were the missions of Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, La Purisima, and Santa Inez.
In the south, in the fertile valley where are now the great grain fields of Los Angeles county, San Fernando was founded. Between San Gabriel and San Diego were placed San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey, and the chapel of Pala. San Rafael and Solano, to the north of San Francisco Bay, complete the list of twenty-one missions of Upper California.
It is impossible to give more than the names of most of these missions, although about each many true and beautiful stories might be told. It would be well if those who live near one of these noble ruins would seek out its particular history and the stories connected with it. This would be interesting and helpful work for the students in the schools of the state.
The story of the missions seems like a fairy tale, wonderful and unreal. Into a wilderness inhabited only by savage men and wild animals, hundreds of miles from any civilized settlement, there came these men trained as simple priests.
Two by two they came, bringing with them, for the starting of each mission, a few soldiers, seven to ten, a few converted Indians from the missions of Lower California, a little live stock, some church furniture, and always the bells; yet in a little over forty years they had succeeded in founding a chain of missions whose sweet-toned bells chimed the hours and called to prayer from San Diego to the Bay of San Francisco.
Churches were built larger and often of a purer type of architecture than those in the civilized well-settled portions of the land,– buildings that have lasted for a hundred years and may last many years longer if care is taken to preserve them. Canals of stone and cement and dams of masonry were constructed that would do credit to our best workmen of to-day.
The little packages of wheat and other grains, seeds from Spanish oranges and olives, little dried bundles of grapevines from Mexico, developed, under their care, into the great fields of grain, groves of oranges and olives, and the wide-spreading vineyards of the mission ranches. All these wonders were performed with Indian workmen trained by the padres.
But what the missionaries cared for more than their success in building and planting were the thousands of baptized Indians at each mission. These they instructed daily for the good of their souls in the truths of the Christian religion, while for their bodily needs they were taught to plow the earth, to plant seed, to raise and care for domestic animals. They learned also many useful trades; and music, frescoing, and art were taught those who seemed to have an especial taste for such things.
At the head of this great work was gentle Padre Junipero Serra, the most interesting character in the history of the missions. He was frail and slender and much worn by constant labor of head and hands, but his every thought and action seemed to be for others. Back and forth from Monterey to San Diego, from mission to mission, he traveled almost constantly, teaching, baptizing, confirming thousands of his dusky charges. He was president of all the missions, and besides this was bishop, doctor, judge, and architect, as well as steward of the mission products and money.
Associated with him in his work were a group of noble men whose lives were spent in caring for the native people with whom they worked and among whom they finally died. The inhabitants of California may well honor the mission padres for their earnest, unselfish lives, and in no way can this be done so fully as in the preservation of the grand old buildings they left behind, which are indeed fitting monuments to their devotion, energy, and skill.
Beginning with San Diego, let us, in fancy, visit the missions in the early part of the nineteenth century.
It is a winter day in the year 1813 when we ride up the broad, wind-swept road which leads to the newly dedicated mission building of San Diego. The wide plain that surrounds it is green with native grass and the blades of young wheat. Of the two hundred cattle, one hundred sheep, one hundred horses, and twenty asses brought up by Padre Junipero in 1769 to be divided among the earlier missions, San Diego had only its due share; yet under the wise management of the padres, they have now at this mission, feeding on the green plains, thousands of cattle, horses, and sheep, which are tended by comfortably clothed Indian herders. Near the mission are the green and gold of orange orchards, the gray of the olive, and the bare branches of extensive vineyards. At one side we see a large kitchen garden where young Indians are at work planting and hoeing.
As we draw up in front of the church, Indian servants come out to take our horses. We dismount, and a padre who is superintending work in the orchard comes and welcomes us with gentle courtesy. He sends us a servant to show us to our room, a small square apartment with a hard earthen floor and bare, whitewashed walls with no ornament but a cross. The beds are of rawhide stretched over a frame. The covering consists of sheets of coarse cotton grown and woven at the southern missions, and blankets, coarse but warm, made by the Indians from the wool of the mission sheep.
Dinner at the padre’s table we find most enjoyable. There is beef and chicken, the frijole, or red bean of Spain, and other vegetables prepared in a tasty manner peculiar to Spanish cooking, so we do not doubt that the cook has been taught his trade by the padre himself. The Indian boys who wait on the table also show careful training, performing their duties quickly and quietly. Here we can find for bread the tortilla,–still the food of the Indian and Mexican people of California. It is a thin cake made of meal or flour and water, and baked without grease on a hot stone or griddle. Wines made at the mission, the favorite chocolate, thick and sweet, and some fruit from the padre’s garden complete the meal.
Dinner over, we visit the church and admire the striking contrast between the red tiles of the roof and the creamy white of the walls. All the buildings are made of bricks molded from a clay called adobe and dried slowly in the sun. Each brick is twelve inches square by four inches thick, and the walls are laid two or three bricks deep, those of the church itself being nearly four feet in thickness. It seems almost impossible that so large and well made a building could have been constructed by untrained workmen. Next to the church are the rooms of the padres, then the dining room and the quarters of the mission guard, which consists apparently of but two men, the rest being at the presidio, several miles away. Adjoining these are the storehouses and shops of the Indian workmen, all of which open on the great courtyard.
In the courtyard is a busy scene. Blacksmiths with hammer and anvil make sounding blows as they work up old iron into needed farm utensils. The soap maker’s caldron sends up a cloud of ill-smelling steam. At one side carpenters are at work trimming and cutting square holes in logs for the beams of new buildings which the padres wish to put up. Saddle makers, squatted on the ground, are busy fashioning saddletrees, carving, and sewing leather. The shoemaker is hard at work with needle and awl. These and many other trades are all going on at once. These courts, which are called patios, were generally several acres in extent and at the most flourishing period of the missions each settlement often gave shelter to over a thousand people.
Behind the central court is the home of the unmarried women. This, and the rooms for their work, open on a separate square where there is shade from orange and fig trees and a bathing pond supplied by the zanja, or water ditch. Here square-figured, heavy-featured Indian girls are busy spinning and weaving thread into cloth. Others are cutting out and sewing garments. Some, squatted on the ground, are grinding corn into a coarse meal for the atole, or mush. At the zanja several are engaged in washing clothes. Here these girls live under the care of an old Indian woman, and unless she accompanies them they may not, until they are married, go outside these walls. Near the mission we visit a long row of small adobe buildings, the homes of the families of the Christian Indians; a neat, busy settlement where the little ones, comfortably clothed, play about attended by the older children, while the mothers work for the padres four or five hours daily.
Leaving San Diego and traveling northward along “El Camino Real,” the highway which leads from mission to mission, we reach San Luis Rey, “King of the Missions,” as it is sometimes called. Its church is the largest of all those erected by the padres, being one hundred and sixty feet long, fifty-eight feet wide, and sixty feet high. Its one square, two-story tower has a chime of bells, the sweet clear tones of which reached our ears while we were yet miles from the mission. Counting the arches of the long corridor, we find there are two hundred and fifty-six. This mission became very wealthy. At one time it had a baptized Indian population of several thousand, owned twenty-four thousand cattle, ten thousand horses, and one hundred thousand sheep, and harvested fourteen thousand bushels of grain a year.
Its prosperity was due in a great measure to good Padre Peyri, who had charge of it from its beginning. Many years afterwards, as we shall see, the padres were ordered by the Mexican government to leave their missions, the wealth they had gathered, and the Indians they had taught and cared for. Father Peyri, knowing how hard it would be for him to get away from his Indian children, as he called them, slipped off by night to San Diego. In the morning the Indians missed him. Learning what had happened, five hundred of them mounted their ponies in hot haste and galloped all the way to San Diego, forty-five miles, to bring him back by force. They arrived just as the ship, with Padre Peyri on board, was weighing anchor. Standing on deck with outstretched arms, the padre blessed them amid their tears and loud cries. Some flung themselves into the water and swam after the ship. Four reached it, and, climbing up its sides, so implored to be taken on board that the padre consented and carried them with him to Rome, where one afterwards became a priest.
The next link in our chain, the most beautiful of all the missions, is that of San Juan Capistrano. It was founded in 1776, the year of our Declaration of Independence, but in 1812 it was destroyed by an earthquake, the massive towers and noble arch falling in on the Indians, who were assembled in the church for morning prayers. Many of them were killed. The church has never been rebuilt.
It is Christmas Day when we reach San Gabriel, the next station on El Camino Real. Inside the great cactus fence which incloses the square about the mission we see a strangely mixed company,–Indians in their best clothes, their faces shining from a liberal use of mission soap and water; soldiers in their leather suits freshened up for the holiday; a few ranchmen in the gay dress of the times, riding beautiful horses; women and girls each brilliant in a bright-colored skirt with shawl or scarf gracefully draped over head and shoulders.
The Christmas Day morning service, held at four o’clock and known by the common people as the Rooster Mass, is long since over. The crowd is now gathered for the Pastorel, which, like the miracle plays of the Middle Ages, is a drama with characters taken from the Bible.
First to appear on the scene is an orchestra composed of young Indians playing violins, bass viols, reeds, flutes, and guitars. Closely following come the actors, representing San Gabriel and attendant angels, Satan, Blind Bartimeus, and a company of shepherds. The entertainment is very simple. There is the announcement of the birth of the Savior, the adoration of the babe, and the offering of gifts. The play concludes with a protracted struggle between San Gabriel and Satan for the possession of Blind Bartimeus, in which the saint finally comes off victor while the orchestra plays lively music. After the Pastorel there are games, dancing, and feasting. Every one seems happy, and it is with regret that we leave the gay scene.
Through the hills to the north, across the Arroyo Seco, not dry now, but a swift stream turbulent from the winter rains, we journey on. We pass Eagle Rock, a great bowlder high upon the green hillside, one of the landmarks of the region, and enter the valley of the Los Angeles River. After traveling for several hours, we come to a large plantation of trees, vines, and grainfields, in the midst of which lies the mission of San Fernando. Its land extends for miles on every side and is exceedingly fertile. In front of the beautiful cloisters, under tall and stately palm trees, a fountain sends high its sparkling water, which falls back with pleasant tinkle into a basin of carved stone.
