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Newsela - Transcontinental Railroad Connected the United States from East to West

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Newsela - Transcontinental Railroad Connected the United States from East to West

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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What would be courageous for you?
Do on a google form.

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Newsela | Time Machine (1869): Completion of the Great Transcontinental Railroad

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by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks
read aloud

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Fox -Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks (ReadAloud)

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text of the novel

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by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

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Margaret Wild, Author, Ron Brooks, Illustrator , illus. by Ron Brooks. Kane/Miller $14.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-929132-16-4

More By and About This Author

Wild ( Nighty Night) departs from her playful characters of recent books for this haunting look at friendship and cruelty, geared to older readers. After Dog saves Magpie from a fire and nurses her burnt wing, the two forge a powerful bond. The one-eyed dog and the flightless bird travel together across a charred, leafless landscape, with Magpie feeling the wind in her feathers as she rides on Dog's back. " Fly, Dog, fly! I will be your missing eye, and you will be my wings." The mood changes quickly, however, when Fox enters-his sleek, orange body curled around one side of a spread-and sets Magpie on edge ("His smell seems to fill the cave-a smell of rage and envy and loneliness"). The tension Wild invokes in juxtaposing their disparate emotions creates a disquieting feeling that Brooks ( Rosie and Tortoise) mirrors in his artwork, especially in close-ups of the characters' eyes. His hand-lettered text (resembling a child's shaky penmanship) appears in oddly positioned blocks, with some flipped vertically against the page edges and gutter. The stark illustrations, in mixed media and collage, expose the characters' raw emotions with brusque hash marks in thick applications of mostly dark paint. Only when Fox cons Magpie into switching her allegiance and traveling with him do readers discover the depth of Fox's alienation. The tale ends on a tenuously hopeful note, and the images from this unsettling, provocative story will resonate long after the book has been closed. Ages 6-up. (Oct.)

Paperback - 32 pages - 978-980-257-314-1

Paperback - 1 pages - 978-1-86448-465-6

Paperback - 30 pages - 978-1-86448-933-0

Hardcover - 32 pages - 978-1-74237-319-5

Prebound-Sewn - 32 pages - 978-1-4177-4997-3

Paperback - 32 pages - 978-1-933605-15-9

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Children's Book Review: FOX by Margaret Wild, Author, Ron Brooks, Illustrator , illus. by Ron Brooks. Kane/Miller $14.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-929132-16-4

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Margaret Wild, Author, Ron Brooks, Illustrator , illus. by Ron Brooks. Kane/Miller $14.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-929132-16-4 More By and About This Author Wild ( Nighty Night) departs from her playful characters of recent books for this haunting look at friendship and cruelty, geared to older readers.

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by Even Bunting

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Fly away home (Book, 1991) [WorldCat.org]

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Get this from a library! Fly away home. [Eve Bunting; Ronald Himler] -- A homeless boy who lives in an airport with his father, moving from terminal to terminal and trying not to be noticed, is given hope when he sees a trapped bird find its freedom.

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Write about a disagreement or argument from two different perspectives: your own and the person you were arguing with.

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Write about a disagreement or argument from two different perspectives: your own and the person you were arguing with.

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The Stowaway- The Story of California Pirates -1818-Ecploration

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The Babe and I - David A. Adler author of fiction and nonfiction books for young readers

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David A. Adler is the author of almost two hundred books for children, fiction and nonfiction.

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Think of activities where you'll have to broaden your perspective.

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Think of activities where you'll have to broaden your perspective.

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Dragon's Gate
California Gold Rush!

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Taking the main character's perspective and connecting it to historical facts and events. 

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Taking the main character's perspective and connecting it to historical facts and events. 

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"Adler and Widener score big -- their book reads like a labor of love." -- Publishers Weekly

"This is the kind of book that makes you want to buy season tickets." -- The Horn Book

* "This nastalgic, hearwarming story about hard work and teamwork highlights heroes big and small." -- Booklist (starred review)
From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-A moving story about how the famous Yankee unknowingly affects a young fan and his family. In the summer of 1932, a boy spots his father dressed in a suit and tie selling apples on the street, and he realizes that his dad, like so many other men, has lost his job. To help out their families, the youngster and a friend start selling newspapers outside Yankee Stadium, calling out the headlines from Babe Ruth's latest game. Their efforts earn some money, but the narrator is worried that his dad's feelings will be hurt if he finds out. Eventually, father and son come to a tender and silent understanding about their money-making activities. The tone brightens considerably when the boy sells a paper to the Babe himself and gets to see a real Yankee game, thanks to the slugger's generosity. Adler does a good job of balancing the personal relationship between father and son with a vivid portrait of the Depression and the positive impact of a true sports hero. Widener's stylized acrylic illustrations bring the city streets to life in an appealing way. The varied perspectives and exaggerated figures add excitement to the setting and the images and use of color perfectly reinforce the story's changing moods and emotions. A powerful picture book that's sure to be popular.
Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Adler and Widener score big -- their book reads like a labor of love." -- Publishers Weekly

"This is the kind of book that makes you want to buy season tickets." -- The Horn Book

* "This nastalgic, hearwarming story about hard work and teamwork highlights heroes big and small." -- Booklist (starred review)

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-A moving story about how the famous Yankee unknowingly affects a young fan and his family. In the summer of 1932, a boy spots his father dressed in a suit and tie selling apples on the street, and he realizes that his dad, like so many other men, has lost his job. To help out their families, the youngster and a friend start selling newspapers outside Yankee Stadium, calling out the headlines from Babe Ruth's latest game. Their efforts earn some money, but the narrator is worried that his dad's feelings will be hurt if he finds out. Eventually, father and son come to a tender and silent understanding about their money-making activities. The tone brightens considerably when the boy sells a paper to the Babe himself and gets to see a real Yankee game, thanks to the slugger's generosity. Adler does a good job of balancing the personal relationship between father and son with a vivid portrait of the Depression and the positive impact of a true sports hero. Widener's stylized acrylic illustrations bring the city streets to life in an appealing way. The varied perspectives and exaggerated figures add excitement to the setting and the images and use of color perfectly reinforce the story's changing moods and emotions. A powerful picture book that's sure to be popular.
Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Adler and Widener score big -- their book reads like a labor of love." -- Publishers Weekly

"This is the kind of book that makes you want to buy season tickets." -- The Horn Book

* "This nastalgic, hearwarming story about hard work and teamwork highlights heroes big and small." -- Booklist (starred review)

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-A moving story about how the famous Yankee unknowingly affects a young fan and his family. In the summer of 1932, a boy spots his father dressed in a suit and tie selling apples on the street, and he realizes that his dad, like so many other men, has lost his job. To help out their families, the youngster and a friend start selling newspapers outside Yankee Stadium, calling out the headlines from Babe Ruth's latest game. Their efforts earn some money, but the narrator is worried that his dad's feelings will be hurt if he finds out. Eventually, father and son come to a tender and silent understanding about their money-making activities. The tone brightens considerably when the boy sells a paper to the Babe himself and gets to see a real Yankee game, thanks to the slugger's generosity. Adler does a good job of balancing the personal relationship between father and son with a vivid portrait of the Depression and the positive impact of a true sports hero. Widener's stylized acrylic illustrations bring the city streets to life in an appealing way. The varied perspectives and exaggerated figures add excitement to the setting and the images and use of color perfectly reinforce the story's changing moods and emotions. A powerful picture book that's sure to be popular.
Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Newsela - Primary Source: Life in a Mining Camp

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Newsela - Primary Source: Life in a Mining Camp

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Newsela | Primary Sources: Life at a Mining Camp During the California Gold Rush

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People trying to make a fortune flocked to California during the 19th Century gold rush. In this letter, a woman describes life at a mining camp where some got rich, and some lost all.

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Ships operating off the east coast of the Americas in the 1700s and 1800s were often attacked by pirates. Many pirates were rogues who plied their trade for plunder and profit. Others were privateers, who were issued a commission, called a letter of marque, by one of the major sea-powers (Portugal, Spain, France, England, Holland, and later the United States) to prey on the vessels and settlements of their enemies. Privateers generally regarded themselves as lawful patriots of their countries.

Lines were often crossed, however. Privateers sometimes had their commissions revoked and continued to operate as pirates, while successful pirates were sometimes granted commissions.

The West coast was largely free from pirate activities, because with the exception of Spain, the major sea powers of Europe had very little presence.

Hippolyte de Bouchard (also known as Hipólito Bouchard) was a notable exception, and is often called California's only pirate.

Bouchard was born in France circa 1780. As a young man, he served in the French merchant fleet. In 1809, he moved to Argentina (which was then called the United Provinces of the River Plate). By 1811, he was serving in the Argentine revolutionary navy, and also took part in land battles. He was awarded Argentine citizenship in 1813, and was given a naval commission in 1815.

In 1817, Bouchard set off on a journey around the world, bearing a letter of marque allowing him to attack Spanish ships and settlements. It is on this journey that he raided the missions of California.

On November 20, 1818, Bouchard attacked the Presidio at Monterey. The Spanish had seen the approach of Bouchard's two ships, and fought them off with artillery. On November 24, the pirates landed 200 men, and attacked the fort from the land. They quickly overcame the defenders, and held the Presidio for 6 days before leaving. During that time, they stole cattle, weapons, and other valuables, and burned down the fort and much of the surrounding town.

On December 5, the pirates landed a force near the mission at Santa Barbara. The men raided and burned an outlying ranch, but when they approached the mission and presidio, it appeared to be heavily defended, so Bouchard decided to abandon the attack.
There is an unconfirmed anecdote that the soldiers at Santa Barbara sent out men on patrol, wearing different uniforms each time, to convince the raiders that the mission had several times the number of defenders that were actually present.
On December 16, 1818, the pirates moved on to San Juan Capistrano, where they demanded supplies and ammunition. The Spanish defenders refused, so Bouchard once again landed a force and attacked the mission. They quickly seized the town, and, after taking ammunition, supplies, and valuables, set fire to the town's houses, but spared the mission.

After the raid on San Juan Capistrano, Bouchard sailed south to Mexico, never to return. However, his successful raids badly frightened the Spanish missionaries. Some missions, such as San Buenaventura, moved their herds and valuables inland in case they were attacked.

Bouchard continued to raid Spanish settlements and sieze Spanish ships in Mexico, until the end of his voyage on April 3, 1819.

In 1820, Bouchard joined the Peruvian navy, and in 1829, he was made Admiral and commander of that navy. He retired the following year.

In Argentina and other countries of South American, Hippolyte de Bouchard is regarded as a patriot and hero; streets and monuments bear his name. He was even commemorated on an Argentine postage stamp.

But for the early settlers of California, he was a dreaded pirate!

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California's Only Pirate - Hippolyte de Bouchard - California Mission Guide

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Ships operating off the east coast of the Americas in the 1700s and 1800s were often attacked by pirates. Many pirates were rogues who plied their trade for plunder and profit. Others were privateers, who were issued a commission, called a letter of marque, by one of the major sea-powers (Portugal, Spain, France, England, Holland, ...

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Newsela article called "Chinese-Americans learn story of ancestors who built a big railroad"

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Newsela article called "Chinese-Americans learn story of ancestors who built a big railroad"

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https://newsela.com/read/railroad-chineseworkers/id/10931/

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Hipolito Bouchard and Montereys raid of 1818

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About the middle of October, 1818, Bouchard, commanding the Argentina, along with the Santa Rosa, entered Monterey Bay. They apparently arrived near dark. Bouchard's Argentina remained in the middle of the bay while the Santa Rosa, under the command of Englishman Peter Corney, anchored so close in the harbor that the guns of El Castillo could only reach the highest parts of its masts.

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Pirates in California History

The history of pirates in California does exist, though pirate acts on the West Coast have not been as abundant as the southeast U.S. in Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi.

Today in California you'll see the word "pirate" in all sorts of places. Pirates Cove in Point Arena, Pirates Cove in Avila Beach, California Pirates Baseball Club, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates Dinner Adventure in Buena Park, Pirates Grub & Grog in Oxnard and pirate events throughout the state are celebrated mostly as reminders or names to market something as being fun and adventurous.

The world "pirate" also has been adopted by the high tech industries, musicians and attorneys in their efforts to protect and defend trademark materials. Microsoft has been among the companies suing other firms and individuals with claims of piracy, meaning that these other entities have stolen their goods, they allege.

The most famous known attacks by pirates in California occurred around Monterey. Frenchman Hippolyte de Bouchard raided the Presidio of Monterey in 1818 (November 20.) The revolutionary has been called California's only pirate.

Bouchard went to Hawaii (named Sandwich Islands during his time) to find a new crew after he lost most of his men to diseases such as scurvy, and then sailed to the coast near Mission Santa Barbara, threatening the nearby town. Soldiers from El Presidio de Santa Barbara averted an attack by arranging a prison exchange and Bouchard and his crew left. But they didn't give up on the coast of California as a source offering items they sought.

Just a few weeks later on December 14, 1818 Bouchard attacked Mission San Juan Capistrano, damaging the Governor's house, the King's stores, and the barracks.

Justice was meted out to pirates in a manner that brought attention even after death. During the 17th and 18th centuries, "dancing the hempen jig", or hanging at the end of a rope provided entertainment for townspeople who came out to watch public executions advertised and written about in newspapers, where every detail was reported. The condemned pirate's last words, the prayers said by the priests, and their final agonizing moments on the gallows were relished by many who hated pirates and what they represented.

Famous pirates received special attention. Their bodies were placed in iron cages measured to fit the man before his execution, and the body was left to swing in the air inside the cage until the flesh rotted off, taking sometimes several years. Jack Rackham, William Kidd, Charles Vane and William Fly were all caged.

Blackbeard (Edward Teach) had a thick, black beard which was braided and tied with ribbons. He and Jean Lafitte were to well known pirates along the East Coast and Caribbean. Blackbeard was known to enter battle equipped with three pairs of pistols strapped across his chest, daggers and pistols in his belt, a cutlass, and a slow-burning thick hemp cord tucked under his hat which produced lots of smoke.

He was captured in 1718 in North Carolina and died in a bloody battle after a bounty had been placed on his head. Blackbeard's head was cut off, and returned for his reward with it hanging from the bowsprit of his ship. Blackbeard's crew were tried in Virginia and all but one was found guilty and hanged.

Unlike Blackbeard, Laffite respected a country he lived in and did not allow his pirates to attack American vessels when he lived there. Laffite, like most pirates, was known to cross the bounds, and was involved in illegal slave trade to the U.S. Mostly he and his crew plundered Spanish and English ships and were protected by a letter of marque.

A privateer or corsair in possession of a commission or letter of marque from a government could capture merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation. The U.S. Constitution authorized Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal. The letter of marque was recognized by international convention and meant that a privateer could not technically be charged with piracy while attacking the targets named in his commission.

While pirates didn't have much of a presence in the Old West, pirates recently held an Orange County, California couple, Jean and Scott Adam, for ransom and the couple was murdered on the high seas. They were part of a mission to distribute Bibles around the globe, and traveled on their personal craft for over six years before the attack. Carried out by 13 men from Somalia and one from Yemen, the pirates were captured. Unlike the past, pirates today often receive a life sentence spent in a prison when found guilty of murder.

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Pirates in California History of CA Pirates

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The history of pirates in California does exist, though pirate acts on the West Coast have not been as abundant as the southeast U.S. in Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi. Today in California you'll see the word "pirate" in all sorts of places.

