[p. 10] Presidios and Pueblos
For the protection of the missions and to prevent foreigners from entering California, military posts, called presidios, were established at San Diego, Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. These enclosures were in the form of a square and were surrounded by adobe walls ten or twelve feet high. Within were the officers' quarters, the barracks for the soldiers, a guard house, chapel, granaries, and storehouses. A military force, usually consisting of one company, was stationed at each post under the commmand of a colonel or lieutenant. The largest force was kept at Monterey, the capital of the territory. The Governor, or commadante-general who, under Spanish rule was always an army officer, was commander-in-chief of the troops in the territory. The principal service of the soldiers was to keep in check the neophytes, to protect the missions from the incursions of the "gentiles," as the wild Indians were known, and to capture neophytes who had escaped to their unconverted relatives.
The mission fathers were opposed to the colonization of the country by white people. They well knew that the bringing of a superior race of people into contact with the lower would result in the demoralization of the inferior race. As rapidly as they could found missions, they arrogated to themselves all the choice lands within the vicinity of each establishment. A settler could not obtain a grant of land from the public domain if the padres of the nearest mission opposed the action. The difficulty of obtaining supplies from Mexico for the soliders of the presidios, necessitated the founding of agricultural colonies. Previous to 1776 the Governor of "Las Californias" as the country from Cape San Lucas to the most northern point of the Spanish possessions was known, resided at Loreto, in Lower California. In that year the territory was divided into two districts and a governor appointed for each. Felipe de Neve was made Governor of Nueva California, of which Monterey was designated as the capital, and Rivera y Moncada was appointed Governor of Lower California to reside at Loreto.
Hitherto all expeditions to Nueva California had come either by the coast route, up the peninsula or by sea. In 1774 Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, commander of the Tubac presidio of Sonora, was ordered to explore a route by way of the Gila and Colorado rivers overland to Monterey. With a party of [p. 11] thirty-four men, he made the jornada, crossing the desert, entering the San Bernardino Valley through the San Gorgonio Pass and reaching San Gabriel. On his return to Sonora, he recruited a second expedition composed of soldiers, settlers and their families-in all over three hundred persons, who were designed to found a mission and a presidio on San Francisco Bay. After a long and toilsome journey this party reached California in 1776. On the 17th of September, 1776, the presidio of San Francisco was formally established and on October 9th the mission, christened for the founder of the Franciscan order, was founded.
Governor de Neve, on his journey overland in 1777 from Loreto to Monterey, was instructed to examine the country from San Diego northward and select locations for agricultural settlements. He chose two colony sites, one on which he had given the name of "Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles," and the other on the Rio de Guadalupe in the northern section of the territory. Here, Nov. 29, 1777, Governor de Neve founded the Pueblo de San José. The colonists were nine soldiers from the presidios of Monterey and San Francisco and five settlers of Anza's expedition. These, with their families, made a total of sixty-six. The site of the pueblo was about a mile north of the present city of San José. Each settler was given a tract of irrigable land, a soldier's rations and ten dollars per month. Each head of a family received a yoke of oxen, two horses, two cows, a mule, two sheep and two goats, a few farming implements and seed for the first sowing. The colonists were to reimburse the royal treasury for all the articles furnished them except their rations and monthly pay, the payments to be made in installments from the products of their industry.
The Spanish government had an elaborate code of laws governing the establishment and management of pueblos. These were applied with small modifications to all new pueblos, whatever their location and conditions. Each pueblo must contain four square leagues of land, which was divided into planting fields, allotted to the colonists; lands retained by the municipality for renting; a common pasture for the use of all, and a portion of land reserved for the state, used for raising revenues. Wood and water were communal property. The pueblo was governed by a semi-civil, semi-military official known as the comisionado. There was also an alcalde, who was a mayor and petty judge. A guard of soldiers were kept at the guard house, partly for protection against the Indians and partly to preserve the peace in the pueblo.