When we reach San Buenaventura, the next mission on our route, we find priests and Indians exceedingly busy, for word has come from Monterey that a Yankee trading vessel will soon sail for the south, and cattle must be killed and the fat rendered into tallow for the market. As hides and tallow are about the only commodities the padres have for sale, this is an important event. Indians tend the caldrons of bubbling grease, and keep up the fires under the kettles. When the tallow is slightly cooled, they pour it into sacks made from the skins of animals. These, when filled with the hardened tallow, look as though each again held a plump beast.
Traveling up the coast we come one afternoon to
A golden bay ‘neath soft blue skies
Where on a hillside creamy rise
The mission towers whose patron saint Is Barbara–with legend quaint.
Here spring is merging into summer, and we are in time to see the ceremony which closes the wheat harvest. The workmen gather the last four sheaves from the field, and, fastening them in the form of a cross, carry them, followed by a long procession of dusky reapers, up the ascent to the church. As they approach, the bells burst out in a joyous peal, and from the mission doors the padres come forth, one bearing a cross, another the banner of the Virgin. A choir of Indian boys follows, chanting a hymn. All advance slowly down the avenue to meet the sheaf bearers, then counter march to the church, where the harvest festival is celebrated.
Passing by other missions, we must close our journey with a visit to San Carlos, the Monterey mission, most prominent of all in the history of the church and state. It was from the first the special charge of Padre Junipero Serra, and, at the time we see it, his monument as well; for in it at last his weary body was laid to rest beside his friend Padre Juan Crespi, to whose writings, next to those of Padre Francisco Palou, we are most indebted for our knowledge of Junipero Serra and his great work. In 1813, with its graceful arched front and two towers, San Carlos was a noble-looking building, but since that time one tower has fallen.
We are reminded, as we look, of the scene when Junipero lay dying. Ever since morning the grief-stricken people had been waiting, listening for the news from the sick room. When the tolling of the bell announced that the beautiful life was ended, crowds came weeping and lamenting, anxious to see again the beloved face.
It was with great difficulty that the Indians could be kept from tearing the padre’s robe from his body, so earnestly did they desire to possess some relic of the father they had loved so long.
Here we notice the daily life of the Indian, which (in 1813) is the same at all the missions. At sunrise comes the sound of the bells calling to the morning prayers, and we see the natives hurrying to the church. After service they gather for breakfast of mush and tortillas. As the flocks and herds have increased, meat forms part of the daily food, sometimes from the freshly killed beeves, but generally in a dried state called carne seco. After breakfast the workers go in groups to their various employments. Dinner is served at eleven, and they have a resting period until two. Then work is again taken up and continued until an hour before sunset, when the bells call to evening prayer. Supper follows the evening service, after which the Indians can do as they like until bedtime. We see some engaged in a game of ball. Many are squatted on the ground playing other games,–gambling, we suspect. In one group there is dancing to the music of violin and guitar. There is laughter and chattering on all sides, and to us they seem happy, at least for the time.
The life led by the Indians at the missions was not generally a hard one. No doubt when they first came, or were brought, into the settlements, from their free wild life, they found it harder to keep the regular hours of the missions than to perform the work, which was seldom very heavy. When disobedient or lazy, they were punished severely, judging by the standards of to-day, but really no harder than was at that time the custom in schools and in navies the world over. When the soldiers came in contact with the natives, there was generally cruel treatment for the latter. But as far as possible the padres stood between their charges and the soldiers, always placing the mission as far from the presidio as the safety of the former would allow.
At San Diego, about five years after its settlement, wild Indians surprised the mission guard, and killed the padre and several of the converted Indians in a most cruel manner. The Spanish government gave orders that the murderers should be taken and executed and this mission abandoned; but Padre Junipero begged so hard for the culprits, who, he said, knew no better, having no knowledge of God, that he was finally allowed to have his way. Gentleness and patience won the day; not only the Indians who made the attack were converted, but many more of their tribe, and the mission became a flourishing settlement. There was once a rebellion among the Santa Clara and San Jose Indians, led by a young convert from Santa Clara, which required soldiers from Monterey to put down. Generally, however, the mission life was peaceful, the Indians being fond of their padres.
When Mexico became free from Spain, no more money was sent up to pay the soldiers or run the government in Upper California, and for a long time the missions advanced the money for the expenses of the government.
After a time the new priests who came up from Mexico were not generally men of such education and noble character as the early mission padres. They cared less for missionary work, and were not so energetic. Their influence was not always good for the Indians, who quickly saw the difference between them and their old padres. They had little confidence in the newcomers, so at the few missions where such as these were in charge the Indians were disobedient, and received harsh punishments from the padres; and trouble followed.
In 1833 the Mexican government decided to confirm the mandate issued by Spain several years before in regard to the breaking up of the mission settlements. By this law each Indian was to have his own piece of land to own and care for. He was to be no longer under the control of the church, but to be his own master like any other citizen. As for the padres, they were to give up their wealth and lands, and leave for other missionary fields. That this would create a great change in California all realized; still it was no new idea, but the plan Spain had in mind when the missions were first founded. The mistake was in supposing that it was possible for a people to rise in so short a time from the wild life of the California Indian to the position of self-supporting citizens in a civilized country.
When the Indians understood this order, some were pleased and, like children when freed from restraint, ceased to work and became troublesome. Many, however, when they found that the padres were to leave them, became very unhappy; some, it is said, even died from homesickness for the mission and the padre. One committed suicide.
It was soon seen that they were not fitted to look after themselves. Only a few years had passed since they were savages, knowing nothing of civilized life, and they still needed some one to guide them. They not only began to drink and gamble, but were cheated and ill-treated on all sides, until many of them became afraid of living in towns and went back to wild life. For this they were no longer fitted, and they suffered so much from hunger and cold that great numbers of them died.
Because the Indians were not capable of caring for themselves at the time of the secularization of the missions, the padres are often severely blamed. It is said that they tried to keep the natives without knowledge, in fact something like slaves. But the truth is that the padres taught them by thousands, not only to cultivate the soil, to irrigate wisely, to raise domestic cattle, but to work at every trade that could be of use in a new country. They were encouraged to choose from among themselves alcaldes, or under officers of the mission. In this way every inducement was given to the Indian showing himself capable of self-control, to rise to a prominent position in his little world, where he generally ruled his fellow-workmen wisely and kindly.
Added to this, the Indians acquired, through the teaching and example of the padres, a religion that has lasted through generations. The breaking up of the mission settlements scattered the Indians through the country, many of them going back to the wild life in the forest and mountains, where they no longer had any religious instructions. Yet to-day, after all the years that have passed, there are few Indians from San Diego to San Francisco who do not speak the language of the padres and follow, though it may be but feebly, the teaching of the Catholic faith, the “Santa Fe” of the padres.
Some of the mission buildings, many of the flocks, and much of the land fell into the hands of men who had no possible right to them. Orchards and vineyards were cut down, cattle killed and stolen, and there was only ruin where a short time before there had been thousands of busy people leading comfortable lives. Soon the churches were neglected and began to crumble away, bats flew in and out of the broken arches, squirrels chattered fearlessly in the padre’s dining room, and the only human visitor was some sad-hearted Indian worshiper, slipping timidly into the desolate building to kneel alone before the altar where once
Sweet strains from dusky neophytes
Rose up to God in praise,
When life centered ’round the missions In the happy golden days.
Chapter V
Pastoral Days
For hundreds of years poets have written and singers have sung of the loveliness of a country life, where there is no gathering together of the inhabitants in great cities, no struggle to make money, where the people live much out of doors, are simple in their tastes, healthy and happy.
These dreams of an ideal life the Spanish-speaking settlers of early California made real. In this land of balmy airs, soft skies, and gentle seas there lived, in the old days, a people who were indifferent to money, who carried their religion into their daily pleasures and sorrows, were brotherly toward one another, contented, beautiful, joyous.
About the time that the mission of San Francisco was founded, the Spanish government decided to lay out two towns, or pueblos, where it was thought the fertile character of the soil would lead the settlers to raise grain and other supplies, not only for themselves but for the people of the presidios. Up to this time a large part of the food had been brought, at a considerable cost, from Mexico.
We know that the governor, Felipe de Neve, chose the town sites with care, for in the whole state there are nowhere more beautiful and fertile spots than San Jose, near the southern end of San Francisco Bay, and Los Angeles, near the famous valley of the San Gabriel River. In founding these two pueblos, and a third which was located where Santa Cruz now stands, the plan pursued was interesting and somewhat different from the methods of settlement on the eastern coast of our country.
First there was chosen a spot for the plaza, or central square, care being taken that it was not far from good grazing land suitable for the settlers’ stock. Around the plaza, lots were set apart for the courthouse, town hall, church, granaries, and jail. Next were the lots for the settlers, who each had, besides his home spot, several acres of farming land with water, and the right to use the pasture lands of the town. To each family was given, also, two horses, two cows, two oxen, a mule, several goats, sheep, chickens, farming implements, and a small sum in money.
Instead of asking tax money of the town people, some of the land was reserved as public property to be rented out, the proceeds to be used for the expenses of the government. Many people believe that this is the wisest plan man has yet discovered for managing the expenses of a city, town, or country.
Los Angeles had for many years a large amount of this land near the center of the town, belonging to the city government. Gradually it was taken up by settlers or appropriated by officials until, when the place grew large and thriving, it was found that the land had become private property; and finally the city had to pay large sums for parks and land for public buildings.
Each pueblo was ruled by an alcalde, or mayor, and council, chosen by the people. To advise with these officers, there was a commissioner who represented the governor of the country. During the first few years the pueblo was governed largely by the commissioner. Presidios, which were, at first, forts with homes for the commander, officers, soldiers, and their families, and were ruled by the commanding officer or comandante, gradually became towns; and then they, too, had their alcalde and council. There were four presidios–Monterey, San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.
In spite of all the gifts of free land, stock, and money, it was hard to secure a suitable class of settlers. Many of those who came up from Mexico to live in the pueblos were idle or dissipated, and nearly all uneducated. When, after several years, a Spanish officer was sent down from Monterey to convey to the Los Angeles settlers full title to their lands, he found that not one of the twenty-four heads of families could sign his name. Later a much better class of people came into the country –men of education, brave, hardy members of good Spanish families, who obtained grants of land from the government, bought cattle from the mission herds, and began the business of stock raising.