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The Good Pirate | California Missions Resource Center

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The story of Joseph Chapman, the pirate who stayed and helped build Alta California's mills.

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Today, a visit to Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County is like going to summer camp, or the coolest small town in the world. Tents and RVs are lined up side by side, forming makeshift streets. There is a basketball court, café and a playground. Packs of children ride around on bikes while parents sip beer and play horseshoes. The cove's narrow beach is packed with beach chairs and boogie boards and kids building sandcastles. Everything seems wholesome, innocent, and bright. But this cove has a shady history filled with smugglers, trickery, and a brush with Pacific's most famous pirate.

In 1795, Spanish Governor Diego de Borica granted Jose Francisco Ortega 26,529 acres of land 20 miles north of the pueblo of Santa Barbara. Ortega, originally from Spain, had come to California in 1769, a soldier in the service of Gasper De Portola and Father Junipero Serra. Ortega served the new Spanish colony for many years, helping to found Santa Barbara and serving as an official there and in Monterey. After his land grant, he moved his family to their new home, which he named Nuestra Senora del Refugio, otherwise known as Rancho El Refugio. The family built a hacienda and garden on a knoll overlooking the Rancho's small bay. However, Ortega only had a few years to enjoy his new home. In 1798, he fell off his horse near Refugio Beach and died as a result of his injuries.

Ortega's sons, Jose Maria and Jose Vicente, took over the rancho. It was soon producing cattle, horses, wheat, wine, and lemons-but the work was not easy. Jose Maria remembered years later, "It was only with my own sweat and labor that I started out with 30 head of cattle and horses and 25 brood mare. After my discharge, I hustled for everything else I have on my ranch." This "hustling" seems to have included a good deal of illegal activity. The cove at Refugio Bay, secluded and on private property, was the ideal place for smuggling goods and contraband from "foreign" ships. Since Spain forbade trade with all other countries along the California coast, Refugio Cove became a haven for Yankee ships from the East Coast trading for illegal otter pelts. George Washington Ayers, of the Boston based merchant ship Mercury, recalled bartering for otter pelts and brandy with Jose Vicente, while anchored in Refugio Bay.

The Ortegas were soon one of the richest families in Alta California. Over the years, as Spain failed to adequately supply its growing colony with goods, the illegal smuggling at Refugio Cove became an essential activity. One report claimed that hardware, crockery, fishhooks, gunpowder, cotton cloths and blankets, shoes, shawls, silks, fine handkerchiefs, decorated water jars, gilded crystal stands, porcelain plates, British linens, peppers, and nutmegs were just some of the items the Ortegas were smuggling in. And it wasn't just the Ortegas who were involved in illegal trade. As pueblos ran out of basic supplies, padres from the missions became increasingly involved in smuggling, believing that rule of canonical law said "necessity makes lawful that which by law is illicit." Ayers remembered a padre meeting him on the shore at Refugio and inviting him to dinner at the Ortegas' hacienda. "Come with the vaquero, and we will talk of what is interesting, the news from Europe and the whole world. We will also trade."

By November 1818, Spain had basically lost its grip on Alta California, leaving her to fend for herself. It was a rainy, grim winter. From Monterey, the Governor sent a message to Santa Barbara captain and beloved patriarch Don Jose de la Guerra y Noriega reporting that the city had been sacked by Hippolyte Bouchard, the notorious French born "pirate" and revolutionary sailing under the flag of the year-old nation of Argentina. He was now travelling south, and would soon be in Santa Barbara. De la Guerra was actually already aware of the danger. A friendly American named Henry Gyzelaar, who had been arrested two years earlier for smuggling at Refugio Bay, had sailed from the Sandwich Islands to warn him that the brutal Bouchard was on his way. De la Guerra began to prepare, stating that he had "forty Indian horsemen and about one hundred armed archers ready to carry out any order I may give them." All those living on the coast were ordered to evacuate -- and the Ortega family and their retainers fled inland with most of their valuables.

After a month and a half of waiting, scouts spotted two ships in Refugio Bay. Commanding the bigger ship known as La Fragata Negra -- featuring 40 cannons and a crew of 280 men -- was none other than the legendary Hippolyte Bouchard. Bouchard was a career revolutionary. He had fought for Napoleon around the world, before migrating to Baltimore. By 1810, he had made his way to Buenos Aires, where criollos (Spanish descendants born in the new world) had begun fighting for independence from Spain. He joined the revolution, and became a beloved (if feared) member of the fledgling nation. After Argentina declared independence in 1816, Bouchard was charged to privateer on behalf of Argentina. He began terrorizing Spanish territories from the Philippines to Monterey, in an attempt to weaken the once mighty empire and its colonies.

On December 2, 1818, Bouchard's men stormed the beach at Refugio Cove, making their way to the famously opulent Ortega hacienda. Furious to find that the Ortegas and most of their valuables were gone, his men stole what was left behind, shot the cattle and set fire to the hacienda. That evening, Sergeant Carlos Carrillo (De la Guerra's brother-in-law) arrived with 30 men, including Chumash warriors, friars, and Refugio evacuees. They ambushed Bouchard's forces, capturing three men (some say by lassoes). Bouchard's forces retreated, and sailed to Santa Cruz to get fresh water and other supplies.

On December 6th, Bouchard's boats were back, this time in the ocean off Santa Barbara. However, they stayed on their ships, fearful of what they saw. De La Guerra had commanded his small troop to march round and round a small clump of willow trees near the beach. From Bouchard's ship, it looked like a mighty force. Soon one of his men waded ashore and stuck a stick into the sand. On it was a letter from Bouchard proposing an exchange of prisoners. De La Guerra responded that whatever happened would depend on Bouchard's actions. This challenge upset Bouchard, leading him to reply, "If your men are so anxious to fight, let me assure you that mine are desperate to come to blows." De La Guerra refused to be intimidated, responding that his "moderate answer comes of my good manners, not from any fear of your threats which are of no concern to me."

In the end, Bouchard exchanged one prisoner (who happened to be Santa Barbara's resident drunk) for Bouchard's three, and sailed off for good on December 12th. Given the all clear, the Ortegas went back to the Rancho. There they built a new hacienda, but this time much further inland. After Spain ceded to Mexican rule in 1822, trade opened up. The Ortegas built a proper wharf at Refugio Cove, and illicit smuggling became a thing of the past. In a strange twist of fate, an American named Joseph Chapman, who had jumped Bouchard's ship and sought refuge in Santa Barbara, ended up marrying Guadalupe Ortega.

The family held onto the Rancho for many more years. In the early 1900s, broken plates, and gold coins minted in 1811 were found on Rancho land. One can only hope that there is more contraband treasure to be uncovered, perhaps by a little camper digging in the sand of what is now idyllic Refugio State Beach.
Further reading:
La Campana: The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation Journal: Winter 1997-98
Noticias Journal: Autumn 1990
The Gaviota Land by Merlyn Chesnut

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Smuggler's Paradise: Piracy and Plunder at Refugio Bay

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Today, a visit to Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County is like going to summer camp, or the coolest small town in the world. Tents and RVs are lined up side by side, forming makeshift streets. There is a basketball court, café and a playground.

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Vallejo: the man who shaped California history by Nancy Dingler

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Without a doubt, the single most influential person in California history was Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. Mariano was one of those rare individuals, in that he was born and educated in California. Mariano rose to great heights of power and wealth, only to lose it when his dream of being part of the democratic America came true.

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San Diego History Center | San Diego, CA | Our City, Our Story

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The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Winter 2003, Volume 49, Number 1
Gregg Hennessey, Editor

By Richard Griswold del Castillo Images from the Article
Little has been written about the American military conquest of San Diego during the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848. The survey histories of San Diego, while mentioning the Battle of San Pasqual, do not discuss the ways in which the conflict here divided the Californio population. Neither is it appreciated that the majority of the Mexican population valiantly fought against the American occupation of their town and succeeded, for a time, in recapturing San Diego from the U.S. Army and in besieging the Americans throughout the winter months of 1846. The final capture of San Diego was not at all an easy affair. It was accomplished only after a major resistance movement by the Mexican partisans. A closer look at this period of conflict in San Diego can give us a better appreciation of the evolution of our Mexican American community.

On May 11, 1846, the Congress of the United States voted to declare war on the Republic of Mexico. President James K. Polk justified his war message saying that Mexico had attacked American troops and invaded the United States and that the Mexican government had not been cooperative in negotiations over the Texas boundary issue. The first battles between U.S. and Mexican troops occurred in the area just north of Matamoros, a few miles north of the Rio Grande (Bravo), in an area that had been part of the state of Coahuila for decades. In reality the Mexican "invasion" occurred in territory which was not conclusively American soil. Many Americans at the time saw the declaration of war as a legitimate and natural expression of America's Manifest Destiny to acquire the western territories reaching to the Pacific Ocean. Merchants and commercial men saw California's ports as part of a commercial expansion leading to the lucrative China trade. Strategically the U.S. government worried that the British or perhaps the Russians might annex California and that this would jeopardize national expansion.

San Diego's port was well known as one of the best in California after San Francisco. For years American merchant ships had visited these ports selling manufactured goods to the Mexican Californios. The occupation of these ports became a priority during the first few months of U.S.-Mexican War. On July 9, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat occupied the California capitol port of Monterey and turned over command to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who ordered Lieutenant John C. Frémont to occupy the town and port of San Diego. Sailing on the sloop-of-war Cyane with 160 men, the Americans arrived in San Diego harbor on July 29, 1846. After they captured the Mexican brig Juanita, the American troops occupied San Diego and raised the American flag on July 30, 1846. According to the Americans they got a friendly reception and the Californios offered no resistance. After a week Frémont set out with about 120 men from San Diego to assist Stockton in his capture of Los Angeles, leaving behind a garrison of about 40 men.

As was true elsewhere in California, the Mexican elite divided over whether or not to accept American military rule. On one hand, some of the Californio landholders had married their daughters to Americans and family loyalty counted a great deal in their culture. Also some Californios stood to gain economically by the links they had forged with American traders, and they believed that future prosperity would be assured under an American administration. On the other hand, the Californios felt a love of their patria chica, their homeland, and were fearful of what these foreigners would do to them and their families. Very few had abstract political loyalties to the Mexican government but most had a strong identity as Mexicans based in their language and culture.

Thus the Californios were of ambiguous and torn loyalties during the Mexican War. In San Diego many of the leading families supported the American occupation including the Bandinis, the Arguellos, the Pedrorenas, and the Carrillos. At the same time many of the hijos de pais in the countryside did not such as the Osunas, the Ibarras, the Cotas, the Machados. Some families were split with relatives on both sides, as was the case in the Carrillo household. Henry Delano Fitch, a wealthy merchant had married Josefa Carrillo, and he supplied the American troops in San Diego during the occupation. Meanwhile members of the Carrillo family fought against the Americans at the battle of San Pasqual. Economic ties, friendships, and family loyalties were the strongest forces binding individuals to one side or the other and inevitably, personalities and hurt feelings emerged.
The American Occupation
The American occupation of San Diego lasted from July 29, 1846 until the first week in October. Stockton ordered an election to solidify Californio support for the occupation. As a result, the San Diego Mexicans elected Miguel de Pedrorena, a Spanish merchant, as Justice of the Peace and Pedro Carrillo as the customs collectors. Later an election was held for municipal justices and, using the Mexican system of electors and the pueblo elected Joaquin Ortega as justice of the first instance and J. D. Wilson as justice of the second. This gave some of the Californio families a stake in the U.S. occupation.

As they had in Los Angeles, the Americans then decreed martial law requiring all people to be within their houses from 10 p.m. until sunrise. On August 17, 1847, Pedrorena issued an order forbidding citizens or their servants from leaving the city and the next day he relayed an announcement issued by the U.S. military which was propaganda intended to make the Californios more cooperative. Pedrorena announced that "this territory is actually invaded by a party of fanatic adventurers called Mormons, who arrived by sea at San Francisco in order to form a large number of others who come by land well armed with the purpose of taking this country by force." Also that, "we are threatened by another party of five hundred Indians called Piutes, who are already in this territory intent upon our complete destruction." ² Accordingly, Pedrorena called for volunteers and a donation of horses from the Californios, promising that the Americans would pay for the horses. He requested that all rancheros give all possible assistance. The fear of the threat of the mysterious Mormons and an Indian invasion probably strengthened the local Californio perceived need of the American army for protection.

Pedrorena, who was pro-American and who would later be a San Diego delegate to the California Constitutional Convention, was aware of the tensions that were being built up by the American occupation. He wrote in English to his compadre, Henry D. Fitch, on August 8, 1847:

"... Some of our friends (Californios) did not like to stay... the Señores retired to their Farms-Marron was the only man left I could speak to. (sic) However we managed in the old Fashion way and nobody dare insult us....I find my friend Aguirre so much like a lamb in my presence is taking every opportunity of speaking against me and wounding my feelings in very possible way and manner. I hope that he and I will meet again and if there is not hot water enough to scald one of us it is a pity I forgave him once on account of Family relationship but that will not avail him again". ³

Another account of the American occupation of San Diego in the fall of 1846 is given by Helen Elliott Bandini, based on stories she had heard as a child growing up in San Diego. She remembered that her family and the Arguellos had given the Americans "a hearty welcome, and much needed assistance...." ⁴ According to her, the patriarch Juan Bandini escorted some of the Americanos to his rancho in Baja to get cattle and food. While the Americans were there, his own family had to leave the rancho. Following the family legend Commodore Stockton asked Señora Bandini to make him an American flag. "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." ⁵ Thus the Bandinis could claim to be as loyal as the descendants of Betsy Ross.

Events to the north would change the political situation in San Diego and lead to further warfare. On September 27, 1846, the Californios in Los Angeles revolted against the Americans and succeeded in recapturing the pueblo on October 4, 1846. Then from Los Angeles Captain José María Flores sent Francisco Rico and Serbulo Varela with fifty men to recapture San Diego. Captain Ezekiel Merritt and John Bidwell, who were in charge of the American garrison in San Diego, feared that they would be overrun and so the Americans and a few of their Californio supporters decided to abandon the town. The Californios went to their ranchos, the Americans and a few allies boarded the whaling ship Stonington anchored in the harbor. Others like Jose Antonio Estudillo and his large extended family proclaimed their neutrality in the affair and stayed in the pueblo. Without firing a shot the Mexicans recaptured San Diego from the Americans in early October 1846.

The Mexican partisans held on to San Diego for three weeks until October 24, 1846, when the American army moved to recapture the pueblo. An American soldier sneaked ashore and spiked the Mexican cannons on the hill where the old presidio had been (Presidio Hill). Then the American volunteers charged the Mexican defensive positions. The Mexican commander, Serbulo Varela had been ordered to send most of his men back to Los Angeles to protect that town from an expected attack and so was outnumbered. After a brief skirmish the Americans took possession of the town and hauled down the Mexican flag. But before it could touch the ground María Antonia Machado rushed to saved it from being trampled. She clutched it to her bosom and cut the halyards to prevent the American flag from being raised. This emerged as a counter legend to offset that of the Bandini's. ⁶
The Siege of San Diego
Two days later on October 26, 1846, Captain Leonardo Cota and Ramon Carrillo arrived with 100 men and laid siege to the Americans and their sympathizers in San Diego. Stockton arrived a few days later with reinforcements. Don Juan Bandini, one of the leading Californios in San Diego, welcomed Commodore Stockton into his home, which became the American military headquarters. During the occupation it was the scene of frequent fiestas held in honor of the Americans.