In 1779 Rivera y Moncada, the Governor of Lower California, was instructed to recruit in Sonora and Sinaloa settlers for the founding of a pueblo on the Rio Porciuncula and soldiers for the founding of a presidio and mission on the Santa Barbara channel. The settlers were to receive each $106.50 for two years and $60 for the next three years, the payment to be in clothing and other necessary articles at cost price; also live stock, farming implements and seeds. These [p. 12] liberal offers secured but few recruits and those of poor quality. Two of these deserted before the company left Sonora and one was left behind at Loreto when, in April, 1781, the expedition began to march up the peninsula. The colonists under command of Lieut. Zuniga arrived at San Gabriel, August 18th, where they remained until Sept. 4th. The eleven settlers and their families-forty-four persons in all, escorted by Gov. de Neve and a small guard of soldiers and accompanied by the priests of San Gabriel Mission, on Sept. 4, 1781, proceeded to the site previously selected for the pueblo. This was on the right bank of the Rio Porciuncula near the spot where Portalá's explorers had celebrated the feast of Nuesta Señora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, from which circumstances was derived the name of the pueblo and the river. A plaza, seventy-five by one hundred varas was laid off on the mesa above the river as the center of the settlement. A mass was said by the priests of the mission, a procession was formed and marched around the plaza, the soldiers bearing the imperial standard of Spain and the women the image of "Our Lady of the Angels." The priests blessed the plaza and the house lots. The service over, the Governor and his escort took their departure and the colonists were left to work out their destiny. Another pueblo called Branciforte was founded in 1797 near Santa Cruz, but never prospered. The settlers were discharged soldiers, unused to labor and averse to acquiring industrious habits.
A few grants of land were made to private citizens, but substantially, during the Spanish era, all the land outside of the pueblos used for grazing or for cultivation was held by the missions. The commerce of California at this period was limited to the ships of the missions which usually came twice a year from San Blas with supplies for the missions and presidios and took away the few commercial products of the country, such as otter skins, hides and tallow of cattle. About 1800 the American smugglers began to come to the coast. The vessels engaged in this trade were principally from Boston and were fast sailing craft. They exchanged Yankee notions for otter skins. The authorities tried to suppress this illicit traffic, but were not often successful, as the vessels were heavily armed and when not able to escape the revenue officers, by speed or strategem, were not averse to fighting their way out.
Of the long and bloody struggle for Mexican independence, beginning with the insurrection led by the patriot priest, Hidalgo, in 1810, and continuing under various leaders for eleven years, but little was known in California. The men who filled the office of territorial governor during the years of the fratricidal struggle-Arrilliga, Argüella and Sola, were royalists and so were the mission padres, nearly all of whom were Spanish born. The soldiers and the common people knew but little about what was going on in the world beyond and cared less.
The one event that disturbed the placidity of life during the closing years [p. 13] of the Spanish rule was the appearance on the coast of Bouchard, the privateer, with two frigates heavily armed. Bouchard was a Frenchman cruising under letters of Marque from the insurgent government of Buenos Ayres, against the Spanish. He entered the harbor of Monterey, Nov. 21, 1818, probably to obtain supplies, but being coldly received, he fired upon the fort. The Californians made a brave resistance, but were finally overpowered. Bouchard sacked and burned the town. He next appeared at Ortega's Rancho, where he burned the buildings. Here the Californians captured three prisoners, who were exchanged next day when Bouchard anchored off Santa Barbara for one Californian whom the insurgents had captured at Monterey. Bouchard next visited San Juan Capistrano, where his "pirates" drank the padres' wine, then he took his departure from California. Four of Bouchard's men were left and became permanent residents-Joseph Chapman, an American, and Fisher, a negro, who were captured at Monterey; and John Ross, a Scotchman, and José Pascual, a negro, who deserted at San Juan. Chapman was the first American resident of Southern California. He married Guadalupe Ortega, a daughter of the owner of the Refugio Rancho which was plundered by the insurgents, and settled at the mission San Gabriel. He build there the first flour mill erected in California.
The war of Mexican Independence caused hard times in California. The soldiers received no pay and the mission supply ships came at long intervals. Money was almost an unknown quantity. There were products to sell, but no one to sell them to except an occasional smuggler, or a tallow ship from Peru.