This was the beginning of the pastoral or shepherd life. Each rancho was miles in extent, its cattle and horses numbered by thousands. The homes were generally built around a court into which all the rooms opened, and were constructed of adobe bricks such as were used at the missions. In the better class of homes several feet of the space in the courtyard next the wall were covered with tile roofing, forming a shaded veranda, where the family were accustomed to spend the leisure hours. Here they received visitors, the men smoked their cigaritos, and the children made merry. In the long summer evenings sweet strains of Spanish music from violin and guitar filled the air, and the hard earthen floor of the courtyard resounded to the tap-tap of high-heeled slippers, the swish of silken skirts, and the jingle of silver spurs, as the young people took part in the graceful Spanish dances.
It was no small matter to rule one of these great households. La Patrona (the mistress) was generally the first one up. “Before the sun had risen,” said a member of one of the old families, “while the linnets and mocking birds were sounding their first notes, my mother would appear at our bedside. ‘Up, muchachos, up, muchachas, and kneel for your Alba!’ The Alba was a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving for care during the night, with a plea for help through the dangers and temptations of the day. No excuse for lying abed was accepted; up, and on the floor we knelt, then she passed on to where the mayordomo, or foreman, and his men were gathering in the courtyard. Here, too, was the cook with the Indian maids, busy making tortillas for the morning meal. ‘Your Albas, my children,’ my mother would say in her clear, firm voice. Down would drop mayordomo, vaqueros, cook, and Indian girls, all devoutly reciting the morning prayer.
“After their prayer the children might, if they chose, return to their beds, but before sleep could again overtake them there would probably come from a distant room the voice of their aged grandfather asking them questions from the Spanish catechism.
“‘Children, who made you?’ he would call in a quavering voice.
“A chorus of small voices would sing-song in response, ‘El Dios’ [God].
“Again he would question, ‘Children, who died for you?’
“Again the reply, ‘El Dios.’
“By the time the questions were all answered there was no chance for more sleep.”
Nothing was taken with the morning coffee but the tortilla. This was a thin cake made of meal from corn ground by Indian women who used for the grinding either a stone mortar and pestle, or a metate. The metate was a three-legged stone about two feet in length and one in breadth, slightly hollowed out in the center; grain was ground in this by rubbing with a smaller stone. It took a great number of tortillas to serve the large household. One Indian maid, kneeling beside a large white stone which served as table, mixed the meal, salt, and water into balls of dough. These she handed to another girl, who spatted them flat and thin by tossing them from one of her smooth bare arms to the other until they were but a little thicker than a knife blade. The cook then baked them on a hot dry stone or griddle, turning them over and over to keep them from burning.
El Patron (the master) usually rose early, and after his coffee, put on his high, wide-brimmed sombrero, and, attended by his sons, if they were old enough, and his mayordomo, rode over his estate, looking after the Indian vaqueros and workmen. One gentleman, a member of a fine Spanish family which lived in the southern part of the state, used to ride out with his sixteen sons, all of whom were over six feet in height. Generally the families were large, often comprising twelve children or more. These made merry households for the little people.
After breakfast it was the duty of the mistress to set the host of Indian girls to their tasks. The padres were always glad to let the young Indian girls from the mission go into white families where there was a wise mistress, that they might be trained in both religious and domestic duties. Going to the gate of the courtyard, the Patrona would call, “To the brooms, to the brooms, muchachas,” adding, if it were foggy, “A very fine morning for the brooms, little ones;” and out would come running a cluster of Indian girls carrying each a broom. At the work they would go, sweeping as clean as a floor the courtyard and ground for a large space about the house.
Next they flocked to the sewing room, often sixteen or eighteen of these girls, to take up their day’s work under the mistress’s eye. Some made garments for the ranch hands, those who were better work women attended to the making of clothing for the family, while the girls who were the most skillful with the needle fashioned delicate, fine lace work and embroidery.
The children were seldom indoors unless it rained. There were no schools; there were few ranches where there were teachers, and the fathers and mothers generally had their hands too full to devote themselves to their children’s education, so in the early days it was all playtime. Later, schools were started for boys, and dreadful places they were.
As General Vallejo describes them, they were generally held in a narrow, badly lighted room, with no adornment but a large green cross or some picture of a saint hanging beside the master’s table. The master was often an old soldier in fantastic dress, with ill-tempered visage. The scholar entered, walked the length of the room, knelt before the cross or picture, recited a prayer, then tremblingly approached the master, saying, “Your hand, Senor Maestro,” when with a grunt the hand would be extended to him to be kissed. Little was taught besides the reading of the primer and the catechism.
Ranch boys early learned to ride, each having his own horse and saddle. Every year there was a rodeo, or “round-up,” held in each neighborhood, where cattle from all the surrounding ranches were driven to one point for the purpose of counting the animals and branding the young. Each stock owner had to be there with all the men from his ranch who could ride, nor must he forget his branding irons. These brands were recorded in the government book of the department, and any one changing the form of his iron in any manner without the permission of the judge was guilty of a crime.
To the boys the rodeo was the most interesting time of the whole year. The coming of the strange herds and vaqueros, the counting and the separating of the animals, and the branding of the young stock made a period of excitement and fun. Here was offered a chance for the display of good horsemanship. Sometimes as the cattle were being gradually herded into a circular mass, an unruly cow or bull would suddenly dart from the drove and run away at full speed. A vaquero on horseback would immediately dash after the animal, and, coming up with it, lean from the saddle and seizing the runaway by the tail, spur his horse forward. Then by a quick movement he would give a jerk and suddenly let go his hold, when the animal would fall rolling over and over on the ground. By the time it was up again it was tamed. Many a boy earned his first praise for good riding at a rodeo.
Nowhere in the world were there better and more graceful riders. Horses used for pleasure were fine, spirited animals. The saddle and the bridle were generally handsomely inlaid with silver or gold. A California gentleman in fiesta costume, mounted on his favorite horse, was a delight to the eyes. His hat, wide in the brim, high and pointed in the crown, was made of soft gray wool and ornamented with gold or silver lace and cord, sometimes embroidered with rubies and emeralds until it was very heavy and exceedingly valuable. His white shirt was of thin, embroidered muslin, and the white stock, too, was of thin stuff wrapped several times around the neck, then tied gracefully in front. The jacket was of cloth or velvet, in dark colors, blue, green, or black, with buttons and lace trimmings of silver or gold, often of a very elaborate design. About the waist was tied a wide sash of soft material and gay color, the ends hanging down at the side. The breeches were of velvet or heavy cloth, dark in color, save when the rider was gay in his taste, then they might be of bright tints. They either ended at the knee, below which were leggings of deerskin, or fitted the figure closely down to just above the ankle, where they widened out and were slashed at the outer seam, showing thin white drawers, which puffed prettily between the slashes. A gentleman in Los Angeles still has the trimmings for such suit, consisting of three hundred and fifty pieces of silver filigree work.
Every one seemed to live out of doors, and though the ranchos were widely scattered, there was much visiting and social gayety. All who could, traveled on horseback; while the mother of the family, the children, and old people used the clumsy carreta with its squeaking wheels.
One of the prettiest sights was a wedding procession as it escorted the bride from her home to the mission church. Horses were gayly caparisoned, and the riders richly dressed. The nearest relative of the bride carried her before him on the saddle, across which hung a loop of gold or silver braid for her stirrup, in which rested her little satin-shod foot. Her escort sat behind her on the bearskin saddle blanket. Accompanying the party were musicians playing guitar and violin, each managing horse and instrument with equal skill.
The California woman generally wore a full skirt of silk, satin, wool, or cotton, a loose waist of thin white goods, and, in cold weather, a short bolero jacket of as rich material as could be obtained. A bright-colored ribbon served for a sash, and a lace handkerchief or a muslin scarf was folded over the shoulders and neck. In place of bonnet and wrap a lace or silk shawl, or a narrow scarf called a rebosa, was gracefully draped over the head and shoulders.
Children were dressed like the older people, and very pretty were the girls in their low-necked, short-sleeved camisas or waists, and full gay skirts, their hair in straight braids hanging down over the shoulders. The short breeches, pretty round jackets, and gay sashes were very becoming to the boys.
At night the daughters of the house, big and little, were locked into their rooms by their mother, the father attending in the same manner to the boys. In the morning the mother’s first duty was to unlock these doors.
Various games were played. Blindman’s buff was a great favorite for moonlight nights. There was also a game called cuatrito, in which the players threw bits of stone at a mark drawn on the ground at a certain distance.
“In my time,” said a prominent Californian of to-day, “we used to play this game with golden slugs instead of stones; there was always a basket of slugs sitting door. We liked them because they carried well, and we thought it nothing unusual to use them as playthings. They were abundant in most of the houses; my mother and her friends used them as soap dishes in, the bedrooms.
“In the spare rooms was always a little pile of money covered by a napkin, from which the visitor was expected to help himself if he needed. We would have considered it disgraceful to count the guest money.”
“Our parents were very strict with us,” said another Californian, “much more so than is the custom to-day. Sometimes while the parents, brothers, and sisters were eating their meal, a child who was naughty had for punishment to kneel in one corner of the dining room before a high stool, on which was an earthen plate, a tin cup, and a wooden spoon. It was worse than a flogging, a thousand times. As soon as the father went out, the mother and sisters hastened to the sorrowful one and comforted him with the best things from the table.”
The clothes were not laundered each week, but were saved up often for several weeks or even a month or two, and then came a wash-day frolic. Imagine wash day looked forward to as a delightful event! So it was, however, to many California children. Senorita Vallejo, in the Century Magazine (Vol. 41), thus describes one of these excursions:–
“It made us children happy to be waked before sunrise to prepare for the ‘wash-day expedition.’ The night before, the Indians had soaped the clumsy carreta’s great wheels. Lunch was placed in baskets, and the gentle oxen were yoked to the pole. We climbed in under the green cloth of an old Mexican flag which was used as an awning, and the white-haired Indian driver plodded beside with his long oxgoad. The great piles of soiled linen were fastened on the backs of horses led by other servants, while the girls and women who were to do the washing trooped along by the side of the carreta. Our progress was slow, and it was generally sunrise before we reached the spring. The steps of the carreta were so low that we could climb in or out without stopping the oxen. The watchful mother guided the whole party, seeing that none strayed too far after flowers, or loitered too long. Sometimes we heard the howl of coyotes and the noise of other wild animals, and then none of the children were allowed to leave the carreta.