For the next several months the Americans were trapped inside the pueblo. Skirmishes were a daily occurrence. Commodore Robert Stockton reported:

"The situation of the place was found to be more miserable and deplorable.... On the afternoon of our arrival the enemy came down in considerable force and made an attack; they were, however, soon driven back with the loss of two men and horses killed and four wounded. These skirmishes, or running fights, were of almost daily occurrence. Since we have been here we have lost as yet but one man killed and one wounded." ⁷

As described by Stockton, Arguello and Pedrorena helped lead a counter attack. Arguello,

"though wounded in the leg, drove the Californian, under Hermosillo, from their position. They made a new stand behind the ruins of the old Presidio walls, but soon retreated toward the mission. Capt. Pedrorena went in pursuit, and about a mile up the valley met and exchanged some shots with the advanced guard under Leandro Osuna. From this time...many began to come in and give themselves up. Dances and festivities followed. ⁸

Eventually more than 700 American troops would enter San Diego in preparation for the build up for the recapture of Los Angeles. Nevertheless the siege remained effective. The Americans sent out Indian scouts to assess the Californio strength and received reports that there were about fifty of them located at San Bernardo (20 miles from San Diego), but that many more surrounded the pueblo.

The Americans and Californios who were inside old town were constantly harassed by snipers, who shot into the town every night, especially when the U.S. flag was raised and lowered. A Californio partisan shot at Miguel de Pedrorena and the bullet passed through his hat. Meanwhile the Americans dragged the old cannons from Ft. Guijarros at the end of Point Loma to the west end of the town and built a barricade using adobes from the town. ⁹ The Californio strategy was to drive all the cattle and edible stock into the hills while laying siege to the pueblo, hoping to starve the Americans out. They guarded the roads out of the town to prevent "spies" from escaping to locate food for the population. These spies were undoubtedly Californios or Indians who had joined the Americans. Finally with the help of a local Indian chief, the Americans secured about 600 sheep who were herded onto an island that was connected to the mainland at low tide. ¹⁰

The Californios continued harassing and besieging the pueblo for the next month. The deaths mounted. On November 1, 1846, Commodore Stockton arrived with reinforcements and sent out a patrol twenty miles south of San Diego, past present day Tijuana, to "acquire" a herd of cattle but was unsuccessful. On November 18 the Californios staged an unsuccessful attack on the American positions in the pueblo. They were led by José Antonio Carrillo with a force of between 80 and 100 men. During the battle three Californios were mortally wounded. Following the attack, there were sporadic encounters. An American soldier who strayed 300 yards from the protection of the town to water his horse was lanced by a Californio soldier and died. An Indian was killed while he was herding sheep destined for the American troops.

During the siege the Americans built an earthen fort on top of Presidio Hill and even built a draw bridge for an entrance. On December 1 the Americans inside the pueblo learned that General Stephen Kearney's dragoons were about eighty miles away at Warner's Pass so Commodore Stockton mounted an escort of fifty men commanded by Captain Archibald Gillespie to march north to meet him. The joint command, comprising about 150, men soon encountered about ninety-three Californios led by Andrés Pico at the Battle of San Pasqual, the bloodiest of the war in California. ¹¹
A Californiana Account of the War: Felipa Osuna de Marron
Perhaps the best account of this period from the point of view of the Californios in San Diego is the reminiscence of Doña Josefa Felipa Osuna de Marron. When historian Hubert Howe Bancroft's assistant, Thomas Savage interviewed Doña Felipa in 1878 she had been a widow twenty-five years and was sixty nine years old. ¹² Her father had been a soldier in the presidio during the Spanish administration and at the age of twenty she married a rancher, Juan María de Marron. He became the administrator of mission San Luis Rey following the secularization of the missions in the Mexican period.

Doña Felipa remembered that she was still living at Mission San Luis Rey in the summer of 1846 when General Frémont and the American troops arrived looking for the Californio leaders whom they desired to capture. The Americans questioned her as to where her husband was and who else was at the mission. As it happened Don María Matias Moreno, the secretary to the California government, was staying with the Marron family at the time. When the Americans appeared, Doña Felipa decided to disguise him as a sick cousin and succeeded in fooling the Americans who left without him. As soon as they had departed, Don Matias, who had recognized his good friend Don Santiago Arguello riding with the Americans, sent a messenger to catch up with Arguello to tell him to return so he could join him. This sudden switching of allegiances angered Felipa since it put her delicate situation in jeopardy. She ordered Don Matias to leave the mission immediately.

This episode revealed some of the schisms among the Californios regarding the American conquest. Some supported the U.S. occupation and others were opposed. Switching sides, at least in the case of Don Matias, was prompted by friendship more than ideology. Indeed Doña Felipa and her husband were later forced into changing sides.

Soon after this incident at the mission she accompanied her husband to their rancho and later she traveled alone to San Diego for safety. This was during the second American occupation of the town. She recounted how in San Diego Don Miguel Pedorena, Don Santiago E. Arguello, and Don Pedro C. Carrillo, were allied with the Americans. The Californios who were still opposed to the Americans asked her husband to join them which he did. The leader of those against the Americans were Leonardo Cota and José María Alipaz. ¹³

Doña Felipa remembered that while she was in San Diego, the Californios continued to harass the American troops, hiding in the hills near the pueblo and shouting "challenges, threats and insults." Others entered San Diego at night and occasionally shot into the pueblo. ¹⁴ After a time, her husband sent word to her to leave San Diego and join him on their rancho. Felipa recounted what happened:

We women, all of us left our houses and met in the Estudillo adobe. The Californios against the Americans (los del pais) approached the pueblo above the fort that the Americans had built on the hill. I wanted to leave to join my husband and I had sent a message to Alipaz and Cota to come and get me. So they sent my husband under a white flag thinking that since he was such good friends with Pedrorena, Arguello and Carrillo, they would let him pass. So he approached under a white flag and Pedrorena and a party of Americans rode to meet him- they took his horse and arms and put him in jail. Since he was detained several days without returning to the countryside with me (Felipa), los del pais suspected that he had gone over to the Americans and they became very angry with him. ¹⁵

Felipa, in her words, feared the Americans who she thought were not disciplined soldiers and soon she and her husband were allowed to leave after swearing that they would not continue hostilities. They were given a safe conduct pass in case they were detained by other American troops. With their children they fled San Diego and returned to their rancho where they found the Californios "furious with her husband" accusing him of working as a courier for the Americans. They even threatened to shoot him. Instead they took all their horses and the family as prisoners to another rancho, Agua Herivida, located near present day Carlsbad. Here they left Felipa and their children and took Juan, her husband, along with their Indian servants. Juan Marron became sick and the Californio partisans left him on his rancho and let her return to San Diego. Every day the "fuerzas del pais" descended on the Marron rancho to take what they needed, so that finally "most of what we had was taken from us including the cattle that had been given to me by Fr. Zalvidia." ¹⁶

When the war ended they barely had enough to eat and the Californios continued to accuse Felipa and her husband of being pro-American. Their bad treatment finally forced the Marrons to ask for protection from the American commander of San Diego. After indications that they would be welcome and not mistreated they departed for San Diego. Traveling with the Marron party were several Californio lancers who had been at San Pascual, inlcuding Felipa's brother Leandro who had killed an American in that conflict. On the outskirts of the town her husband raised a white flag and they entered the pueblo leaving their few remaining live stock out side. She reported that some Americans in San Diego were angry at the return of these former enemies but finally did nothing.

The narration of Doña Felipa de Marron Osuna is most interesting for its account of the problems that her family had in being loyal to Mexican California. Circumstances forced them to rely on the Americans for protection from suspicious countrymen. Her account serves as a critique to those who might simplify the issue of loyalty during the war.
The Battle of San Pascual
During the fall of 1846 a large contingent of Californios in Southern California continued to resist the American occupation. In Los Angeles the Mexicans continued to hold on to their recaptured city while in San Diego, the Americans and their supporters were besieged. The country-side belonged to the hijos de pais. The Battle of San Pascual in December 1846 marked the high water mark of the Californio resistance during the war. It was the bloodiest battle fought in California and was a victory for the partisan forces. Nevertheless the Americans were able to reinforce the San Diego garrison and eventually use it as a basis for an overland march to retake Los Angeles.

About a month after the American recapture of San Diego, the Mexican governor of California, José María Flores, sent Andrés Pico to the San Diego region to watch for American troop movements. Pico established a base at Mission San Luis Rey and assisted Captain Leonardo Cota in keeping the Americans in San Diego from foraging the countryside for food. Pico had an informant within the city, his sister Margarita who told him of the American movements. From her he learned that Gillespie had set out from the town toward the Indian rancheria of San Pascual intending to join another group of Americans. These were General Kearney's troops coming from the east, after having marched overland from Santa Fe. Many of the Angelenos who were with Pico were anxious to fight Gillespie since he earned a reputation as a Mexican hater when he had been in charge of the occupation of Los Angeles. Early in December Pico's men, numbering about seventy-two men, marched to the Indian rancheria of San Pascual (called Kamiai by the natives) to intercept Gillespie's troops. A local Diegueño Indian named Felicita remembered their entry:

"a great company of these soldier men came up the valley. We seized our baskets and ollas of food and ran to the hills as before to wait until the passed, but they did not pass.The Californios then took what foraging they could from the village for their horses and entered into the empty Indian huts to build fires for cooking. They slaughtered some of the surrounding cattle for food.

My father, Pontho the chief, was brave, so he went to talk with the soldiers; their head man was called General Pico, and to him my father spoke. This man said we might come and live in the huts the soldiers did not need, so at night we crept back, for it was cold, and the rain was falling. There were few houses left for so many, and little food, but we said nothing." ¹⁷

Upon arriving at the village Pico commanded the lancers to practice their tactics. Pablo Vejar, one of the soldiers who was later captured by the Americans, remembered that "we concluded that they were sufficiently adept to go into combat." ¹⁸ Pico then ordered the horses put into pasture to be guarded by the local Indians. The horses were some distance from the Indian village; he discounted reports given by the natives that there was an American force nearby. Meanwhile some members of the Californio lancers were suspicious of Pico's motives in all of this-even to the point of thinking that perhaps he was preparing to turn them over to the Americans. One solider, Juan Bautista Moreno, remembered, "It had been some days that we had suspected that Don Andrés wanted to turn us in. He received continuous correspondence from Los Angeles but he would not tell us anything. This case of the horse made us more suspicious still." ¹⁹

Meanwhile the American troops under Gillespie and Kearny had joined forces near the present day city of Ramona, in the Santa Maria valley. Kearny's men numbered about 150, including Delaware Indians with Kit Carson and African American slaves of the officers and drovers. Gillespie's party had thirty nine soldiers including Rafael Machado, a local Californio. The total American force was about 179. The Californios under General Andrés Pico had about 100 men. ²⁰

The American commanders debated whether to engage Pico's troops at San Pascual or bypass them on their way to San Diego. Finally, over objections from some of the officers, Kearny decided to scout the Californio positions and sent out a party led by Rafael Machado, a local Californio deserter. Machado succeeded in entering the San Pascual village and learned of the Californio strength. But the American troops grew impatient with him and advanced making enough noise to wake people in the camp who came out "crying Viva California, abajo los Americanos." ²¹ Soon after that the Californios sent out a patrol and they retrieved a US Army blanket-proof that the Americans had been near. When this was discovered Pico ordered the horses retrieved from the distant pasture and the Californios to prepare for battle.

Early in the morning of December 6, 1846, the American force charged the Californio army camp in the Indian village of San Pasqual. During the long charge the Americans became strung out in a long file, with those on stronger mules and horses far outdistancing others who were on tired mounts. The few gunshots exchanged were in this first charge, as the Californios met the early arrivals some distance from their camp. Captain Johnston was the first man to be killed. Then the Californios raced away being chased for about three-fourths of a mile. The Californio troops turned and charged at the Americans with their lances. It had been raining off and on for several days and Kearny's troops had damp powder and had to fight with their sabres. The Californios were armed with long lances that they were expert at using in slaughtering cattle. In the hand to hand combat the Californios had the advantage of superior mounts, weapons and battle preparation. José F. Palomares, one of Pico's men at the battle recalled:

"With our lances and swords we attacked the enemy forces, who could not make good use of neither their firearms nor of their swords.... We did not fire a single shot, the combat was more favorable to us with our sidearms (swords). Quickly the battle became so bloody that we became intermingled one with the other and barely were able to distinguish one from the other by voice and by the dim light of dawn which began to break." ²²

Felicita, the San Pascual Indian woman recalled:

"The Americans did not shoot their guns many times: perhaps the rain had made the powder wet. They struck with their guns and used the sword, while the Mexicans used their long lances and their riatas. The mules that the Americans rode were frightened and ran all through the willows by the river. After them rode the Mexicans on their swift horses, striking with the lance and lassoing with the riata; it was a very terrible time." ²³

Only about half of the American force of 179 were involved in the actual battle. The rest were in reserve guarding their supplies and baggage. The Americans had trouble loading their newly-issued carbines with the small firing caps in the dark and cold. The two groups fought for about a half an hour mostly in the semi-dark and fog. Gillespie was struck twice. One lance threw him from his horse and another pierced his chest. According to one Californio account Andrés Pico engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Captain Moore. Another version put him and Leonardo Cota and Tomás Sánchez a mile away on a hill observing the battle. One Californio solider recalled that Juan Lobo, a twenty-three year old vaquero from Mission Vieja, led the main Californio assault on Kearny's forces. During the battle the Californios captured one of the American cannons when the mules pulling it bolted and ran towards them. Finally the Americans brought up another howitzer which they fired at the Californios causing their retreat. ²⁴

Dead on the field of battle were nineteen American soldiers. Two more died later from their wounds. Kearny himself had suffered three lance wounds and temporarily relieved himself of command. The Californios had eleven wounded and one, Pablo Véjar, was taken prisoner. Juan Alvarado was wounded in the back by a rifle ball. Some American deaths may have resulted from friendly fire. Lieutenant Emory recalled finding the body of Captain Johnston; he had been shot in the head. He was the only American to be killed by a bullet wound. The American wounded were taken with the remnants of the U.S. troops to a camp on a hill near San Pascual. The dead were buried in a mass grave and a messenger sent to Commodore Stockton in San Diego to ask for help. ²⁵ The next day, December 7, Kearny's troops resumed their march to San Diego followed by the Californios who constantly harassed them.

When the Americans reached Rancho San Bernardo a larger group of Californios attacked them, and Kearny made the decision to establish a fortified camp on a hill. They were unable to advance further because of the wounded and the increased Californio attacks. On what became known as Mule Hill, the Californio lancers surrounded the remnants of Kearny's and Gillespie's command and because of hunger they were reduced to eating mule flesh, also they had no water. The Californios captured the messenger the Americans had sent to San Diego when he was returning and, under a flag of truce, he was exchanged for the only Californio prisoner, Pablo Vejar. Kearny then learned that Stockton was not able to come immediately because of the lack of horses.

