History of California

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.