“A great dark mountain rose behind the spring, and the broad, beautiful valley, unfenced and dotted with browsing herds, sloped down to the bay [of San Francisco]. We watched the women unload the linen and carry it to the spring, where they put home-made soap on the clothes, dipped them in the spring, and rubbed them on the smooth rocks until they were white as snow. Then they were spread out to dry on the tops of the low bushes growing on the warm, windless southern slopes of the mountain.” After a happy day in the woods came “the late return at twilight, when the younger children were all asleep in the slow carreta and the Indians were singing hymns as they drove the linen-laden horses down the dusky ravines.”
As at the missions, soon the ranchos, little was raised for sale save hides and tallow from the cattle. It was not the fault of the settlers that, living in so fertile a country, they made so little use of its productiveness. Spain’s laws in regard to trade were made entirely in the interests of the mother country, the settlers of New Spain, especially of Alta California, having no encouragement to raise more than they needed for use at home. They could not sell their produce to ships from foreign countries, for the penalty for that was death to the foreigner and severe punishment for the colonist. All trade had to be carried on in Spanish vessels, and it was forbidden to ship olive oil, wine, or anything that was raised or made in the home country. As California and Spain were much alike in climate and soil, this law really stopped all outside trade except that arising from cattle.
After the territory became a Mexican province, the rules were not so severe in regard to foreign trade, and finally the New England vessels freely entered the ports by paying certain duties to the government.
To the young people upon the ranchos the arrival of a trading vessel was a great event. If the port was not far from the house, the Patrona and the young ladies sometimes went on board to select for themselves from the miscellaneous cargo the things they desired; but as they were generally afraid of the water, especially of trusting themselves in the ship’s boats, the father and boys often represented the family on such occasions.
When news arrived that a ship was coming down the coast, elder sisters became very kind and attentive to younger brothers, who accepted panocha (a coarse brown sugar cast in square or scalloped cakes) and other gifts contentedly, knowing well they would be expected to “coax Father” to buy the ring, sash, necklace, or fan which the good sister particularly desired. Often a ranchero would go down to the harbor with ten or fifteen ox carts loaded with hides, skins, and tallow, and return with ranch implements, furniture, dishes, sugar, other food, clothes, and ornaments of all kinds. Such laughing, chattering, and excitement as there was when the squeaking ox carts came into the courtyard! The whole household, from the Patrona and her guests to the Indian mothers with their children from the kitchen precincts, gathered to watch the slow unloading of the purchases. Slow, indeed, seemed the process to the eager children of the family. Except on horseback for a short dash, the Californian never hurried. For a journey the usual gait was a little jog trot, hardly faster than a walk.
Senorita Vallejo, in the Century Magazine, describes the loading of a ship’s cargo: “The landing place for the mission of San Jose was at the mouth of a salt water creek several miles away. When a trading vessel entered San Francisco Bay, the large ship’s boat would be sent up this creek to collect the hides and tallow; but if the season was a wet one, the roads would be too bad for the ox carts; then each separate hide was doubled across the middle and placed on the head of an Indian. Sometimes long files of Indians might be seen, each carrying hides in this manner, as they trotted across the wide, flat plains or pushed their way through the little forest of dried mustard stalks to the creek mouth.”
No such thing was known as a Californian breaking his word in regard to a debt. Yankee ship owners trusted him freely. Once, when a ship was in port, the captain left it for a little while in charge of the clerk whose business it was to sell the goods, but who had never been in California before and knew nothing of its customs. Down to the shore came a ranchero attended by servants and ox carts. He came on board and bought many things, intending to pay later with hides and tallow which were not then ready. When he ordered the goods taken ashore with never a word as to payment, the clerk informed him that he must either give money or else give some writing saying that he would pay.
Now this Californian, though rich in lands and stock, could neither read nor write. When he understood that he was being distrusted, he gravely drew from his beard a hair, and, handing it to the clerk, said: “Give this to your master and tell him it is a hair from the beard of Agustin Machado. You will find it sufficient guarantee.” The clerk saw that he had made a mistake, and, taking the hair, placed it in the leaves of his note book and allowed the goods to be taken away. When the captain returned, he was mortified that there had been any distrust shown.
While California was a Spanish province its chief ruler was appointed by the home government and was always an educated gentleman of good family, generally an officer of the army. The coming of a new governor was a great event in the colony and was celebrated with all possible ceremony and display.
In 1810 Mexico began its revolt against Spain. In California the people were in sympathy with the mother country and had no doubt of her final success. For a long time they received little news of how the war was progressing. They only knew that no more money was sent up to pay the soldiers or the expenses of government, that the padres no longer received any income from the Pius Fund, that even the trading vessels from Mexico upon which they depended for their supplies had ceased to come.
Times became so hard that the local government turned for aid to the missions, which had become largely self-supporting. Many of them were indeed wealthy communities, and the padres responded generously to the demand for help. For several years they furnished food and clothing to the soldiers, and money for the expenses of government, for the most of which they never received payment.
Gradually the fine clothes of the Californians wore out, no vessels arrived from which they could purchase more, and again it was the missions which came to the rescue. Their cotton and woolen goods were in great demand. Indian spinners and weavers were busy from morning until night making clothes for the “gente de razon,” or “people of reason,” which was the term by which the white settlers were distinguished from the natives.
In 1822 a vessel came up from the south, bringing to the governor official notice that the war had been decided in favor of Mexico, and that California was therefore a Mexican province. This was disagreeable news to the Californians, but after consultation held by the governor, his officers, the padre who was the president of the missions, and some of the leading citizens, it was decided that they were too far away from Spain to be able to resist, and that they should take the oath to be true to the Mexican government. For the padres, who were all Spaniards and loyal to the home government, this was a hard thing to do, and they never became reconciled to the change.
From this time California was not so well governed. Mexico, which was then an empire but soon became a republic, had its hands full looking after its own affairs, and little attention was paid its far-off province. Its best men were needed at home, and the governors sent up the coast were not always wise or pleasing to the people. There were several revolutions with but little bloodshed. One governor was sent back to Mexico. At one time the Californians declared that theirs was a free state, and a young man named Alvarado was made governor. General Vallejo, who was his uncle, was given command of the army. But soon the Californians quarreled bitterly among themselves, so that this government did not last long and the territory went back under the rule of Mexico. That government, in order to have peace in the province, confirmed Alvarado and Vallejo in their positions.
During the war between Mexico and Spain a South American pirate paid a visit to the coast of Upper California. Monterey was attacked and partly destroyed, also the mission of San Juan Capistrano and the rancho El Refugio, the home of Captain Ortega, the discoverer of San Francisco Bay. In the crew of the pirate ship was a young American named Chapman, who had found life among his rough associates not so interesting as he had hoped it would be, so he deserted, but was taken prisoner by the Californians and imprisoned in a canyon near the present site of Pasadena. Later he was brought down to Los Angeles and set at liberty. He found the people of the pueblo planning to build a church on the plaza, and he told them that if they would let him have some Indian workmen he would get some large timbers down from the canyon. He accomplished this successfully, and it was considered a wonderful work. The stumps of the trees can yet be seen far up on the mountain side, and the timbers are still in the plaza church.
Visiting San Gabriel, young Chapman found the padres having trouble to keep the flour which they ground in their new stone mill from being dampened by water from the mill wheel. Knowing something of machinery, the American remedied the defect by means of a flutter wheel, and there was no more trouble.
For years the catching of otters for their fur along the lagoons and bays about San Francisco and Monterey brought considerable money to the northern missions. Chapman, finding that the padres of San Gabriel were anxious to engage in this trade, built for them the first sea-going boat ever constructed in southern California. It was a schooner, the various parts of which he made in the workshop of the mission. They were then carried down to San Pedro, where he put them together and successfully launched the vessel.
Finally, to close his history, it is recorded of Mr. Chapman that he fell in love with the pretty daughter of Captain Ortega, whose home he had helped his pirate associates to attack, that he married her and lived to a good old age. The country had few more useful citizens than this capable man, the first American to settle in the southern part of California.
With the secularization of the missions in 1833-34 came a change in the peaceful pastoral life. In each section all that was of interest had from the first centered around its mission. One of the chief pleasures of the early Californians was the feast day, “La Fiesta,” which celebrated a saint’s birthday. During the year there were many of these festivals. First there were religious exercises at the mission church; then in the great square there followed dancing, games, and feasting, in which all classes took some part. These happy church festivals ceased with the breaking up of the mission settlements. Some of the Indians disturbed the community by disorderly conduct, and the ill treatment and suffering of the rest of these simple people caused sorrow and dismay in the hearts of the better portion of the settlers. There was a wild scramble for the lands, stock, and other wealth which had been gathered by the missionaries and their Indian workmen.
Many of the beautiful churches were sold to people who cared nothing for the faith they represented. In some, cattle were stabled. The mission bells were silent, and many of the mission settlements, once so busy and prosperous, were solitary and in ruins.
Life in the great ranchos still went on much as before, but it was no longer so simple and joyous. A change had begun, and not many years later, with the coming of the Americans at the time of the Mexican war, the peaceful, happy life of Spanish California was brought to an end.
Chapter VI
The Footsteps of the Stranger
At no point does the early history of California come in contact with that of the colonies of the Eastern coast of the United States. The nearest approach to such contact was in the year 1789, when Captain Arguello, commander of the presidio of San Francisco, received the following orders from the governor of the province:–
“Should there arrive at your port a ship named Columbia, which, they say, belongs to General Washington of the American States, you will take measures to secure the vessel with all the people aboard with discretion, tact, cleverness, and caution.” As the Columbia failed to enter the Californian port, the Spanish commander had no chance to try his wits and guns with those of the Yankee captain.