By December 8, 1846, the Americans decided to send out another party to inform Stockton of the urgency of their situation. One of the three messengers sent was a Native American, possibly from the San Pascual tribe. They arrived in San Diego after walking thirty miles and Stockton set out that same day to rescue the Americans. Meanwhile Pico received orders from Governor Flores to abandon his siege of the Americans and return to Los Angeles to rescue him from an insurrection from within the Californio ranks. So Pico and his men departed before Stockton's led by Lieutenant Gray's troops, arrived on December 11. Finally Kearny's troops were able to move on toward San Diego in safety, arriving on the afternoon of December 12. ²⁶

Later General Kearny wrote that the battle of December 6th had been a "victory" and that the Californios had "fled from the field." This view was challenged by one U.S. soldier, who wrote that they had been saved from decimation by the Californios' capture of the American howitzer, an act that made the Californios "consider themselves victorious, which saved the balance of the command." Later at the court martial of John Charles Frémont, Kearny admitted that the rescue party from San Diego had saved them from disaster. Generally the Navy officers, headed by Stockton, considered the Battle of San Pascual a defeat for the U.S. Army. Of course the Californios considered this engagement a victory and news of it spread throughout the district. ²⁷

Kearny's defeat was a product of his overconfidence in the condition of his own men and an underestimation of the Mexicans will to fight. When in New Mexico, Kearny had expressed his contempt for Mexicans, writing, "the Mexicans are physically, mentally and morally an inferior and 'low flung' race." The Californios for their part did not follow up their initial advantage. General Andrés Pico had divided his forces prior to the battle, not expecting to encounter Kearny's troops. Moreover he knew that the Californios could not fight a conventional war. They lacked the military training, firearms and supplies. Under these circumstances the most effective tactics was guerrilla warfare. He wrote after the battle on April 15, 1847, "the morale of the people had fallen, due to the lack of resources... together with my compatriots we made the last efforts, not withstanding the extreme lack of powder, arms, men and all kinds of supplies." ²⁸ The battle of San Pascual proved that despite internal dissention and division many Californios were willing to die to defend their homeland from the American invasion.
Aftermath
During the hostilities between the Americans and the Mexicans, the local native populations were by and large neutral. They composed the majority of the population of Southern California and their loyalty towards the Mexican government was not very solid-having experienced the loss of mission lands and various injustices at the hands of Mexican Californios. Nevertheless, many natives who had assimilated the Spanish language and religion and had become separated from their traditional villages and were living in and around the pueblo of San Diego. Many of them worked as servants and laborers or were casual migrants in search of food. In the back country, away from the coast, the natives were subject to misinformation and manipulation by both sides. An example of the resentments against the Californios affecting the war was the infamous Pauma massacre.

During the Mexican War, some Luiseño, Diegeño and Cupeño bands raided Californio ranchos, taking advantage of the weakened defense. The Californios considered the raiding bands as inspired by the Americans but the majority were probably the work of opportunists who were taking advantage of the war-time chaos. A major event involving the Native Americans of San Diego during the war was the Pauma massacre.

A few days after the battle of San Pascual eleven Californio men and youths took refuge in an adobe house on Rancho Pauma owned by José Antonio Serrano. While they were there they were tricked into allowing themselves to be captured by Luiseño Indians led by Manuelito Cota. The Indians took all the men prisoner and then took them to Warners Ranch. There they consulted with a Mexican named Yguera and William Marshall an American who had married the daughter of a local Indian chieftain. What happened next is subject to some debate. According to Doña Juana Machado de Ridington, Marshall instigated the massacre that followed by telling the Indians that they would be rewarded by the Americans. After a short captivity the prisoners were put to death by a torture of red hot spear thrusts. Doña Juana Machado de Riddington reported that, at the time, she had heard rumors that the Americans had authorized the Indians to kill and rob Californios, but that these rumors turned out to be false. ²⁹ Another Californio rumor was that Bill Marshall hated José Maria Alvarado, who was among the prisoners, because he had married Doña Lugarda Osuna, who Marshall had loved. ³⁰ José Antonio Estudillo remembered that the killings were carried out by Indians from Mission San Luis Rey and that other natives from San Pascual had set out to rescue these captives but had arrived too late. ³¹ Later Marshall was implicated in the Garra Indian uprising in 1851 and executed. His actual role in the Pauma massacre is not clear since during his trial no mention was made of the atrocity and he was not linked to the massacres until 1878, more than twenty years after the event. ³²

Immediately after learning of the capture of the Californios a punitive force of twenty-two Californios set out, led by José del Cármen Lugo and with a force of friendly Cahuilla Indians. They ambushed the Luiseño force and killed more than a hundred and took twenty captive who were later killed by their Cahuilla allies, according to their custom. ³³

The Pauma massacre illustrated the persistence of native animosities towards the Mexicans and the possible manipulation of Indian hatreds by the Americans. It also depicts how later reminiscences by Californios attributed a prime role to the Americans in the massacre. News of the massacre along with the fact that in 1847 the Indians vastly outnumbered the Californios and Mexicans may have worked to demoralize the Californio resistance movement in San Diego county.

Despite the Californio successes at San Pasqual, Dominguez Rancho, and Chico Rancho in Southern California, the U.S. forces were able to force the Californios to surrender and an armistice was signed on January 13, 1847. With the Americans reoccupying Los Angeles and San Diego the guerilla forces in the countryside disbanded. The war was officially over for the Californios and their conflicts with the Americans now went underground to resurface in banditry and other forms of resistance.

The Mexican War in San Diego county was a period that divided the Californio society into those loyal to the Americans and those who resisted with arms. This division persisted into the next decades making it even harder for the Mexicans to unite politically against the many injustices they experienced during the American takeover. The U.S.- Mexican War in San Diego was a small chapter in a much larger conflict, however it illustrated the resistance of the Mexican population to the American conquest and that the issue of loyalty was indeed a complex one.

1. Donald M. Grugal, "Military Movements into San Diego from the Mexican War to Statehood, 1846-1850," Masters thesis, History, San Diego State University, 1950, pp. 3-6.

2. Miguel de Pedrorrena, August 17, 18, 1846 in Benjamin Hayes, Documentos para la historia de california, Ms, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California.

3. Miguel de Pedorrena to H.D. Fitch, 8 August 1847, Henry Delano Fitch, Documentos para la historia de California, 1827-1858, Bancroft Ms., Berkeley, California.

4. Helen Elliott Bandini, History of California (NY: American book co., 1908), p. 145.

6. Both flag stories are retold in George Tays, "Plaza in Old San Diego," typescript 1937, California Historical Landmarks Series, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California mF 864. C136 no. 63. Later Antonia Machado and her family had to flee to a rancho in Baja California to escape retribution for their deed. See Carl H. Heilbron, History of San Diego County (San Diego: San Diego Press Club 1936), p. 66.

7. Ibid., p. 66.

8. Ibid., p. 66.

9. "Duvall's Log of the Savannah," Quarterly of the California Historical Society, Vol. III, no. 2 (July 1924): 119.

10. Ibid., p. 120.

11. Ibid., passim. Andrés Pico was Pío Pico's brother. He had been born in San Diego in 1810 and had gotten his military training as an officer in the San Diego Company. He had been the administrator of the San Luis Rey mission lands and had a rancho at Santa Margarita, San Juan Capistrano and Temecula. Later he would be elected, at various times, a state senator from San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties.

12. "Recuerdos de Doña Felipa Osuna de Marron: Natural de San Diego donde vive acutalmente con various papels oriniales..." 1878 Bancroft Library, MSS C D 120.

13. Ibid., p. 14.

14. "...daban gritos y echaban amenazas y desverguenzas," Ibid., p. 20.

15. "Nosotras las mujeres, todas dejamos nuestras casas, y nos reuníamos en la de los Estudillos Venian los del pais arriba del fortin que habían lavantado en la loma yo quería ir a unirme con mi marido, y hubo de consegir el con Alipaz y Cota licencia para venir a sacarme para eso pusieron alla una bandera blanca Alipaz y Cota dijeron a Marron que el no sería agarrado por los Americanos porque llevaba mucha amistad con Pedrorena, Arguello y Carrillo Los de aqui le dejaron entrar, porque los Californios me venían con una bandera blanca. Luego que entro me puso, porque salieron Pedrorena y un partido de Americanos a recibirlo le quitaron su caballo y armas y lo llevaron al cuartel. Como se tardo aqui varrios dias sin volverse a campo de los Californios conmigo, sospecharon aquellos que el se había pasado a los Americanos, y se pusieron muy enojados con el. Ibid., p. 15.

16. "Estabamos muy ansianos de ir a unirnos con nuestros paisanos, porque yo les tenía mucho miedo a los Americanos, que no era tropas disciplinados. Al fin logramos salir bajo palabra de honor de no hacer armas contra los Estados Unidos." And: "asi se acaba gran parte del nuestro, y el que me había dado el P. Zalvidia," Ibid., p. 16 .

17. As told to Elizabeth Judson Roberts and published in Indian Stories of the Southwest (San Francisco: Harr Wagner Publishing Co., 1917), p. 222 in Eileen M. Hook and Mary A. Helmich, "San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park, Interpretive Plan," Review Draft (Sacramento: Office of Interpretive Services, California State Parks and Recreation, May 1985), 136-7.

18. Eileen M. Hook and Mary A. Helmich, p.137; see Allen Olmstead Véjar and Pablo Véjar, Californios-one Portola Soldado de cuera's Family in California (1769 1877) (San Franicsco, Ca: private printing, 1989) for Vejars complete reminiscence.

19. Ibid., p.137 quoted from Juan Bautista Moreno, "Vida Militar," Ms. 1887, BAncroft Library, p. 27.

20. Sally Cavell Jones, "The Battle of San Pascual," Masters Thesis, USD, 1973, p. 72. Various estimates of troops sizes are discussed in this work. A partial list of the Californios soldiers commanded by Andrés Pico at San Pascual are as follows (from Grugal, "Military Movements into San Diego," p. 114)

Andrés Pico, Commander
Leonardo Cota, officer
Tomás Sanchez, officer
José Aguilar
Dionisio Alipas
José Alipas
José María Alvarado
Juan Alvarado
Pablo Apis
Felipe or Salvador Canedo
Ramon Carrillo
José Duarte
Gabriel Garcia
Franciso Higuera
José María Ibarra
Francisco Dorio Lara
Juan Lobo Mariano
Santiago Lobo
Cristobal Lopez
Jesus Machado
Juan Manirquez
Juan Bautista Moreno
Isidoro Olivares
Leandro Osuna
Ramon Osuna
Felipe or Rafael Peralta
Pedro Perez
Gregorio Santiago
Casimiro Rubio
José Antonio Serrano
Joaquin Valenzuela
Pablo Vejar
Miguel or Pedro Verdugo
Domingo Yorba
José Antonio Yorba III
Romualdo Young

21. Ibid., p. 139

22. Ibid., p. 175 found in José Francisco Palomares, "Memoria," Ms. June 21, 1877, Transcribed by Carlos N. Hijar, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California, pp. 91-92.

23. ibid., p. 176 in Roberts, p. 224.

24. Sally Cavell Jones, "The Battle of San Pascual," Masters Thesis, USD, 1973, p. 83-93. See Benjamin Hayes, "Notes on California Affairs," Ms., n.d. in Bancroft Library.

25. Ibid., pp. 164-6.

26. Ibid., p., 173.

27. Ibid., pp. 130-31.

28. Ibid., p. 140; Nile's National Register, November 7, 1846 p 146 in George Tays, "Pío Pico's Correspondence with the Mexican Government," California Historical Society Quarterly, XIII (June, 1934), p. 132.

29. Juana Machado de Ridington, "Los Tiempos pasados de la alta california: recuerdos de la Sra. Doña Juana Machado de Ridington, Bancroft Ms. 1878, C D 119; see also Raymond S. Brandes, trans. "Times Gone By in Alta California: Recollections of Senora Doña Juana Machado Alipaz de Ridington," Historical Society of Southern California, Vol. 41 (1959) pp. 195-240.

30. General John Bidwell, Echoes of the Past.... (Chico: Chico Advertiser, n.d.), p. 72; Bidwell was a resident of San Diego during this period.

31. José Maria Estudillo," Datos Historicos sobre la Alta California," Bancroft Ms., 1878 c D 76, p. 48. He listed some of the victims as José Maria Basualado, José Lopez, José Maria Alvarado, Dona Lugarda Osuna, Jesus Serrano, Santiago Osuna, and José Rosario Alipaz. Estudillo calls Bill Marshall, Bill Matador.

32. See Leland E. Bibb, "William Marshall," Unpublished Research Paper, San Diego Historical Society.

33. R. W. Brackett, A History of the Ranchos (San Diego: Union Title Insurance and Trust Co., 1939), p. 59.

Ricardo Griswold del Castillo, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at SDSU and Chair of the department. He has published a number of books including The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to the present (Notre Dame: Univervsity of Notre Dame Press, 1984), The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1980), Chicano Social and Political History in the Ninteenth Century (edited with Manuel Hidalgo) (Van Nuys: Floricanto Press, 1992), Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit (with Richard Garcia) (University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), and North to Aztlan: Mexican Americans in United States History (with Arnoldo De Leon), Twayne Publishers, 1996.

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The U.S.-Mexican War in San Diego, 1846-1847 - San Diego History Center | San Diego, CA | Our City, Our Story

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The Journal of San Diego History SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY Winter 2003, Volume 49, Number 1 Gregg Hennessey, Editor By Richard Griswold del Castillo Images from the Article Little has been written about the American military conquest of San Diego during the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848.

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Find a summary, definition and facts about the Mexican American War for kids. Timeline, map, summary and causes of the Mexican American War. Timeline of the Mexican American War for kids, children, homework and schools.

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Twelve-year-old Shipwreck narrates Fleischman's third novel (after By the Great Horn Spoon! and Bandit's Moon ) based on mid-19th-century California history. The boy earned his nickname after being fished from the sea by Captain Gallows, a Mexican sea bandit at the helm of The Giant Rat of Sumatra . The young Bostonian was one of two survivors from a whaling boat that splintered in a storm. Readers looking for a high-seas adventure may be somewhat let down by the fact that, despite the novel's title and cover art, Gallows's ship anchors after it enters San Diego Bay on the first pages; most of the subsequent action takes place on land. Yet plenty of intrigue, acts of revenge and droll dialogue will keep kids bountifully entertained. Gallows takes Shipwreck under his wing and sews into the hem of the lad's coat his most precious booty: the giant emeralds that once served as the eyes of his ship's bowsprit—a giant rat carved from mahogany. Shipwreck dutifully guards the gems as he sticks close to Gallows, who purchases a vast rancho, attempts to sabotage the business of the rancher who mistreated him in his youth and cagily deals with banditos who apprehend him. Adding dimension to the story, which entails some slapstick scenarios, is its historical backdrop—the Mexican-American War; during the course of the tale Mexico loses California to the United States. A boisterous, cleverly crafted caper. Ages 10-up.

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Sid Fleischman, Author, John Hendrix, Illustrator , illus. by John Hendrix. HarperCollins/Greenwillow $15.99 (194p) ISBN 978-0-06-074238-6

More By and About This Author

Twelve-year-old Shipwreck narrates Fleischman's third novel (after By the Great Horn Spoon! and Bandit's Moon ) based on mid-19th-century California history. The boy earned his nickname after being fished from the sea by Captain Gallows, a Mexican sea bandit at the helm of The Giant Rat of Sumatra . The young Bostonian was one of two survivors from a whaling boat that splintered in a storm. Readers looking for a high-seas adventure may be somewhat let down by the fact that, despite the novel's title and cover art, Gallows's ship anchors after it enters San Diego Bay on the first pages; most of the subsequent action takes place on land. Yet plenty of intrigue, acts of revenge and droll dialogue will keep kids bountifully entertained. Gallows takes Shipwreck under his wing and sews into the hem of the lad's coat his most precious booty: the giant emeralds that once served as the eyes of his ship's bowsprit-a giant rat carved from mahogany. Shipwreck dutifully guards the gems as he sticks close to Gallows, who purchases a vast rancho, attempts to sabotage the business of the rancher who mistreated him in his youth and cagily deals with banditos who apprehend him. Adding dimension to the story, which entails some slapstick scenarios, is its historical backdrop-the Mexican-American War; during the course of the tale Mexico loses California to the United States. A boisterous, cleverly crafted caper. Ages 10-up. (Feb.)

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Children's Book Review: THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA: Or Pirates Galore by Sid Fleischman, Author, John Hendrix, Illustrator , illus. by John Hendrix. HarperCollins/Greenwillow $15.99 (194p) ISBN 978-0-06-074238-6

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Sid Fleischman, Author, John Hendrix, Illustrator , illus. by John Hendrix. HarperCollins/Greenwillow $15.99 (194p) ISBN 978-0-06-074238-6 More By and About This Author Twelve-year-old Shipwreck narrates Fleischman's third novel (after By the Great Horn Spoon! and Bandit's Moon ) based on mid-19th-century California history.

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History >>Westward Expansion

The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States andMexico from 1846 to 1848. It was primarily over the territory of Texas.

Background

Texas had been a state of the country of Mexico since 1821 when Mexico gained its independence from Spain. The Texans, however, began to disagree with the government of Mexico. In 1836, they declared their independence from Mexico and formed the Republic of Texas. They fought several battles including The Alamo. In the end, they gained their independence and Sam Houston became the first President of Texas.

Texas Becomes a US State

In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state. Mexico didn't like that the United States took over Texas. There also was a disagreement over the border of Texas. Mexico said the border was at the Nueces River while Texas claimed the border was further south at the Rio Grande River.

War with Mexico

President James K. Polk sent troops to Texas to protect the border. Soon Mexican and US troops were shooting at each other. On May 13, 1846 the United States declared war on Mexico.

Mexican-American War Overview Map
By Kaidor [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons
(Click picture to see larger view)

The Mexican army was led by General Santa Anna. The US forces were led byGeneral Zachary Taylor and General Winfield Scott. General Taylor's forces were the first to engage the Mexican army. They fought an early battle at Palo Alto where the Mexicans were forced to retreat.

General Taylor advanced into Mexico fighting battles at the city of Monterrey and a mountain pass called Buena Vista. At the Battle of Buena Vista, Taylor and 5,000 troops were attacked by 14,000 Mexican troops led by Santa Anna. They held off the attack and won the battle despite being outnumbered.

Capture of Mexico City

President Polk didn't trust Zachary Taylor. He also considered him a rival. Instead of reinforcing Taylor's troops to capture Mexico City, he sent in another army led by General Winfield Scott. Scott advanced on Mexico City and captured it in August of 1847.

Fall of Mexico City during the Mexican-American War
by Carl Nebel

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

With the United States in control of their capital city and much of the country divided, the Mexicans agreed to a peace treaty called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the treaty, Mexico agreed to the border of Texas at the Rio Grande. They also agreed to sell a large area of land to the United States for $15 million. Today this land makes up the states of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Portions of Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado were also included.

Mexican Cession in Mexican View
from the U.S. Government

Interesting Facts about the Mexican-American War

Several of the commanders of the US troops would become leaders during the American Civil War including Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.

Mexico gave up around 55% of its territory to the US after the war. The territory was called the Mexican Cession in the United States.

When the US attacked the Mexican Military Academy at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, six Mexican students fought to the death defending the castle. They are still remembered as the Ninos Heros (meaning "boy heroes") in Mexico with a national holiday on September 13.

There was also a rebellion in California during the war where settlers declared their independence from Mexico.

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History >>Westward Expansion

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Learn about the Mexican-American War fought over the land rights to Texas after the Texan Revolution.

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First Transcontinental Railroad
History >>Westward Expansion

The First Transcontinental Railroad stretched from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. No longer would people travel in long wagon trains that took months to reachCalifornia. They could now travel faster, safer, and cheaper by train. In addition to people, things like mail, supplies, and trade goods could now be shipped across the country in just a few days. The railroad was built between 1863 and 1869.

Background

The first talk of a transcontinental railroad started around 1830. One of the first promoters of the railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. Asa tried hard for many years to get Congress to pass an act to build the railroad, but failed. However, in the 1860s Theodore Judah began to lobby for a railroad. He surveyed the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found a pass where the railroad could be built.

The Route

There were two main routes along which people wanted the first railroad to be built.

One route was called the "central route". It followed much the same route as the Oregon Trail. It would begin in Omaha, Nebraska and end up in Sacramento, California.

The other route was the "southern route". This route would stretch across Texas, New Mexico, and end up in Los Angeles, California.

The central route was eventually chosen by Congress.

Route of the First Transcontinental Railroad by Unknown

Pacific Railroad Act

In 1862President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law. The act said that there were two main railroad lines. The Central Pacific Railroad would come from California and the Union Pacific Railroad would come from the Midwest. The two railroads would meet somewhere in the middle.

The act gave the railroad companies land where they could build the railroad. It also paid them for each mile that they built. They were paid more money for miles of track built in themountains versus miles of track built on the flat plains.

Building the Railroad

Across the Continent
by Joseph Becker

Building the railroad was tough, hard work. Weather conditions were especially tough in the mountains during the winter. A lot of times the only way to travel over the mountains was to go through the mountains by blasting a tunnel. The Central Pacific Railroad had to blast a number of tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The longest tunnel built was 1659 feet long. It took a long time to build the tunnels. They were able to blast around one foot per day on average.

While the Central Pacific Railroad had to deal with mountains and snow, the Union Pacific Railroad was challenged byNative Americans raids. As the Native Americans came to realize the threat to their way of life that the "Iron Horse" was going to bring, they began to raid the railroad work sites. Also, a lot of the land that was "granted" to the railroad by the government was actually Native American land.

The Workers

The majority of the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad were Irish laborers, many who had served in both the Union and the Confederate armies. In Utah, a lot of the track was built by Mormon workers. Most of the Central Pacific Railroad was built by Chinese immigrants.

The Golden Spike

The two railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869. Leland Stanford, governor of California and president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove in the last spike. This final spike was called the "Golden Spike" or "The Final Spike". You can see it today at Stanford University in California.

Driving the Golden Spike on 10th May, 1869
by American School

Interesting Facts about the First Transcontinental Railroad

The Pony Express traveled a similar route to the central route and helped to prove that the route was passable in winter.

The transcontinental railroad was also called the Pacific Railroad and the Overland Route.

The total length of the First Transcontinental Railroad was 1,776 miles.

The Central Pacific Railroad was controlled by four men called the "Big Four". They were Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker.

It was later, in November of 1869, when the Central Pacific connected San Francisco to Sacramento.

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History >>Westward Expansion

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Kids learn about the First Transcontinental Railroad. Fun facts about the route, the Union Pacific, and the Pacific Railroad Act.

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Newsela - Timemachine 1857: Miners' lives during the California Gold Rush

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Newsela - Timemachine 1857: Miners' lives during the California Gold Rush

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Newsela | Time Machine (1857): Miners' lives during the California Gold Rush

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The Builders of the Transcontinental Railroad

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The labor required to build the Transcontinental Railroad was extensive. The main laborers, the ones who laid the track, did back-straining work for days on end, for not necessarily high wages, in sometimes brutal conditions. This massive transportation construction project also required an entire network of support, including medical staff, cooks, and proprietors of provisions stores and living areas.

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Western Expansion for Kids - The Transcontinental Railroad of 1862 - FREE American History Lesson Plans & Games for Kids

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What does the term “transcontinental” mean? Transcontinental means going across a continent. In the US that would mean from coast to coast.

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Chinese labor was suggested, as they had already helped build the California Central Railroad, the railroad from Sacramento to Marysville and the San Jose Railway. Originally thought to be too small to complete such a momentous task, Charles Crocker of Central Pacific pointed out,

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By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleishman

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By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleishman

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A frolicking romp through the California Gold Rush

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By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman | Scholastic

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Jack and the butler stow away on a side-wheeler bound for California where they join the Gold Rush of 1849.

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Newsela | "By the Great Horn Spoon!" by Sid Fleischman

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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How can one idea in a book grow into a balanced perspective?Immigrants from the east coast
Native Californians ("digger Indians")

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Told from the perspective of a little boy accompanying Father Junipero Serra on his long overland journey from Old Mexico to Alta California, The Mission Bell recounts the hardships this expedition of padres, soldiers and sailors survived.

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Mission Bell has 10 ratings and 0 reviews: Published January 1st 2000 by Scribner, School & Library Binding

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Shek marvels at the new world as he and his brother, Little Wong, arrive in California. Along with hundreds of other workers, the brothers are going to build a great railroad across the West. They plan to save enough money so that their mother and little brothers can join them in America. But as days grow into months, they endure many hardships-exhausting work, discrimination, and treacherous avalanches. Inspired by actual events, this story reveals the harsh truth about life for the Chinese railroad workers in 1865, while celebrating their perseverance and bravery.

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COOLIES by Yin , Chris K. Soentiept | Kirkus Reviews

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As a boy and his grandmother celebrate the Ching Ming Festival, a holiday honoring one's ancestors, the grandmother tells the story of her great-grandfather, Shek, who came from China to California in 1865 to work on the transcontinental railroad.

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Untold History: The Survival of California’s Indians

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No matter what you learned in fourth grade, California Indians didn’t vanish when the ’49ers arrived.

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The California Missions Foundation is committed to the full and accurate depiction of history in early California. CMF will continue to work with California Indian scholars, leaders, and cultural experts to develop this site into a robust source of information about California Indian experiences. In the future, this site will feature links to historical resources and will connect visitors to contemporary California Indian Communities. What follows is a brief introduction to California Indian experiences before, during, and after the Mission era.
California Indians Before Colonization
California has always been one of the most culturally diverse areas of the world. The term California Indian is an oversimplification. The tribal groups that have lived in California, since time immemorial, did not call themselves California Indians. Instead, they knew themselves by countless village and family affiliations.

Early European explorers described California as an earthly paradise where native inhabitants simply "survived" off of what nature provided. But California Indians never left their sustenance to fate. Throughout the state, Native Californians carefully managed their environments. Through controlled burning, they cleared underbrush and promoted new growth of important plants. They upturned soil by harvesting bulb plants, which caused such vegetation to multiply. They harvested seeds from grasses and in doing so they unintentionally, and at times intentionally, spread plant species into new areas. Such practices not only ensured an abundance of food, but also provided the raw materials for instruments of utility and art, such as regalia, baskets, and household items.

Despite European views to the contrary, California Indians developed complex cultures and traditions millennia before the arrival of the Spanish missionaries.
Missions: A Time of Little Choice
Although Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed California for Spain in 1542, Spain did not attempt to occupy the land until the late 1700s. Occupation of New Spain radiated outward from Mexico City. The primary strategy of Spanish colonization was to convert Native Peoples into loyal Spanish citizens. Missionization, the act of converting Native Americans through cultural and religious instruction, was central to the Spanish colonial strategy.

By the mid-1700s, Spain had already founded missions in Baja California. Feeling pressure from rival empires, such as Russia and Great Britain, Spain worried about maintaining its claim over land in the Northern reaches of New Spain. Russian trappers worked their way South along the Pacific Coast and British ships reconnoitered Alta California. In 1769, Spain ordered a military expedition to explore and occupy Alta California. Led by Captain Gaspar Portola and Father Junipero Serra, this initial exploration would come to be known as the Sacred Expedition. The expedition resulted in the founding of Mission San Diego, the first in the chain of 21 missions that would eventually stretch all the way to Sonoma.

Besides the padres and military personnel, the missions were closed Native American communities. Padres generally sited the missions close to existing Native American communities. Native Americans came to these communities for a variety of reasons. Recent historical scholarship suggests that Spanish diseases and rapid environmental degradation, caused by invasive species brought by the Spanish, dramatically changed the environment and traditional societal structures. As Native food sources became less reliable and as disease ravaged California Indian communities, the missions presented an option in a time of great upheaval.

The missions created new types of communities, although often uneasy ones. It was a life that was controlled by the padres. In the missions, Native Americans received religious instruction and were expected to perform labor, such as building and farming for the maintenance of the community. It was a life that was dramatically different from the life they knew before the Mission era. The Mission System was highly coercive and once California Indian people entered the community, they were expected to live in ways that the padres and military officials deemed acceptable. Missionaries discouraged aspects of Native religion and culture. Native Americans who had entered into the mission communities through baptism were not allowed to leave without permission. Corporal punishment, such as floggings, for Native Americans who disobeyed the rules was frequent and at times severe. Although such punishments were not uncommon in contemporary Spanish society, they were quite a departure from traditional Native American practices.

Not all Native Peoples in Alta California came to the missions and not all of those who did experienced mission life in the same way. The Spanish established the missions across a great geographical distance and over a long period of time. Junipero Serra founded the first mission in San Diego in 1769. Father Jose Altimira founded the last Alta California Mission, San Francisco de Solano, in 1823. Although there was a mission system and the Padres who administered them did so under established guidelines, there was much regional variation. This variation was reflective of the Native Americans who made up the missions communities and the personalities of the missionaries.

Whatever the modern view of the missions, one thing is clear: California Indians built each mission and it was California Indians who lived, worked, and died in them. It is clear that life at the missions was often difficult. Disease frequently ravaged mission communities. But even in these times of great hardships, California Indians made the best lives they could. They got married and had children, they passed down traditions and cultural knowledge, and they experienced moments of great joy, however brief. Above all, they were not "mission Indians," they were people.
California Indian Cultural Continuity
Although missionization forever altered California Indian cultures, it could not erase them. California Indian people are central to contemporary life. They own businesses, work as public servants, and hold political offices throughout the state. But many also continue aspects of their pre-colonization cultural traditions. Elders teach younger generations how tend plants to yield traditional foods and basket weaving materials. Multiple generations of families continue to dance and sing in ways that long predate Spanish colonization. Where the thread of memory has broken, California Indians are reviving traditions through research and practice. Indeed, California Indian cultures are indelible.
Selected Bibliography
Anderson, M. Kat, Tending the Wild (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

Hackel, Steven, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Williamsburg, Virginia: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2005).

Jackson, Robert H. and Edward Castillo, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Missions System on California Indians (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1995).

Margolin, Malcolm, "Introduction," in Life in a California Mission (Berkeley: Heyday Press, 1989).

Milliken, Randall, A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810 (Banning, CA: Ballena Press, 1995).

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California Indians - California Missions Foundation

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California Indians, Before, During, and After the Mission Era Introduction The California Missions Foundation is committed to the full and accurate depiction of history in early California. CMF will continue to work with California Indian scholars, leaders, and cultural experts to develop this site into a robust source of information about California Indian experiences.

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The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of 21 religious outposts; established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order between 1769 and 1833, to expand Christianity among the Native Americans northwards into what is today the U.S. state of California. The missions were part of a major effort by the Spanish Empire to extend colonization into the most northern and western parts of Spain's North American claims. Following a long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Latin America, the missionaries forced the native Californians to live in settlements called reductions. The missionaries introduced European fruits, vegetables, cattle, horses, ranching and technology into the region that became the New Spain province of Alta California; however, the missions also brought serious negative consequences to the Native American populations with whom the missionaries and other Spaniards came in contact.