It would seem as though the Californians lived for a time in fear of their Eastern neighbors, since prayers were offered at some of the missions that the people be preserved from “Los Americanos;” but after the coming of the first two or three American ships, when trade began to be established, there arose the kindliest feeling between the New England traders and the Californians. The ship Otter, from Boston, which came to the coast in 1796, was the first vessel from the United States to anchor in a California port.
La Perouse, in command of a French scientific expedition, was the first foreigner of prominence to visit California. Of his visit, which occurred in the fall of 1786, he writes in his journal: “The governor put into the execution of his orders in regard to, us a graciousness and air of interest that merits from us the liveliest acknowledgments, and the padres were as kind to us as the officers. We were invited to dine at the Mission San Carlos, two leagues from Monterey, were received upon our arrival there like lords of a parish visiting their estates. The president of the missions, clad in his robe, met us at the door of the church, which was illuminated as for the grandest festival. We were led to the foot of the altar and the Te Deum chanted in thanksgiving for the happy issue of our voyage.”
La Perouse’s account of the country, the people, and the missions is of great value in giving us a picture of these times. In regard to the Indians he said that he wished the padres might teach them, besides the principles of the Christian religion, some facts about law and civil government, “Although,” said he, “I admit that their progress would be very slow, the pains which it would be necessary to take very hard and tiresome.”
Captain Vancouver, with two vessels of the British navy, bound on an exploring voyage round the world, was the next stranger to visit, California. So much did he enjoy the courtesy of the Spanish officers that when his map of the coast came out it was found that he had honored his hosts of San Francisco and Monterey by naming for them two leading capes of the territory, one Point Arguello and the other Point Sal.
As early as 1781 Russia had settlements in Sitka and adjacent islands, for the benefit of its fur traders, and in 1805 the Czar sent a young officer of his court to look into the condition of these trading posts. Count Rezanof found the people suffering and saw that unless food was brought to them promptly, they would die from starvation. San Francisco was the nearest port, and though he knew that Spain did not allow trade with foreign countries, the Russian determined to make the attempt to get supplies there. Loading a vessel with goods which had been brought out for the Indian trade of the north coast, he sailed southward. The story of his visit is well told by Bret Harte in his beautiful poem, “Concepcion de Arguello.”
Rezanof was warmly welcomed and generously entertained by Commander Arguello of the presidio of San Francisco, but in vain did he try to trade off his cargo for food for his starving people. The governor and his officers dared not disobey the laws of Spain in regard to foreign trade. While they were arguing and debating, however, something happened which changed their views. The Count fell in love with the commander’s beautiful daughter, Concepcion. Then, as the poem has it,–
“. . . points of gravest import yielded slowly one by one, And by Love was consummated what Diplomacy begun.”
It seemed to the governor that the man who was to be son-in-law in the powerful family of Arguello could not be considered as a foreigner, and therefore the law need not apply in his case. Thus the Count got his ship load of food and sailed away, promising to return as soon as possible for his betrothed wife. One of the most interesting pictures of early California is the poem which tells of this pathetic love story.
Count Rezanof was so pleased with the beauty and fertility of California that his letters interested the Czar, who decided to found a colony on the coast. An exploring expedition was sent out, and the territory about Russian River in Sonoma County was purchased of the Indians for three blankets, three pairs of trousers, two axes, three hoes, and some beads. Fort Ross was the main settlement, and was the home of the governor, his officers and their families, all accomplished, intelligent men and women. Besides the soldiers there were a number of mechanics and a company of natives from the Aleutian Islands, who were employed by the Russians to hunt the otter. Up and down the coast roamed these wild sea hunters, even collecting their furry game in San Francisco Bay and defying the comandante of the presidio, who had no boats with which to pursue them, and so could do nothing but fume and write letters of remonstrance to the governor of Fort Ross. Spain, and later Mexico, looked with disfavor and suspicion upon the Russian settlement, but the people of California were always ready for secret trade with their northern neighbors.
In 1816 Otto von Kotzebue, captain of the Russian ship Rurik, visited San Francisco and was entertained by the comandante, Lieutenant Luis Arguello. With Captain Kotzebue was the German poet, Albert von Chamisso.
The Russian captain, with brighter faith and keener insight than any other of the early visitors to the coast, says of the country: “It has hitherto been the fate of these regions to remain unnoticed; but posterity will do them justice; towns and cities will flourish where all is now desert; the waters over which scarcely a solitary boat is yet seen to glide will reflect the flags of all nations; and a happy, prosperous people receiving with thankfulness what prodigal nature bestows for their use will dispense her treasures over every part of the world.”
In the writings of Albert von Chamisso can be found a most interesting description of his visit. To him is due the honor of giving to our Californian poppy its botanical name.
In 1841, the supply of otter having become exhausted, the Russians sold their property and claims about Fort Ross to the Swiss emigrant, the genial John Sutter. In 1903, through the agency of the Landmarks Society, this property and its still well-preserved buildings came into the possession of the state of California.
As early as 1826 there were a number of foreigners settled in California. These were mostly men from Great Britain or the United States who had married California women and lived and often dressed like their Spanish-speaking neighbors. Captain John Sutter, the Swiss who bought out the Russians of Fort Ross, came to California in 1839. He obtained from the Mexican government an extensive grant of land about the present site of Sacramento, and here he erected the famous Sutter’s Fort where all newcomers, were made welcome and, if they desired, given work under this kindest of masters. Around the fort, which was armed with cannon bought from the Russians, he built a high stockade. He gained the good will of the Indians and had their young men drilled daily in military tactics by a German officer.
Governor Alvarado, at the time of his revolution in 1837, had in his forces, under a leader named Graham, a company of wandering Americans, trappers and hunters of the roughest type. Although there was no real war, and no fighting occurred, yet when Alvarado and his party were successful, Graham and his men demanded large rewards, and because the governor would not satisfy them they began to persecute him in every way possible. Alvarado says: “I was insulted at every turn by the drunken followers of Graham; when I walked in my garden they would climb on the wall and call upon me in terms of the greatest familiarity, ‘Ho, Bautista, come here, I want to speak to you.’ It was ‘Bautista’ here, ‘Bautista’ there.”
To express dissatisfaction they held meetings in which they talked loudly about their country’s getting possession of the land, until Governor Alvarado, having good reason to believe that they were plotting a revolution, expelled them from the territory and sent them to Mexico.
The United States took up the defense of the exiles and insisted on their being returned to California. It does not seem that the better class of Americans who had been long residents of the country sympathized with Graham and his followers, but from this time there were less kindly relations between the Californians and the citizens of the United States who came into the territory.
We come now to the story of the conquest.
At the beginning of the year 1845 the United States and Mexico were on the verge of war over Texas, which had been formerly a Mexican province, but through the influence of American settlers had rebelled, declaring itself an independent state, and had applied for admission to the American Union. Because the question of slavery was concerned in this application, it caused intense excitement throughout the United States. The South was determined to have the new territory come in as a slave-holding state, while the men of the North opposed the annexation of another acre of slave land.
Eight Northern legislatures protested against its admission. Twelve leading senators of the North declared that “it would result in the dissolution of the United States and would justify it.” On the other hand, the South resolved that “it would be better to be out of the Union with Texas than in it without her.” The South won its point. Texas was admitted, and at once a dispute with Mexico arose over the boundary lines, and war at length followed, being brought on in a measure by the entrance of United States troops into the disputed territory. During the long discussion over Texas the United States was having trouble with Great Britain over Oregon, which was then the whole country lying between the Mexican province of California and the Russian possessions on the north coast (now Alaska). Before the invention of steam cars and the construction of railroads, the Pacific coast region had been thought of little value. The popular idea was expressed by Webster when he said: “What do we want of this vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs?” But now the United States was waking up, and things looked different. Of Oregon the Americans were determined to have at least a portion. California, so far away from Mexico and so poorly governed, they would like to take under their protection,–at least the region around the great Bay of San Francisco.
As early as 1840 the United States government urged its consul at Monterey, an American named Larkin, secretly to influence the leading Californians to follow the example of Texas, secede from Mexico, and join the United States, where he was to assure them they would receive a brother’s welcome. Just as he felt he might be successful his plans were overthrown.
One morning in 1842 there came sailing into Monterey Bay two American men-of-war. Suddenly, to the consternation of those watching from the shore, one of the ships was seen to fire upon an outgoing Mexican sloop. After making it captive the three vessels proceeded to the anchorage. Great was the excitement in Monterey. Neither the comandante nor the American consul could imagine the reason for such strange conduct. It was soon explained, however, by the arrival of a ship’s boat bringing an officer who delivered to the authorities a demand for the surrender of the fort and place to the American commander of the Pacific fleet, Commodore Jones, who was on board one of the newly arrived vessels.
The Mexican officials and the officers of the army were astonished; so, too, was the United States consul. They knew of no war between these countries. Since he had neither men nor arms to resist this strange demand, Alvarado, who was acting for the absent governor, gave orders to surrender, and the next day the Mexican flag and forces gave place to those of the United States.
After the ceremony of taking possession, Commodore Jones had a talk with the American consul, Mr. Larkin, and learned to his dismay that the letters upon which he had acted and which indicated that war had been declared were misleading, and from the latest news it was evident that there was peace between the two countries.
The commodore saw at once that he had made a serious mistake, “a breach of the faith of nations,” as it was called, which was liable to involve the United States in grave difficulties. How best to undo his rash action was now his thought.
He apologized to the Mexican commander and gave back possession of the fort. Next, he had the unhappy task of taking down the American flag and replacing it with the cactus and eagle banner of Mexico, to which the guns of his vessels gave a salute of honor. From Monterey he sailed away to San Pedro. There he waited while he sent a messenger to Governor Micheltorena, who was living in Los Angeles, asking permission to call upon him and apologize in person. This request was granted, and Commodore Jones and his staff came up to Los Angeles, where they were the guests of their countryman, Don Abel Stearns, who, as he had been working with Consul Larkin to win the Californians to the United States, was most anxious to undo the mischief of the flag raising. For the benefit of this history, Dona Arcadia Bandini, who was the beautiful Spanish wife of Mr. Stearns, tells the story of the visit:–
“We gave a dinner to the governor, the commodore, and their attendants. Everything was very friendly; they seemed to enjoy themselves, and the uniforms of the two countries were very handsome. On the next day but one the governor gave a ball. It was to be at his home, which was the only two-story house in Los Angeles. To show the Americans how patriotic the people of California were, the governor requested in the invitations that all the ladies wear white with a scarf of the Mexican colors,– red, green, and white. Of course we gladly complied, though some of us had to work hard to get our costumes ready.
“The day of the ball came, but with it came rain, such a storm as I never had seen. As it drew toward evening the water came down faster and faster. The governor had the only carriage in California, and this he was to send for the commodore, Mr. Stearns, Isadora, and myself; but the poor young officers had to walk, and their faces were long when they looked out at the rain and then down at their fine uniforms and shining boots.
“Our California horses were not trained to pull loads and would not work in the rain, so when the carriage came for us it was drawn by a number of the governor’s Cholo soldiers. We got in quite safely, and it was only a short distance we had to go, but as I was getting out the wind suddenly changed and down came a torrent of water on me. It was clear that I could not go to the ball in that condition, but the governor immediately ordered the soldiers to pull the carriage back to my home, where I soon made another toilet. The ball was delightful. The governor and the commodore vied with each other in exchanging compliments and courtesies.”
It was a sad fact, however, that in spite of apologies, dinners, and balls, Consul Larkin now found it difficult to persuade his California neighbors that the United States looked upon them as brothers, and they began to regard with suspicion the host of American emigrants who were coming into the territory.
In 1842 Lieutenant Fremont, under orders from the United States government, made the first of his wonderful journeys over deserts and rough mountain ranges into the great unknown West. Soon he was to become famous, not only in his own country but in Europe, as the “Pathfinder,” the road maker of the West. Already many an Oregon emigrant had blessed the name of Fremont for making plain the trail for himself and his loved ones.
In 1846 Captain Fremont, conducting an exploring and scientific expedition, entered California with sixty men and encamped in the valley of the San Joaquin. Later he moved down into the heart of the California settlements and encamped on the Salinas River. Possibly, knowing that war would soon be declared between his country and Mexico, he had determined to see as much of the enemy’s position as possible, not caring particularly what the Mexican authorities might think.
As a natural result, General Castro, commander of the California forces, objected; Fremont defied him, and there seemed a likelihood of immediate war. There was no actual fighting, however, and in a day or two Fremont continued his journey toward Oregon.
He had gone but a little way when he was overtaken by a captain of the navy named Gillespie, bringing him letters from the officers of the government at Washington. Upon reading these, Fremont immediately turned about and marched swiftly back to Sutter’s Fort, where he encamped. Just what orders the messages from Washington contained, no one knows; but it is thought that perhaps they informed Fremont that war would be declared very soon and that the government would be pleased if he could quietly get possession of California.
If this was so, he had the best of reasons for his later actions. If not, then in his eagerness to obtain for his country the valuable territory he so well appreciated and in his desire to win for himself the honor of gaining it, he brought on a war that caused the loss of many lives and much property, and the growth of a feeling of bitterness and distrust between Americans and Californians that has not yet entirely passed away. Still it is by no means certain that California could have been won without fighting, even had Fremont and the American settlers been more patient.
Soon many Americans were gathered about Fremont’s camp; but though there were a number of rumors as to what General Castro was going to do to them, there was no action contrary to the previous kindly treatment all had received from the hands of the Californians. Still the emigrants felt that as soon as war was declared an army from Mexico might come up which would not be so considerate of them and their families as had been their California neighbors.
Having good reason to feel certain that Fremont would stand back of them if they began the fight, a company of Americans attacked one of Castro’s officers, who, with a few men, was taking a band of horses to Monterey. Securing the horses, but letting the men who had them in charge get away, they hurried them to Fremont’s camp, where they left them while they went on to Sonoma. Here they made prisoner General Vallejo, commander of that department of the territory, together with his brother and staff.
General Vallejo was one of the leading Californians of the north, a man of fine character, quiet and conservative, generous toward the needy emigrants and favorable to annexation with the United States. When he saw the rough character of the men surrounding his house that Sunday morning, he was at first somewhat alarmed. A man named Semple, who was one of the attacking party, describing the event in a Monterey paper sometime afterward, says: “Most of us were dressed in leather hunting shirts, many were very greasy, and all were heavily armed. We were about as rough a looking set of men as one could well imagine.” When they assured the general that they were acting under orders from Fremont, he seemed to feel no more anxiety, gave up his keys, and arranged for the protection of the people of his settlement. He was first taken to Fremont’s headquarters, then for safe keeping was sent on to Sutter’s Fort.
Meanwhile the party which had been left in charge of affairs at Sonoma chose one of their number, a man named Ide, as their leader. Realizing that they had begun a war, they felt the need of a flag, and not daring to use that of the United States, they proceeded to make one for themselves. For their emblem they chose the strongest and largest of the animals of California, the grizzly bear. The flag was made of a Mexican rebosa or scarf of unbleached muslin about a yard in width and five feet long. To the bottom of this they sewed a strip of red flannel; in one corner they outlined a five-pointed star, and facing it a grizzly bear. These were filled in with red ink and under them in black letters were the words “California Republic.” The temporary government of the followers of the Bear Flag is generally known as the “Bear Flag Republic.”
As soon as it seemed probable that the Californians under General Castro were marching to attack the Americans, Captain Fremont joined his countrymen, and from that time the United States flag took the place of the banner of the bear. A little later Captain Fremont took the presidio and port of San Francisco, and to him is due the honor of naming beautiful Golden Gate.
About two weeks after the capture of Sonoma, Commodore Sloat, with two vessels of the United States navy, entered the harbor of Monterey. Although he had come for the purpose of taking the territory for his country, and had orders to see to it that England did not get possession of California ahead of him, yet he had been cautioned to deal kindly with the Californians, and he hesitated to take decided steps. It took him six days to make up his mind, and then he came to a decision partly on account of the actions of Fremont and his men. Slowly up the flagstaff on the fort of Monterey rose the Stars and Stripes. Unfolded by the sea breeze, the beautiful flag of the United States waved again over the land of the padres, and this time to stay. A few days later Commodore Stockton reached California to take command in place of Commodore Sloat, who returned home. Stockton appointed Fremont commander of the American forces on land, and together they completed the conquest of the territory.
It was unfortunate that Commodore Stockton had so lately arrived from the East that he did not fully understand the state of affairs. As he believed the wild rumors which, falsely, accused the Californians of treachery and cruelty, his proclamations were harsh and unjust to the proud but kindly people whom he was conquering. Many of the late historians find much to blame in the treatment given by the Americans to the people of California. Severity was often used when kindness would have had far better effect.
Los Angeles and San Diego were taken by Stockton and Fremont without any fighting, and leaving a few troops in the south, both commanders returned to Monterey. They were soon recalled by the news that the people of Los Angeles had risen against the harsh rule of Captain Gillespie, who had been left in command; that the Americans had surrendered but had been allowed to retire to San Pedro, and that all the south was in a state of active rebellion.
Landing at San Pedro, Stockton waited a few days, then fearing the enemy was too strong for his forces, sailed away to San Diego. Here the Americans received a hearty welcome, and much-needed assistance, from the Spanish families of Bandini and Arguello.
Mr. Bandini escorted a body of the United States troops to his home rancho on the peninsula of Lower California, where he gave them cattle and other food supplies. For this aid to the invaders he was forced to remove his family from their home there, and on the journey up to San Diego. Mrs. Bandini made what was probably the first American flag ever constructed in California. As they neared San Diego the officer in command discovered that he had neglected to take with him a flag. He did not wish to enter the settlement without one, and when the matter was explained to Mrs. Bandini, who was journeying in a carreta with her maids and children, she offered to supply the need.
From the handbag on her arm came needle, thimble, thread, and scissors, and from the clothing of her little ones the necessary red, white, and blue cloth. Under the direction of the young officer she soon had a very fair-looking flag, and beneath its folds the party marched into the town. That night the band of the flagship Congress serenaded Mrs. Bandini in her San Diego home, and the next day Commodore Stockton called to thank her in person. The flag, it is said, he sent to Washington, where it is still to be found with other California trophies.
The most severe battle of the war in the state of California was fought on the San Pasqual rancho in San Diego County. The forces engaged were those of General Andres Pico, who commanded the Californians, and General Stephen Kearny, who had marched overland, entered the territory on the southwest, and was on his way to join Stockton. Hearing that the country was conquered and the fighting over, the American officer had sent back about two hundred of his men, but he was afterward reinforced by Captain Gillespie and fifty men sent by Stockton to meet him. Several American officers were killed in the battle of San Pasqual, and their brave commander severely wounded.
Commodore Stockton, on his march from San Diego to Los Angeles, twice engaged the enemy, once at the crossing of the San Gabriel River and once on the Laguna rancho just east of the city. The Californians behaved with great bravery. All of them were poorly armed, many having only lances and no fire-arms, and what powder they had was almost worthless; yet three times they dashed upon the square of steadily firing United States marines.
This was the last battle in the territory. The Californians retreated across the hills to the present site of Pasadena. Here, at the little adobe house on the banks of the Arroyo Seco, they separated. General Flores, their commander, was to ride with his staff through the stormy night, down El Camino Real toward Mexico. General Andres Pico, upon whom devolved the duty of surrender, was to ride with his associates to the old Cahuenga ranch house, the first station on the highway from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. There he met Captain Fremont, and the treaty was signed which closed hostilities. The terms proposed by Fremont were favorable for the Californians and did much to make way for a peaceful settlement of all difficulties.
Chapter VII
At the Touch of King Midas
It was by chance that gold was discovered in both northern and southern California, and by chance that many great fortunes were made.
Juan Lopez, foreman of the little ranch of St. Francis in Los Angeles County, one morning in March, 1842, while idly digging up a wild onion, or brodecia, discovered what he thought lumps of gold clinging to its roots. Taking samples of the metal, he rode down to Los Angeles to the office of Don Abel Stearns, who recognized it as gold.