Mexico achieved independence in 1821, taking Alta California along with it, but the missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of vast land holdings until the 1830s. At the peak of its development in 1832, the coastal mission system controlled an area equal to approximately one-sixth of Alta California. The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833. This divided the mission lands into land grants, which became many of the Ranchos of California.

In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives: to convert, educate, and "civilize" the indigenous population and transform the natives into Spanish colonial citizens. Despite the fact that the original administrative system of Spanish missions no longer survives, still the impact that the mission-system has had on California culture, economics, and place histories can yet be felt to this day. Today, the surviving mission buildings are the state's oldest structures, and its most-visited historic monuments.

Alta California mission planning, structure and culture

Coastal mission chain, planning and overview

The Rev. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén took up Serra's work and established nine more mission sites, from 1786 through 1798; others established the last three compounds, along with at least five asistencias (mission assistance outposts).

Shelved plans for additional mission chains

Work on the coastal mission chain was concluded in 1823, completed after Serra's death in 1784. Plans to build a twenty-second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 were canceled.

The Rev. Pedro Estévan Tápis proposed establishing a mission on one of the Channel Islands in the Pacific Ocean off San Pedro Harbor in 1784, with either Santa Catalina or Santa Cruz (known as Limú to the Tongva residents) being the most likely locations, the reasoning being that an offshore mission might have attracted potential people to convert who were not living on the mainland, and could have been an effective measure to restrict smuggling operations. Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga approved the plan the following year, however an outbreak of sarampion ( measles) killing some 200 Tongva people coupled with a scarcity of land for agriculture and potable water left the success of such a venture in doubt, so no effort to found an island mission was ever made.

In September, 1821 the Rev. Mariano Payeras, " Comisario Prefecto" of the California missions, visited Cañada de Santa Ysabel east of Mission San Diego de Alcalá as part of a plan to establish an entire chain of inland missions. The Santa Ysabel Asistencia had been founded in 1818 as a "mother" mission, however the plan's expanding beyond never came to fruition.

Mission sites, selection and layout

Main page: Architecture of the California missions

In addition to the presidio (royal fort) and pueblo (town), the misión was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish sovereign to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories. Asistencias ("satellite" or "sub" missions, sometimes referred to as "contributing chapels") were small-scale missions that regularly conducted Mass on days of obligation but lacked a resident priest; as with the missions, these settlements were typically established in areas with high concentrations of potential native converts. The Spanish Californians had never strayed from the coast when establishing their settlements; Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad was located farthest inland, being only some thirty miles (48 kilometers) from the shore. Each frontier station was forced to be self-supporting, as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size. California was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico, and the cargo ships of the day were too small to carry more than a few months' rations in their holds. To sustain a mission, the padres required converted Native Americans, called neophytes, to cultivate crops and tend livestock in the volume needed to support a fair-sized establishment. The scarcity of imported materials, together with a lack of skilled laborers, compelled the missionaries to employ simple building materials and methods in the construction of mission structures.

Although the missions were considered temporary ventures by the Spanish hierarchy, the development of an individual settlement was not simply a matter of "priestly whim." The founding of a mission followed longstanding rules and procedures; the paperwork involved required months, sometimes years of correspondence, and demanded the attention of virtually every level of the bureaucracy. Once empowered to erect a mission in a given area, the men assigned to it chose a specific site that featured a good water supply, plenty of wood for fires and building materials, and ample fields for grazing herds and raising crops. The padres blessed the site, and with the aid of their military escort fashioned temporary shelters out of tree limbs or driven stakes, roofed with thatch or reeds ( cañas). It was these simple huts that ultimately gave way to the stone and adobe buildings that exist to the present.

The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church ( iglesia). The majority of mission sanctuaries were oriented on a roughly east-west axis to take the best advantage of the sun's position for interior illumination; the exact alignment depended on the geographic features of the particular site. Once the spot for the church had been selected, its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out. The workshops, kitchens, living quarters, storerooms, and other ancillary chambers were usually grouped in the form of a quadrangle, inside which religious celebrations and other festive events often took place. The cuadrángulo was rarely a perfect square because the missionaries had no surveying instruments at their disposal and simply measured off all dimensions by foot. Some fanciful accounts regarding the construction of the missions claimed that underground tunnels were incorporated in the design, to be used as a means of emergency egress in the event of attack; however, no historical evidence (written or physical) has ever been uncovered to support these assertions.

Franciscans and native conscription

The Alta California missions, known as reductions ( reducciones) or congregations ( congregaciones), were settlements founded by the Spanish colonizers of the New World with the purpose of totally assimilating indigenous populations into European culture and the Catholic religion. It was a doctrine established in 1531, which based the Spanish state's right over the land and persons of the Indies on the Papal charge to evangelize them. It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native pueblos. Indians were congregated around the mission proper through forced resettlement, in which the Spanish "reduced" them from what they perceived to be a free "undisciplined'" state with the ambition of converting them into "civilized" members of colonial society. The civilized and disciplined culture of the natives, developed over 8,000 year, was not considered. A total of 146 Friars Minor, mostly Spaniards by birth, were ordained as priests and served in California between 1769 and 1845. Sixty-seven missionaries died at their posts (two as : Padres Luis Jayme and Andrés Quintana), while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness, or upon completing their ten-year service commitment. As the rules of the Franciscan Order forbade friars to live alone, two missionaries were assigned to each settlement, sequestered in the mission's convento. To these the governor assigned a guard of five or six soldiers under the command of a corporal, who generally acted as steward of the mission's temporal affairs, subject to the priests' direction.

Indians were initially attracted into the mission compounds by gifts of food, colored beads, bits of bright cloth, and trinkets. Once a Native American " gentile" was baptized, they were labeled a , or new believer. This happened only after a brief period during which the initiates were instructed in the most basic aspects of the Catholic faith. But, while many natives were lured to join the missions out of curiosity and sincere desire to participate and engage in trade, many found themselves trapped once they were baptised.

To the padres, a baptized Indian person was no longer free to move about the country, but had to labor and worship at the mission under the strict observance of the priests and overseers, who herded them to daily masses and labors. If an Indian did not report for their duties for a period of a few days, they were searched for, and if it was discovered that they had left without permission, they were considered runaways. Large-scale military expeditions were organized to round up the escaped neophytes. Sometimes, the Franciscans allowed neophytes to escape the missions, or they would allow them to visit their home village. However, the Franciscans would only allow this so that they could secretly follow the neophytes. Upon arriving to the village and capturing the runaways, they would take back Indians to the missions, sometimes as many as 200 to 300 Indians.

On one occasion," writes Hugo Reid, " they went as far as the present Rancho del Chino, where they tied and whipped every man, woman and child in the lodge, and drove part of them back.... On the road they did the same with those of the lodge at San Jose. On arriving home the men were instructed to throw their bows and arrows at the feet of the priest, and make due submission. The infants were then baptized, as were also all children under eight years of age; the former were left with their mothers, but the latter kept apart from all communication with their parents. The consequence was, first, the women consented to the rite and received it, for the love they bore their children; and finally the males gave way for the purpose of enjoying once more the society of wife and family. Marriage was then performed, and so this contaminated race, in their own sight and that of their kindred, became followers of Christ.

A total of 20,355 natives were "attached" to the California missions in 1806 (the highest figure recorded during in the Mission Period); under Mexican rule the number rose to 21,066 (in 1824, the record year during the entire era of the Franciscan missions). During the entire period of Mission rule, from 1769 to 1834, the Franciscans baptized 53,600 adult Indians and buried 37,000. Dr. Cook estimates that 15,250 or 45% of the population decrease was caused by disease. Two epidemics of measles, one in 1806 and the other in 1828, caused many deaths. The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions.

Young native women were required to reside in the monjerío (or "nunnery") under the supervision of a trusted Indian matron who bore the responsibility for their welfare and education. Women only left the convent after they had been "won" by an Indian suitor and were deemed ready for marriage. Following Spanish custom, courtship took place on either side of a barred window. After the marriage ceremony the woman moved out of the mission compound and into one of the family huts. These "nunneries" were considered a necessity by the priests, who felt the women needed to be protected from the men, both Indian and de razón ("instructed men", i.e. Europeans). The cramped and unsanitary conditions the girls lived in contributed to the fast spread of disease and population decline. So many died at times that many of the Indian residents of the missions urged the priests to raid new villages to supply them with more women. As of December 31, 1832 (the peak of the mission system's development) the mission padres had performed a combined total of 87,787 baptisms and 24,529 marriages, and recorded 63,789 deaths.

The neophytes were kept in well-guarded mission compounds. The policy of the Franciscans was to keep them constantly occupied. "If the Indian would not work," writes C. D. Willard, "he was starved and flogged. If he ran away he was pursued and brought back."

Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission. The bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times; novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bells. The daily routine began with sunrise Mass and morning prayers, followed by instruction of the natives in the teachings of the Roman Catholic faith. After a generous (by era standards) breakfast of , the able-bodied men and women were assigned their tasks for the day. The women were committed to dressmaking, knitting, weaving, embroidering, laundering, and cooking, while some of the stronger girls ground flour or carried adobe bricks (weighing 55 lb, or 25 kg each) to the men engaged in building. The men worked a variety of jobs, having learned from the missionaries how to plow, sow, irrigate, cultivate, reap, thresh, and glean. In addition, they were taught to build adobe houses, tan leather hides, shear sheep, weave rugs and clothing from wool, make ropes, soap, paint, and other useful duties.

The work day was six hours, interrupted by dinner (lunch) around 11:00 a.m. and a two-hour siesta, and ended with evening prayers and the rosary, supper, and social activities. About 90 days out of each year were designated as religious or civil holidays, free from manual labor. The labor organization of the missions resembled a slave plantation in many respects. Foreigners who visited the missions remarked at how the priests' control over the Indians appeared excessive, but necessary given the white men's isolation and numeric disadvantage. Indians were not paid wages as they were not considered free laborers and, as a result, the missions were able to profit from the goods produced by the Mission Indians to the detriment of the other Spanish and Mexican settlers of the time who could not compete economically with the advantage of the mission system.

The Franciscans began to send neophytes to work as servants of Spanish soldiers in the presidios. Each presidio was provided with land, el rancho del rey, which served as a pasture for the presidio livestock and as a source of food for the soldiers. Theoretically the soldiers were supposed to work on this land themselves but within a few years the neophytes were doing all the work on the presidio farm and, in addition, were serving domestics for the soldiers. While the fiction prevailed that neophytes were to receive wages for their work, no attempt was made to collect the wages for these services after 1790. It is recorded that the neophytes performed the work "under unmitigated compulsion."

In recent years, much debate has arisen as to the actual treatment of the Indians during the Mission period, and many claim that the California mission system is directly responsible for the decline of the native cultures. Evidence has now been brought to light that puts the Indians' experiences in a very different context.

The missionaries of California were by-and-large well-meaning, devoted men...[whose] attitudes toward the Indians ranged from genuine (if paternalistic) affection to wrathful disgust. They were ill-equipped-nor did most truly desire-to understand complex and radically different Native American customs. Using European standards, they condemned the Indians for living in a "wilderness," for worshipping false gods or no God at all, and for having no written laws, standing armies, forts, or churches.

Mission industries

The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission. Barley, maize, and wheat were among the most common crops grown. Cereal grains were dried and ground by stone into flour. Even today, California is well known for the abundance and many varieties of fruit trees that are cultivated throughout the state. The only fruits indigenous to the region, however, consisted of wild berries or grew on small bushes. Spanish missionaries brought fruit seeds over from Europe, many of which had been introduced from Asia following earlier expeditions to the continent; orange, grape, apple, peach, pear, and fig seeds were among the most prolific of the imports. Grapes were also grown and fermented into wine for sacramental use and again, for trading. The specific variety, called the Criolla or Mission grape, was first planted at Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1779; in 1783, the first wine produced in Alta California emerged from the mission's winery. Ranching also became an important mission industry as cattle and sheep herds were raised.

It was also the missions' responsibility to provide the Spanish forts, or presidios, with the necessary foodstuffs, and manufactured goods to sustain operations. It was a constant point of contention between missionaries and the soldiers as to how many fanegas of barley, or how many shirts or blankets the mission had to provide the garrisons on any given year. At times these requirements were hard to meet, especially during years of drought, or when the much anticipated shipments from the port of San Blas failed to arrive. The Spaniards kept meticulous records of mission activities, and each year reports submitted to the Father-Presidente summarizing both the material and spiritual status at each of the settlements.

Livestock was raised, not only for the purpose of obtaining meat, but also for wool, leather, and tallow, and for cultivating the land. In 1832, at the height of their prosperity, the missions collectively owned:

All these grazing animals were originally brought up from Mexico. A great many Indians were required to guard the herds and flocks on the mission ranches, which created the need for "...a class of horsemen scarcely surpassed anywhere." These animals multiplied beyond the settler's expectations, often overrunning pastures and extending well-beyond the domains of the missions. The giant herds of horses and cows took well to the climate and the extensive pastures of the Coastal California region, but at a heavy price for the California Native American people. The uncontrolled spread of these new herds, and associated invasive exotic plant species, quickly exhausted the native plants in the grasslands, and the chaparral and woodlands that the Indians depended on for their seed, foliage, and bulb harvests. The grazing-overgrazing problems were also recognized by the Spaniards, who periodically had extermination parties cull and kill thousands of excess livestock, when herd populations grew beyond their control or the land's capacity. Years with a severe drought did this also.

Mission kitchens and bakeries prepared and served thousands of meals each day. Candles, soap, grease, and ointments were all made from tallow (rendered animal fat) in large vats located just outside the west wing. Also situated in this general area were vats for dyeing wool and tanning leather, and primitive looms for weaving. Large bodegas (warehouses) provided long-term storage for preserved foodstuffs and other treated materials.

Each mission had to fabricate virtually all of its construction materials from local materials. Workers in the carpintería ( carpentry shop) used crude methods to shape beams, lintels, and other structural elements; more skilled artisans carved doors, furniture, and wooden implements. For certain applications bricks ( ladrillos) were fired in ovens ( kilns) to strengthen them and make them more resistant to the elements; when tejas (roof tiles) eventually replaced the conventional jacal roofing (densely packed reeds) they were placed in the kilns to harden them as well. Glazed ceramic pots, dishes, and canisters were also made in mission kilns.

Prior to the establishment of the missions, the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone, seashells, stone, and wood for building, tool making, weapons, and so forth. The missionaries established manual training in European skills and methods; in agriculture, mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres; thus, the neophytes not only supported themselves, but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California. The foundry at Mission San Juan Capistrano was the first to introduce the Indians to the Iron Age. The blacksmith used the mission's forges (California's first) to smelt and fashion iron into everything from basic tools and hardware (such as nails) to crosses, gates, hinges, even cannon for mission defense. Iron in particular was a commodity that the mission acquired solely through trade, as the missionaries had neither the know-how nor technology to mine and process metal ores.

No study of the missions is complete without mention of their extensive water supply systems. Stone zanjas ( aqueducts, sometimes spanning miles, brought fresh water from a nearby river or spring to the mission site. Open or covered lined ditches and/or baked clay pipes, joined together with lime mortar or bitumen, gravity-fed the water into large cisterns and fountains, and emptied into waterways where the force of the water was used to turn grinding wheels and other simple machinery, or dispensed for use in cleaning. Water used for drinking and cooking was allowed to trickle through alternate layers of sand and charcoal to remove the impurities. One of the best-preserved mission water systems is at Mission Santa Barbara.