Soon Juan and his companions were busy digging and washing the earth and sands in the region where the little wild flowers grew. These mines were called “placer,” from a Spanish word meaning loose or moving about, because the metal was loosely mixed with sand and gravel, generally in the bed of a stream or in a ravine where there had once been a flow of water which had brought the gold down from its home in the mountains.
From these mines Don Abel Stearns sent, in a sailing vessel round Cape Horn, the first parcel of California gold dust ever received at the United States mint, and it proved to be of very good quality.
The San Fernando mines, as they were called, because they were on a ranch that had once belonged to San Fernando mission, yielded many thousand dollars’ worth of gold dust. It is on record that one firm in Los Angeles, which handled most of the gold from these and other mines of southern California, paid out in the course of twenty years over two million dollars for southern gold.
The true golden touch, however, was to come in a different part of the territory among people of another race and tongue. It was to transform California from an almost unknown land with slight and scattered population to a community so rich as to disturb the money markets of the world; a community sheltering a great host of people, all young, all striving eagerly for the fortunes they had traveled thousands of miles to find.
After the signing of the treaty of Cahuenga between Colonel Fremont and General Pico, the Spanish-speaking people settled down quietly and peacefully. The only disagreements were between the American leaders, General Kearny and Commodore Stockton, and between Kearny and Fremont, who had been appointed by Stockton military governor of the territory. This appointment General Kearny disputed. General Vallejo tells in one of his letters of having received on the same day communication from Kearny, Stockton, and Fremont, each signing himself commander-in-chief.
Whoever was right in the quarrel, Fremont was the chief sufferer, for General Kearny, after Stockton left, ordered him to return East under arrest and at Washington to undergo a military trial or court-martial for mutiny and disobedience of orders. Although the court found him guilty and sentenced him to be dismissed from the army, the President, remembering his services in the exploration of the West, and quite possibly thinking him not the person most to blame, pardoned and restored him to his position. Fremont, feeling that he had done nothing wrong, refused the pardon and resigned from the army. The next year the new President, Taylor, showed his opinion of the matter by appointing Fremont to conduct the important work of establishing the boundaries between the United States and Mexico.
General Kearny, when he departed for the East, left Colonel Mason, of the regular army, as military governor of California. Mason chose as his adjutant, or secretary, a young lieutenant named Sherman, who, years later, in the Civil War, by his wonderful march through the heart of the South, came to be considered one of the greatest generals of his time.
Soon after the Mexican war many settlers were gathered about Sutter’s Fort and San Francisco Bay. There were about two thousand Americans, most of them strong, hardy men, all overjoyed that the territory was in the hands of the United States and all eager to know what would finally be decided in regard to it. Reports kept arriving of parties of emigrants that were about to start overland for California.
“They are as certain to come as that the sun will rise to-morrow,” said genial Captain Sutter, “and as the overland trail ends at my rancho, I must be ready to furnish them provisions. They are always hungry when they get there, especially the tired little children, and the only thing for me to do is to build a flour mill to grind my grain.”
“Well and good,” said James Marshall, one of his assistants, an American by birth, a millwright by trade; “but to build a flour mill requires lumber, and lumber calls for a sawmill.”
“We will build it, too,” said Sutter. “Take a man and provisions and go up toward the mountains; there must be good places on my land. I leave it all in your hands.” The place was found on a swift mountain stream. Near the present site of Coloma, in the midst of pine forests, on the water soon to be so well known as the American River, the sawmill was located. Marshall also marked out a rough wagon road forty-five miles long down to the fort. Captain Sutter was delighted.
“Set to work as soon as you like, Marshall,” he exclaimed. “This is your business.” Soon the mill was built and almost ready for use.
“You may let the water into the mill race to-night,” said Marshall to his men. “I want to test it and also to carry away some of the loose dirt in the bed.”
Down came the water with a rush, carrying off before it the loose earth; all night it ran, leaving the race with a clean, smooth bed. The next day, Monday, January 24, 1848,–wonderful day for California–James Marshall went out to look at the mill race to see if everything was ready to begin work.
“To-morrow,” thought he, “we will commence sawing, and put things through as fast as possible. The men are waiting, we have plenty of trees down, there is nothing to hinder;” but at that moment as he walked beside the bed of the tail race he saw some glittering yellow particles among its sands. He stopped and picked one up. The golden touch had come.
The following is Marshall’s own description as published in the Century Magazine (Vol. 41). “It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. Yet it did not seem to be of the right color; all the gold coin I had seen was of a reddish tinge; this looked more like brass. I recalled to mind all the metals I had seen or heard of, but I could find none that resembled this. Suddenly the idea flashed across my mind that it might be iron pyrites. I trembled to think of it.”
Finally, to make sure, Marshall, like Juan Lopez, mounted his horse and rode away to find some one with more knowledge than himself. That some one was Captain Sutter, who looked in his encyclopedia, probably the only one in the territory at that time, and by comparing the weight of the metal with the weight of an equal bulk of water found its specific gravity, which proved it to be gold. Still Sutter thought that he should like better authority. General Sherman, in Memoirs, tells how the news came to Monterey, where, he was the governor’s gay young military secretary:–
“I remember one day, in the spring of 1848, that two men, Americans, came into the office and inquired for the Governor. I asked their business, and one answered that they had just come down from Captain Sutter on special business and they wanted to see Governor Mason in person. I took them in to the colonel and left them together. After some time the colonel came to his door and called to me. I went in and my attention was directed to a series of papers unfolded on his table, in which lay about half an ounce of placer gold.
“Mason said tome, ‘What is that?’ I touched it and examined one or two of the larger pieces and asked, ‘Is it gold?’ I said that if that were gold it could be easily tested, first by its malleability and next by acids. I took a piece in my teeth and the metallic lustre was perfect. I then called to the clerk, Baden, to bring in an ax and hatchet from the backyard. When these were brought, I took the largest piece and beat it out flat, and beyond doubt it was metal and a pure metal. Still we attached little importance to the fact, for gold was known to exist at San Fernando at the south and yet was not considered of much value.”
About this time some of the business men who had settled in the little town of Yerba Buena, finding that all ships that entered the harbor were sent by their owners not to Yerba Buena, of which they knew nothing, but to San Francisco, persuaded the town council to change the name of the settlement from Yerba Buena to San Francisco, which was already the name of the mission and presidio.
“Gold! Gold!! Gold!!! from the American River,” cried a horseman from the mines, riding down Market Street, waving his hat in one hand, a bottle of gold dust in the other.
When words like these dropped from the lips of a messenger in any of the little communities, the result was like a powerful explosion. Everybody scattered, not wounded and dying, however, but full of life, ready to endure anything, risk anything, for the sake of finding the precious metal which enables its owner to have for himself and those he loves the comfortable and beautiful things of the world.
The result at San Francisco is thus described in one of its newspapers of 1848: “Stores are closed, places of business vacated, a number of houses tenantless, mechanical labor suspended or given up entirely, nowhere the pleasant hum of industry salutes the ear as of late; but as if a curse had arrested our onward course of enterprise, everything wears a desolate, sombre look. All through the Sundays the little church on the plaza is silent. All through the week the door of the alcalde’s office remains locked. As for the shipping, it is left at anchor; first sailors, then officers departing for the mines.”
And how was it at the logging camp where Marshall made his great discovery? The new sawmill, built with such high hopes, was soon silent and deserted. No more logs were cut, and no lumber hauled down for the flour mill. There were no men to be found who were willing to cut and saw logs, build mills, or put in the spring wheat when they might be finding their fortunes at the mines.
The newly arrived emigrants suffered no doubt from hunger; maybe the children cried for bread; but most of the men, as soon as they had rested a little and knew what was going on, got together money enough to buy the simple implements of knife, pan, pick, and cradle, which were all the tools necessary for the easy placer mining of those days, and joined the endless procession of those who were pushing up toward the streams and canyons round Sutter’s famous sawmill.
As summer came on, the excitement became intense. Not only from the region around San Francisco Bay, but from San Diego and Los Angeles, people came flocking to the mines. Reports were current of men finding hundreds of dollars’ worth of gold a day, gaining a fortune in a few weeks. It was almost impossible to hire laborers either in San Francisco or on the ranches. Even the soldiers caught the gold fever and deserted.
In the summer, Governor Mason and Lieutenant Sherman visited the mines. Upon their return to Monterey, having seen for themselves that many even of the wildest rumors were true, they made arrangements to send on to Washington official announcement of the discovery.
How this was accomplished is interesting. A lieutenant of the army was appointed by the governor for the important office, and a can of sample gold was purchased.
The only vessel on the coast ready for departure was a boat bound for Peru. On this ship the lieutenant with his pot of gold and the governor’s report embarked at Monterey. He reached the Peruvian port just in time to catch the British steamer back to Panama. Crossing the Isthmus on horseback, he took a steamer for Kingston, Jamaica. There he found a vessel just leaving for New Orleans. Reaching that city he at once telegraphed the news to Washington, trusting it would be in time to form part of the President’s message.
On December 5, 1848, the President, in his message to Congress, after speaking of the discovery of gold in California, said, “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief but for the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral districts and drew the facts which they detail from personal observation.”
The certainty that the wonderful reports of the gold country were true, electrified not only the whole country but the whole civilized world. Large numbers of people began immediate preparation for making the overland journey as soon as the weather should permit; while others, too impatient to wait, left for California by the way of the Isthmus.
In February, 1849, there arrived at Monterey the Panama, the first steamboat to visit the coast. The whole population turned out to see and welcome it. The Californians as they compared it with the stately frigates and ships they had been accustomed to see, exclaimed, “How ugly!” Although it was not a beautiful vessel, its arrival was an event of great importance, for it was the first of a line of steamers which were under contract to ply monthly between San Francisco and Panama, and with its coming began such an immigration as the world has seldom known.
In 1849 nearly twenty-five thousand people came by land and almost as many more by sea, from the States alone. There were between thirty and forty thousand from other parts of the world.
San Francisco at the time of the discovery had about seven hundred inhabitants, and shortly after only the population of a hamlet, because so many had gone to the gold fields. Now it suddenly found itself called upon to give shelter to thousands of people bound for the mines, and many also returning, some successful, others penniless and eager to get work at the very high wages offered, sometimes as much as thirty dollars a day.