Beginning in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert indigenous people in Nueva España (), which consisted of the Caribbean, Mexico, and most of what is now the Southwestern United States) to Roman Catholicism. This would facilitate colonization of these lands awarded to Spain by the Catholic Church, including that region later known as Alta California.

Early Spanish exploration

Secret English claims

Unknown to Spain, Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer who pillaged Spanish ships and settlements, claimed the Alta California region for England in 1579, a full generation before the first English landing in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. During his circumnavigation of the world, Drake anchored in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. To preserve an uneasy peace with Spain and to avoid the prospect of Spain threatening England's claims in the New World, Queen Elizabeth I ordered Drake's discovery and claim kept secret.

Russian exploration

However, it wasn't until 1741 that the Spanish monarchy of King Philip V was stimulated to consider how to protect his claims to Alta California. Philip was spurred on when the territorial ambitions of Tsarist Russia were expressed in the Vitus Bering expedition along the western coast on the North American continent.

Spanish expansion

California represents the "high-water mark" of Spanish expansion in North America as the last and northernmost colony on the continent. The mission system arose in part from the need to control Spain's ever-expanding holdings in the New World. Realizing that the colonies required a literate population base that the mother country could not supply, the Spanish government (with the cooperation of the Church) established a network of missions to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. They aimed to make converts and tax-paying citizens of those they conquered. To make them into Spanish citizens and productive inhabitants, the Spanish government and the Church required the indigenous people to learn Spanish language and vocational skills along with Christian teachings.

Estimates for the pre-contact indigenous population in California are based on a number of different sources and vary substantially, from 133,000, to 225,000, to as high as 705,000 from more than 100 separate tribes or nations.

On January 29, 1767, Spain's King Charles III ordered the new governor Gaspar de Portolá to forcibly expel the Jesuits, who operated under the authority of the Pope and had established a chain of fifteen missions on the Baja California Peninsula. Visitador General José de Gálvez engaged the Franciscans, under the leadership of Friar Junípero Serra, to take charge of those outposts on March 12, 1768. The padres closed or consolidated several of the existing settlements, and also founded Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá (the only Franciscan mission in all of Baja California) and the nearby Visita de la Presentación in 1769. This plan, however, changed within a few months after Gálvez received the following orders: "Occupy and fortify San Diego and Monterey for God and the King of Spain." The Church ordered the priests of the Dominican Order to take charge of the Baja California missions so the Franciscans could concentrate on founding new missions in Alta California.

Mission period (1769-1833)

On July 14, 1769 Gálvez sent the Portolá expedition out from Loreto to explore lands to the north. Leader Gaspar de Portolá was accompanied by a group of Franciscans led by Junípero Serra. Serra's plan was to extend the string of missions north from the Baja California peninsula, connected by an established road and spaced a day's travel apart. The first Alta California mission and presidio were founded at San Diego, the second at Monterey.

En route to Monterey, the Rev. Francisco Gómez and the Rev. Juan Crespí came across a Native settlement wherein two young girls were dying: one, a baby, said to be "dying at its mother's breast," the other a small girl suffering of burns. On July 22, Gómez baptized the baby, naming her Maria Magdalena, while Crespí baptized the older child, naming her Margarita. These were the first recorded baptisms in Alta California. Crespi dubbed the spot Los Cristianos. The group continued northward but missed Monterey Harbor and returned to San Diego on January 24, 1770. Near the end of 1769 the Portolá expedition had reached its most northerly point at present-day San Francisco. In following years, the Spanish Crown sent a number of follow-up expeditions to explore more of Alta California.

Each mission was to be turned over to a secular clergy and all the common mission lands distributed amongst the native population within ten years after its founding, a policy that was based upon Spain's experience with the more advanced tribes in Mexico, Central America, and Peru. In time, it became apparent to the Rev. Serra and his associates that the natives on the northern frontier in Alta California required a much longer period of acclimatization. None of the California missions ever attained complete self-sufficiency, and required continued (albeit modest) financial support from mother Spain. Mission development was therefore financed out of El Fondo Piadoso de las Californias ( The Pious Fund of the Californias), which originated in 1697 and consisted of voluntary donations from individuals and religious bodies in Mexico to members of the Society of Jesus) to enable the missionaries to propagate the Catholic Faith in the area then known as California. Starting with the onset of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810, this support largely disappeared, and missions and converts were left on their own. As of 1800, native labor had made up the backbone of the colonial economy.

Arguably "the worst epidemic of the Spanish Era in California" was known to be the measles epidemic of 1806, wherein one-quarter of the mission Native American population of the San Francisco Bay area died of the measles or related complications between March and May of that year. In 1811, the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico sent an interrogatorio (questionnaire) to all of the missions in Alta California regarding the customs, disposition, and condition of the Mission Indians. The replies, which varied greatly in the length, spirit, and even the value of the information contained therein, were collected and prefaced by the Father-Presidente with a short general statement or abstract; the compilation was thereupon forwarded to the viceregal government. The contemporary nature of the responses, no matter how incomplete or biased some may be, are nonetheless of considerable value to modern ethnologists.

Russian colonization of the Americas reached its southernmost point with the 1812 establishment of Fort Ross ( krepost' rus), an agricultural, scientific, and fur-trading settlement located in present-day Sonoma County, California. In November and December 1818, several of the missions were attacked by Hipólito Bouchard, "California's only pirate." A French privateer sailing under the flag of Argentina, Pirata Buchar (as he was known to the locals) worked his way down the California coast, conducting raids on the installations at Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Juan Capistrano, with limited success. Upon hearing of the attacks, many mission priests (along with a few government officials) sought refuge at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, the mission chain's most isolated outpost. Ironically, Mission Santa Cruz (though ultimately ignored by the marauders) was ignominiously sacked and vandalized by local residents who were entrusted with securing the church's valuables.

By 1819, Spain decided to limit its "reach" in the New World to Northern California due to the costs involved in sustaining these remote outposts; the northernmost settlement therefore is Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in Sonoma in 1823. An attempt to found a twenty-second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 was aborted. In 1833 the final group of missionaries arrived in Alta California. These were Mexican-born (rather than Spaniards), and had been trained at the Apostolic College of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Zacatecas. Among these friars was Francisco García Diego y Moreno, who would become the first bishop of the Diocese of Both Californias. These friars would bear the brunt of the changes brought on by secularization and the U.S. occupation, and many would marked by allegations of corruption.

Secularization

As the Mexican republic matured, calls for the secularization (" disestablishment") of the missions increased.

José María de Echeandía, the first native Mexican elected Governor of Alta California issued a "Proclamation of Emancipation" (or " Prevenciónes de Emancipacion") on July 25, 1826. All Indians within the military districts of San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey who were found qualified were freed from missionary rule and made eligible to become Mexican citizens. Those who wished to remain under mission tutelage were exempted from most forms of corporal punishment. By 1830 even the neophyte populations themselves appeared confident in their own abilities to operate the mission ranches and farms independently; the padres, however, doubted the capabilities of their charges in this regard.

Accelerating immigration, both Mexican and foreign, increased pressure on the Alta California government to seize the mission properties and dispossess the natives in accordance with Echeandía's directive. Despite the fact that Echeandía's emancipation plan was met with little encouragement from the novices who populated the southern missions, he was nonetheless determined to test the scheme on a large scale at Mission San Juan Capistrano. To that end, he appointed a number of comisionados (commissioners) to oversee the emancipation of the Indians. The Mexican government passed legislation on December 20, 1827 that mandated the expulsion of all Spaniards younger than sixty years of age from Mexican territories; Governor Echeandía nevertheless intervened on behalf of some of the missionaries to prevent their deportation once the law took effect in California.

Governor José Figueroa (who took office in 1833) initially attempted to keep the mission system intact, but the Mexican Congress passed An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California on August 17, 1833 when liberal Valentín Gómez Farías was in office.

The Act also provided for the colonization of both Alta and Baja California, the expenses of this latter move to be borne by the proceeds gained from the sale of the mission property to private interests.

Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of secularization when, on August 9, 1834 Governor Figueroa issued his "Decree of Confiscation." Nine other settlements quickly followed, with six more in 1835; San Buenaventura and San Francisco de Asís were among the last to succumb, in June and December 1836, respectively. The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned most of the missions, taking with them almost everything of value, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials. Former mission pasture lands were divided into large land grants called ranchos, greatly increasing the number of private land holdings in Alta California.

Rancho period (1834-1849)

In spite of this neglect, the Indian towns at San Juan Capistrano, San Dieguito, and Las Flores did continue on for some time under a provision in Gobernador Echeandía's 1826 Proclamation that allowed for the partial conversion of missions to pueblos. According to one estimate, the native population in and around the missions proper was approximately 80,000 at the time of the confiscation; others claim that the statewide population had dwindled to approximately 100,000 by the early 1840s, due in no small part to the natives' exposure to European diseases, and from the Franciscan practice of cloistering women in the convento and controlling sexuality during the child-bearing age. (Baja California Territory experienced a similar reduction in native population resulting from Spanish colonization efforts there).

Pío de Jesús Pico, the last Mexican Governor of Alta California, found upon taking office that there were few funds available to carry on the affairs of the province. He prevailed upon the assembly to pass a decree authorizing the renting or the sale of all mission property, reserving only the church, a curate's house, and a building for a courthouse. The expenses of conducting the services of the church were to be provided from the proceeds, but there was no disposition made as to what should be done to secure the funds for that purpose. After secularization, Father-Presidente Narciso Durán transferred the missions' headquarters to Santa Bárbara, thereby making Mission Santa Bárbara the repository of some 3,000 original documents that had been scattered through the California missions. The Mission archive is the oldest library in the State of California that still remains in the hands of its founders, the Franciscans (it is the only mission where they have maintained an uninterrupted presence). Beginning with the writings of Hubert Howe Bancroft, the library has served as a center for historical study of the missions for more than a century. In 1895 journalist and historian Charles Fletcher Lummis criticized the Act and its results, saying:

Disestablishment-a polite term for robbery-by Mexico (rather than by native Californians misrepresenting the Mexican government) in 1834, was the death blow of the mission system. The lands were confiscated; the buildings were sold for beggarly sums, and often for beggarly purposes. The Indian converts were scattered and starved out; the noble buildings were pillaged for their tiles and adobes...

California statehood (1850 and beyond)

Precise figures relating to the population decline of California indigenes are not available. One writer, Gregory Orfalea, estimates that pre-contact population was reduced by 33 percent during Spanish and Mexican rule, mostly through introduction of European diseases, but much more after the United States takeover in 1848. By 1870, the loss of indigenous lives had become catastrophic. Up to 80 percent died, leaving a population of about 30,000 in 1870. Orfalea claims that nearly half of the native deaths after 1848 were murder.

In 1837-38, a major smallpox epidemic devastated native tribes north of San Francisco Bay, in the jurisdiction of Mission San Francisco Solano. General Mariano Vallejo estimated that 70,000 died from the disease. Vallejo's ally, chief Sem-Yeto, was one of the few natives to be vaccinated, and one of the few to survive.

When the mission properties were secularized between 1834 and 1838, the approximately 15,000 resident neophytes lost whatever protection the mission system afforded them. While under the secularization laws the natives were to receive up to one-half of the mission properties, this never happened. The natives lost whatever stock and movable property they may have accumulated. When California became a U.S. state, California law stripped them of legal title to the land. In the Act of September 30, 1850, Congress appropriated funds to allow the President to appoint three Commissioners, O. M. Wozencraft, Redick McKee and George W. Barbour, to study the California situation and "...negotiate treaties with the various Indian tribes of California." Treaty negotiations ensued during the period between March 19, 1851 and January 7, 1852, during which the Commission interacted with 402 Indian chiefs and headmen (representing approximately one-third to one-half of the California tribes) and entered into eighteen treaties.

California Senator William M. Gwin's Act of March 3, 1851 created the Public Land Commission, whose purpose was to determine the validity of Spanish and Mexican land grants in California. On February 19, 1853 Archbishop J.S. Alemany filed petitions for the return of all former mission lands in the state. Ownership of 1,051.44 acres (4.2550 km ²) (essentially exact area of land occupied by the original mission buildings, cemeteries, and gardens) was subsequently conveyed to the Church, along with the Cañada de los Pinos (or College Rancho) in Santa Barbara County comprising 35,499.73 acres (143.6623 km ²), and La Laguna in San Luis Obispo County, consisting of 4,157.02 acres (16.8229 km ²). As the result of a U.S. government investigation in 1873, a number of Indian reservations were assigned by executive proclamation in 1875. The commissioner of Indian affairs reported in 1879 that the number of Mission Indians in the state was down to around 3,000.

System Father-Presidentes

The Rev. Junípero Serra (1769-1784)

The Rev. Francisco Palóu (presidente pro tempore) (1784-1785)

The Rev. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén (1785-1803)

The Rev. Pedro Estévan Tápis (1803-1812)

The Rev. José Francisco de Paula Señan (1812-1815)

The Rev. Mariano Payéras (1815-1820)

The Rev. José Francisco de Paula Señan (1820-1823)

The Rev. Vicente Francisco de Sarría (1823-1824)

The Rev. Narciso Durán (1824-1827)

The Rev. José Bernardo Sánchez (1827-1831)

The Rev. Narciso Durán (1831-1838)

The Rev. José Joaquin Jimeno (1838-1844)

The Rev. Narciso Durán (1844-1846)

The "Father-Presidente" was the head of the Catholic missions in Alta and Baja California. He was appointed by the College of San Fernando de Mexico until 1812, when the position became known as the "Commissary Prefect" who was appointed by the Commissary General of the Indies (a Franciscan residing in Spain). Beginning in 1831, separate individuals were elected to oversee Upper and Lower California.

Mission headquarters

Mission San Diego de Alcalá (1769-1771)

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1771-1815)

Mission La Purísima Concepción*(1815-1819)

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1819-1824)

Mission San José*(1824-1827)

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1827-1830)

Mission San José*(1830-1833)

Mission Santa Barbara (1833-1846)

† The Rev. Payeras and the Rev. Durán remained at their resident missions during their terms as Father-Presidente, therefore those settlements became the de facto headquarters (until 1833, when all mission records were permanently relocated to Santa Barbara).

Mission locations

There were 21 missions accompanied by military outposts in Alta California from San Diego to Sonoma, California. To facilitate travel between them on horse and foot, the mission settlements were situated approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) apart, about one day's journey on horseback, or three days on foot. The entire trail eventually became a 600-mile (966-kilometer) long "California Mission Trail." Heavy freight movement was practical only via water. Tradition has it that the padres sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail to mark it with bright yellow flowers.