There were streets to be surveyed, houses and warehouses to be built, lumber and brick to be provided. People were living in tents, in brush houses, even in shelter made by four upright green poles over which were spread matting and old bedding. Hundreds of ships lay helpless in the harbor waiting for crews, often for men to unload the cargoes. No longer could the papers complain of lack of business. The town was like a hive, but such a disorderly one as would have driven wild any colony of bees.
All was mud flats or water where are now the water front and some of the leading business streets of the city. On these flats old unseaworthy vessels were drawn up and did duty side by side with rough board buildings as dwellings and stores. In the rainy seasons the streets were lakes of mud where mules and drays were sometimes literally submerged. The arrival of the mail steamer was the event of the month to this host of people so far away from home and loved ones. Guns were fired, bells rang to announce the approach of the vessel, then there was a wild rush to the post office, where the long lines of men, most of them wearing flannel shirts, wide hats, and high boots, extended far down the street. Very high prices were sometimes paid, as high even as one hundred dollars, by a late corner to buy from some one lucky enough to be near the head of the line a position near the delivery window. Then if no letter came, how great was the disappointment!
One man thus described the mines:–
“I was but a lad and my party took me along only because I had a knack at cooking and was willing to do anything in order to see the place where such wonderful fortunes were made. It was a hot summer afternoon when, crossing a region of low, thinly wooded hills, we looked down upon American River; away to the east were high mountain ranges, their peaks, although it was still August, snow-tipped.
“From them came swiftly down the already famous river. Its volume was evidently diminished from the heat, and along its gravelly bed men were digging the sand and gravel into buckets. As I reached them and watched them work I was greatly disappointed. It seemed like very ordinary dirt they were handling; I saw no gleam of the yellow sands of which I had heard such stories. I followed one of the men who carried the buckets of earth to something that looked very like our family cradle with the footboard knocked out. Where the slats might have been there was nailed a piece of sheet iron punched full of holes. Above this was a chute in which the dirt was emptied. The cradle was then rocked violently while water was poured over its contents. The lighter earth and gravel were carried away, while the gold, being heavier, rested either on the sheet iron or between the slats on the cradle bottom.
“Some of the men had no cradle, only a large pan made of sheet iron. This pan, when half filled with dirt, was sunk in the water and shaken sidewise until the dirt and gravel were washed away and only heavy grains of gold remained. There were enough of these to make my eyes open wide. The men who had the cradle were making pretty steadily from eighteen to twenty dollars a day apiece.
“After a day or two I visited the dry diggings. Here I saw things that were more astonishing to me than anything that I had seen at the placer mines. Some men were at work in a little canyon, and I sat on the bowlder and watched them digging into the earth with their knives and picking up every few minutes spoons of earth in which there were plainly visible little lumps of gold the size of a pea. This was considered a rich find; the men were joyful over their success. Suddenly one of the older ones, looking up at me, sang out:–
“Say, Sonny, why do you sit there idle? Out with that bread knife of yours and dig for your fortune. Across this ridge is another ravine. It may be like this. Try your luck, anyway.’
“Somehow, until that moment, it had not entered my boyish mind, that I might join this great mad race for wealth. I sprang to my feet. My heart began to pound faster than it did on the glorious day when in my boyhood home I had won the mile race at the county fair. There was a singing in my ears; for the minute I could scarcely breathe. I had heard of the gold fever, and now I had caught it.
“I dashed up the hillside, fairly rolled down into the rocky little valley beyond, and began to dig wildly; but I found only good honest earth, rich noble soil so like our fertile bottom lands at home. My spirits began to sink, my heart to resume its natural beats. I worked half an hour or so without finding any sign, as it was called, and began to feel discouraged. In the canyon, which was very narrow, a large bowlder blocked my progress. I determined to dig it loose. This was the work of some time, but finally I succeeded in dislodging it, and drawing up my legs out of its way watched with a youngster’s delight its wild dash down the mountain side to the stream far below.
“Slowly I turned to resume my work, but what I saw brought me to my feet with a yell. The socket where the stone had rested was dotted with yellow lumps of gold as big as a pea, some even larger. Down I went upon my knees and I fell to work with a will–the strength of a man seemed in my arms. Off came my coat, and spreading it out I scooped the rich dirt into it by the handful. I had happened on a pocket, as it was called; a turn in the bed of some old mountain stream. The dirt from this when washed yielded me about five hundred dollars, but it was all except cook’s wages that I ever made at the mines.
“Before I left the gold fields I saw some small attempt at hydraulic mining which later proved so successful. From a stream up in a canyon some enterprising men had built a log flume and connected with it a large hose and nozzle they had brought up from the coast. Turning the water in this on a dry hill rich in gold deposit, they easily and rapidly washed the dirt down into a sluice or trough below. This had bars nailed across, and water running through carried the dirt away while the gold dropped into the crevices between the bars.” This method of mining and also quartz mining, that is, digging gold and other metals from rock, is described in another chapter.
The gold-bearing earth extended along the west slope of the Sierra Nevada and their base, from Feather River on the north to the Merced River on the south, a territory about thirty miles wide by two hundred and fifty long. In this district are still some of the richest mines in the world.
Chapter VIII
The Great Stampede
The rush of people to the Pacific coast after the gold discovery may well be called a stampede. The terrible overland journey, over thousands of miles of Indian country, across high mountains and wide stretches of desert, was often undertaken with poor cattle, half the necessary supplies of food, and but little knowledge of the route. On the other hand, those who preferred going by water would embark in any vessel, however unsafe, sailing from Atlantic ports to the Isthmus.
In New York the excitement was especially great. Every old ship that could be overhauled and by means of fresh paint made to look seaworthy was gayly dressed in bunting and advertised to sail by the shortest and safest route to California. The sea trip is thus described by an elderly gentleman who made the journey when a boy of ten:–
“Together with the news of the discovery of gold came also reports of a warm, sunny land which winter never visited, where life could be spent in the open air,–a favorable spot where sickness was almost unknown. It was, I think, as much on account of my mother’s health as to make his fortune that my father decided to go to California. The water route was chosen as being easier for her.
“The saying good-by to our relatives had been hard; but by the time we were three miles from home we children ceased to grieve, so interested were we in new sights and experiences.
“I had never seen salt water until that morning in New York, when we boarded the gayly trimmed brig, the Jane Dawson, which was to carry us to the Isthmus. To my sister and myself it was a real grief that our vessel had not a more romantic name. We decided to call it the Sea Slipper, from a favorite story, and the Sea Slipper it has always been to us.
“On the deck there were so many unhappy partings that we became again downhearted, a feeling which was intensified in the choppy seas of the outer bay to the utter misery of mind and body. We got ourselves somehow into our berths, where, with mother for company, we remained for many hours. Finally the sea grew calmer and we were just beginning to enjoy ourselves when off Cape Hatteras a severe storm broke upon us. The vessel pitched and rolled; the baggage and boxes of freight tumbled about, threatening the lives of those who were not kept to their berths by illness.
“Although I was not seasick I dared not go about much. One night, however, growing tired of the misery around me, I crawled over to the end of the farther cabin, which seemed to be deserted. Presently the captain and my father came down the stairs and I heard the officer say in a hoarse whisper. ‘I will not deceive you, Mr. Hunt; the mainmast is down, the steering gear useless, the crew is not up to its business, and I fear we cannot weather the night!’ I almost screamed aloud in my fright, but just then a long, lanky figure rose from the floor where it had been lying. It was one of the passengers, a typical Yankee.
“‘See here, captain,’ he said, ‘my chum and I are ship carpenters, and the other man of our party is one of the best sailors of the Newfoundland fleet; just give us a chance to help you, and maybe we needn’t founder yet awhile.’ The chance was given, and we did not founder.
“Some days later we anchored in the harbor of Chagres. There were many vessels in the bay, and a large number of people waiting to secure passage across the Isthmus. They crowded around the landing place of the river canoes and fought and shouted until we children were frightened at the uproar, and taking our hands mother retired to the shade of some trees to wait.
“It was almost night when father called to us to come quickly, as he had a boat engaged for us. It lay at the landing, a long canoe, in one end of which our things were already stored. Some men who were friends of father’s and had joined our party stood beside it with revolvers in hand watching to see that no one claimed the canoe or coaxed the boatmen away. Mother and Sue were quickly tucked beneath the awning, the rest of us tumbled in where we could, and at once our six nearly naked negro boatmen pushed out the boat and began working it up the stream by means of long poles which they placed on the bottom of the river bed, thus propelling us along briskly but with what seemed to me great exertion.
“To us children the voyage was most interesting. On either side the banks were covered with such immense trees as we had never dreamed of. The ferns were more like trees than plants, and the colors of leaves and flowers so gorgeous they were dazzling. The fruits were many and delicious, but our father was very careful about our eating, and would not allow us to indulge as we desired.
“The night came on as suddenly as though a great bowl had been turned over us. For an hour or more we watched with delight the brilliant fireflies illuminating all the atmosphere except at the end of the boat, where the red light of a torch lit the scene. After we had lain down for the night the moon rose and I could not enough admire the beauty of the tropical foliage, with the silvery moonlight incrusting every branch and leaf.
“The second day we left the boats and took mules for the rest of the journey. To my delight I was allowed an animal all to myself. Sue rode in a chair strapped to the back of a native, and our luggage was taken in the same manner, the porters carrying such heavy loads that it did not seem possible they could make the journey.
“To my sister and me, the city of Panama was amazingly beautiful, with its pearl oyster shells glittering on steeple and bell tower, and the dress of the people as magnificent as the costumes described in the ‘Arabian Nights.’ In Panama we waited a long time for a steamer. The town was crowded and many people were ill. My mother was constantly helping some one until my father forbade her to visit any stranger, because cholera had broken out and many were dying.
“It was a joyful morning when we boarded the steamer California, steamed out on the blue Pacific, and headed northward. We had more comfortable quarters and better food than when on the Atlantic; but never on the steamer did we feel the sense of grandeur and power that came to us on the brig when, with white sails all set, she rushed like a bird before the wind.
“Toward the close of the voyage there was so much fog that our captain did not know just whereabouts we were, and for that reason kept well out