Following the old Camino Real northwards, from San Diego through to the northern-most mission in Sonoma, California, north of San Francisco Bay, the missions were:

1. Mission San Diego de Alcalá, in San Diego

2. Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, in Oceanside

3. Mission San Juan Capistrano, in San Juan Capistrano

4. Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, in San Gabriel

5. Mission San Fernando Rey de España, in Mission Hills (Los Angeles)

6. Mission San Buenaventura, in Ventura

7. Mission Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara

8. Mission Santa Inés, in Solvang

9. Mission La Purísima Concepción, northeast of Lompoc

10. Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, in San Luis Obispo

11. Mission San Miguel Arcángel, in San Miguel

12. Mission San Antonio de Padua, northwest of Jolon

13. Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, south of Soledad

14. Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, in Carmel

15. Mission San Juan Bautista, in San Juan Bautista

16. Mission Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz

17. Mission Santa Clara de Asís, in Santa Clara

18. Mission San José, in Fremont

19. Mission San Francisco de Asís, in San Francisco

20. Mission San Rafael Arcángel, in San Rafael

21. Mission San Francisco Solano, in Sonoma

Military districts

During the Mission Period Alta California was divided into four military districts. Each was garrisoned ( comandancias) by a presidio strategically placed along the California coast to protect the missions and other Spanish settlements in Upper California. Each of these functioned as a base of military operations for a specific region. They were independent of one another and were organized from south to north as follows:

El Presidio Real de San Diego founded on July 16, 1769 - responsible for the defense of all installations located within the First Military District (the missions at San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and San Gabriel);

El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara founded on April 12, 1782 - responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Second Military District (the missions at San Fernando, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Inés, and La Purísima, along with El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula [Los Angeles]);

El Presidio Real de San Carlos de Monterey (El Castillo) founded on June 3, 1770 - responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Third Military District (the missions at San Luis Obispo, San Miguel, San Antonio, Soledad, San Carlos, and San Juan Bautista, along with Villa Branciforte [Santa Cruz]); and

El Presidio Real de San Francisco founded on December 17, 1776 - responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Fourth Military District (the missions at Santa Cruz, San José, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Rafael, and Solano, along with El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe [San Jose]).

El Presidio de Sonoma, or "Sonoma Barracks" (a collection of guardhouses, storerooms, living quarters, and an observation tower) was established in 1836 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (the "Commandante-General of the Northern Frontier of Alta California") as a part of Mexico's strategy to halt Russian incursions into the region. The Sonoma Presidio became the new headquarters of the Mexican Army in California, while the remaining presidios were essentially abandoned and, in time, fell into ruins.

An ongoing power struggle between church and state grew increasingly heated and lasted for decades. Originating as a feud between the Rev. Serra and Pedro Fages (the military governor of Alta California from 1770 to 1774, who regarded the Spanish installations in California as military institutions first and religious outposts second), the uneasy relationship persisted for more than sixty years. Dependent upon one another for their very survival, military leaders and mission padres nevertheless adopted conflicting stances regarding everything from land rights, the allocation of supplies, protection of the missions, the criminal propensities of the soldiers, and (in particular) the status of the native populations.

Present-day California missions

Building restoration

No other group of structures in the United States elicits the intense interest as inspired by the Missions of California (California is home to the greatest number of well-preserved missions found in any U.S. state). The missions are collectively the best-known historic element of the coastal regions of California:

Most of the missions are still owned and operated by some entity within the Catholic Church.

Three of the missions are still run under the auspices of the Franciscan Order (Santa Barbara, San Miguel Arcángel, and San Luis Rey de Francia)

Four of the missions (San Diego de Alcalá, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, San Francisco de Asís, and San Juan Capistrano) have been designated minor basilicas by the Holy See due to their cultural, historic, architectural, and religious importance.

Mission La Purísima Concepción, Mission San Francisco Solano, and the one remaining mission-era structure of Mission Santa Cruz are owned and operated by the California Department of Parks and Recreation as State Historic Parks;

Seven mission sites are designated National Historic Landmarks, fourteen are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and all are designated as California Historical Landmarks for their historic, architectural, and archaeological significance.

Because virtually all of the artwork at the missions served either a devotional or didactic purpose, there was no underlying reason for the mission residents to record their surroundings graphically; visitors, however, found them to be objects of curiosity. During the 1850s a number of artists found gainful employment as draftsmen attached to expeditions sent to map the Pacific coastline and the border between California and Mexico (as well as plot practical railroad routes); many of the drawings were reproduced as lithographs in the expedition reports.

In 1875 American illustrator Henry Chapman Ford began visiting each of the twenty-one mission sites, where he created a historically important portfolio of watercolors, oils, and etchings. His depictions of the missions were (in part) responsible for the revival of interest in the state's Spanish heritage, and indirectly for the restoration of the missions. The 1880s saw the appearance of a number of articles on the missions in national publications and the first books on the subject; as a result, a large number of artists did one or more mission paintings, though few attempted a series.

The popularity of the missions also stemmed largely from Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona and the subsequent efforts of Charles Fletcher Lummis, William Randolph Hearst, and other members of the "Landmarks Club of Southern California" to restore three of the southern missions in the early 20th century (San Juan Capistrano, San Diego de Alcalá, and San Fernando; the Pala Asistencia was also restored by this effort). Lummis wrote in 1895,

In ten years from now-unless our intelligence shall awaken at once-there will remain of these noble piles nothing but a few indeterminable heaps of adobe. We shall deserve and shall have the contempt of all thoughtful people if we suffer our noble missions to fall.

In acknowledgement of the magnitude of the restoration efforts required and the urgent need to have acted quickly to prevent further or even total degradation, Lummis went on to state,

It is no exaggeration to say that human power could not have restored these four missions had there been a five-year delay in the attempt.

In 1911 author John Steven McGroarty penned The Mission Play, a three-hour pageant describing the California missions from their founding in 1769 through secularization in 1834, and ending with their "final ruin" in 1847.

Today, the missions exist in varying degrees of architectural integrity and structural soundness. The most common extant features at the mission grounds include the church building and an ancillary convento ( convent) wing. In some cases (in San Rafael, Santa Cruz, and Soledad, for example), the current buildings are replicas constructed on or near the original site. Other mission compounds remain relatively intact and true to their original, Mission Era construction.

The missions have earned a prominent place in California's historic consciousness, and a steady stream of tourists from all over the world visit them. In recognition of that fact, on November 30, 2004 President George W. Bush signed HR 1446, the California Mission Preservation Act, into law. The measure provided $10 million over a five-year period to the California Missions Foundation for projects related to the physical preservation of the missions, including structural rehabilitation, stabilization, and conservation of mission art and artifacts. The California Missions Foundation, a volunteer, tax-exempt organization, was founded in 1998 by Richard Ameil, an eighth generation Californian. A change to the California Constitution has also been proposed that would allow the use of State funds in restoration efforts.

Gallery of missions

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Spanish missions in California Facts for Kids

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The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of 21 religious outposts; established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order between 1769 and 1833, to expand Christianity among the Native Americans northwards into what is today the U.S. state of California.

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Get more suggestions from columnist John Kelly.

When a creaking ship, its bowsprit carved in the shape of a snarling rat, pulls into San Diego harbor it carries with it a 12-year-old cabin boy whose only desire is to get home to his family. Washington Post columnist John Kelly calls the story, set in 1846, a "rousing, swashbuckling tale."
Excerpt: Chapter One
My story begins on the night an owl blundered into the belfry and rang the church bells. The town awoke with a sense of doom. It was an omen. Something evil was in the air.

Through drifts of fog, an exhausted sailing ship came creaking into the harbor. After a long voyage, it was down to its last puff of wind and its last cask of fresh water.

Under its needle nose of a bowsprit clung a dreadful figurehead -- a giant rat. The creature, painted mustard yellow, had been carved out of a mahogany log felled in the jungles of Sumatra. The rat, big as a tiger, had once glared at the world through bold and cunning emerald eyes. But the gems had been pried out by thieves, leaving the giant rat to wander the seas like a blind man. The ivory teeth had yellowed, but remained bared and sharp as crooked nails -- a rat eager to sink its jaws into the throat of the unwary.

The ship had come halfway across the world to this sleepy bay on the Mexican coast of California. What was she doing in San Diego? The Giant Rat of Sumatra was a pirate ship, a bold outlaw accustomed to plying her trade from Sumatra to the China Sea.

Standing calmly at the ship's rail, I sniffed the air for some dry scent of the earth out there in the dark. It seemed an eternity since I had set foot on land. I'd already had enough of the sea to last me until my voice finally changed. I was twelve years and ten months old and the ship's cabin boy.

I turned to catch sight of the ship's master as he came sliding down the ratlines. The man took a leap like a tall, big-boned acrobat to the bowsprit. There he peered through the rags of fog and shouted orders in midair. "Steersman! An inch to starboard, if you'll be so kind! This channel is tight as a priest's collar! Aye, that's better, shipmates! Steady!"

He was a large man, but I had noticed how light on his feet he was. Drenched by hours bareheaded in the fog, his coarse black hair glistened like needles. He was as apt to be lending a hand pumping water in the bilge as at his sextant fixing the course. He regarded no job aboard ship as beneath him.

It was clear to me that the ship's master was no stranger to this strange port of call. He knew that a vast bed of seaweed lay near the entrance: He skirted it. He appeared as familiar with the bottom of the bay as with the deep creases in his own hands, weathered under foreign suns.

"God bless my eyesight!" he exclaimed with immense pleasure. The captain had a loud, hearty laugh when he felt like laughing, as he did now. "We've brought our pigs to a fine market, sahibs!" It was a Hindi term of respect he was fond of tossing about the decks. "That's San Diego itself hidin' in the fog dead ahead and about to welcome Captain Gallows back. Aye, I've come home after all these years!" He made a sharp chopping motion with his hand. "Drop the hook!"

With a rattling of its rusty chain, the anchor dropped and found the bottom. The ship swung around like a dog pulled tight on its leash.

As I watched him, I could tell that it amused Captain Gallows to sail under such a foreboding name. He flung out orders in a grab bag of languages while he strode toward his quarters. "Jimmy Pukapuka, be so kind as to fetch up a bucket of whale oil and refill the warning lights. In the fog, we shall want to glow like a ghost, amigo!"

"Aye, Cap'n."

"Calcutta, open our last keg of water. And run up our flag!"

"What flag, Cap'n?" replied the second officer, as broadly muscled as a bull.

"Anything but the skull and crossbones. Mr. Ginger! Post a man on watch! Everyone else turn in. Sleep well, shipmates, for tomorrow you will become gentlemen! Cabin boy! We do have a cabin boy, don't we? I recall fishing one out of the sea months ago. Where is that shipwrecked cabin boy?" "Here, sir."

"Polish my English boots! I don't intend going ashore tomorrow looking like a beggar."

The deck had almost cleared when I sat myself against a deckhouse to polish the boots. Jimmy Pukapuka, a burly Pacific Islander with swirling tattoos on his cheeks, had carried up a full bucket of whale oil. He was soon finished refilling the port and starboard lanterns, with oil left over in the bucket.

"Catch a wink, Shipwreck, boy," he remarked, hanging up the oil bucket and vanishing belowdecks to his bunk.

It was almost inevitable that the crewmen would call me Shipwreck. I had, after all, been dredged up out of the sea. Boston born, I had been taken aboard a smelly whaling ship by my stepfather, an angry man and a harsh ship's officer. He told me that eleven years was quite old enough to earn my own keep. And a sea voyage would toughen me up for a short-tempered world.

After more'n a year and a half, a short-tempered storm off the Philippines had blown the ship into matchsticks. I had found myself clinging like a barnacle to a splintered oak beam. At the other end, cursing to the skies, hung the one-armed chief mate.

The two of us were plucked from the sea by a fast, nimble ship with the figurehead of a great carved rat. Spouting seawater and sputtering, I remember looking around for my stepfather.

"There is no one alive left floating in this storm," the ship's young captain had told me and briskly turned away as one accustomed to death at sea. I recall raising myself to an elbow, as if to check the raging storm for my relative, and then I fell back, exhausted.
The foregoing is excerpted from The Giant Rat of Sumatra by Sid Fleischman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

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Excerpt: 'The Giant Rat of Sumatra or Pirates Galore'

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When a creaking ship, its bowsprit carved in the shape of a snarling rat, pulls into San Diego harbor it carries with it a 12-year-old cabin boy whose only desire is to get home to his family. Reviewer John Kelly calls the story, set in 1846, a "rousing, swashbuckling tale."

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A sequel to Coolies.
It’s the year after the big fire in Chinatown when Ming crosses the ocean to join his brothers in San Francisco. His oldest brother runs a store, rebuilt after the fire, but customers are few as many Chinese are working on the Transcontinental Railroad. His brother leaves him to manage the store, telling him not to leave Chinatown, but it’s lonely, so he jams his braid under his hat as a disguise and sets off to see the town. He meets a friend named Patrick who teaches him English and who finds the store fascinating. The friendship grows and, through Patrick’s loving family, the Irish community patronizes the store, and it flourishes. An idealized story with realistic pictures bathed in exaggerated orange light, readers will be fascinated by Soentpiet’s incredible details in the scenes from one street to another and inside the shop. A follow-up to Coolies (2001) by the same husband-and-wife author/illustrator team writing about an era that is seldom addressed for this age group. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 6-9)

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BROTHERS by Yin , Chris Soentpiet | Kirkus Reviews

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It's the year after the big fire in Chinatown when Ming crosses the ocean to join his brothers in San Francisco.

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What did you do with intent?
What level of courage did that require? Scale of 1-10 rating how much courage you showed.
How did this experience broaden your perspective?
Teachers to create Google form to solicit information from kids.

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A personal one (minimum # of experiences)
A classroom one -- BULLETIN BOARD

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Historical Background
Plot Summary without Giving Away the Ending
Introduction of Main Characters
Exchange of Perspectives: Evaluate a Given Statement

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California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849 to 1900

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The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams. The production of this collection was supported by a generous grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

How the Collection was Assembled

"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 is the Library of Congress's first digital collection building on the exceptional holdings in the Library's General Collections and Rare Book and Special Collections Division in the area of state and local history. It has been several years in the making, sustained by a generous grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which has a focal interest in the state of California.

After project researchers searched the Library's catalog for historical California works, a bibliography of about 250 of the Library's works was sent to six outside reviewers with expertise in history, librarianship, and California book collecting. The reviewers suggested additional books, bringing the total under consideration to 320, and evaluated all candidates according to whether or not (for example) a work was especially well written or represented a less frequently encountered perspective on California history. An additional factor was the percentage of California content, with preference going to books in which more pages were devoted to being in the state than, say, traveling there.

Finally, three factors conspired to limit the number of books digitized: first, the high cost of full text conversion, second, consideration of the stress that scanning would bring to bear on books in poor physical condition and, third, the determination that several books were still protected by copyright. Thus the collection was rounded at slightly more than 180 works, representing approximately 40,000 pages and including more than 3,000 illustrations. This collection's note on Related Resources in the Library of Congress lists some of the works originally considered which could not be included in the final collection.

The Collection's Final Form

The books in this collection are first-person accounts from the time of the Gold Rush and California statehood through the turn of the century. They provide detailed information about localities and people important to the state during the latter half of the nineteenth century, when large numbers of English-speakers flowed into the far West, encountering a variety of Native American groups and the Spanish-speakers who had preceded them to the region. The accounts convey a sense of America's westward movement in the post-pioneer era and offer the emigrants' reactions to the wilderness environment they traversed and settled.

For the period 1849-1860, the Gold Rush and the variety of new settlers it attracted to California overshadowed all else. Newspapers in New York and London sent reporters to the Pacific Coast of North America to send back their reports, and even a fairly ordinary man or woman who participated in the rush to settle California might expect to find his or her letters home published in a local newspaper in Ohio or Massachusetts, perhaps collected and published as a book not long after.

As the Gold Rush ended, California began to attract people for reasons unrelated to mining and overnight wealth. Climate and natural beauty drew a new generation of "pioneers" hoping to recover their health and to explore the picturesque terrain of the still-wild West. By the 1880s, California had become the romantic destination of choice for thousands who came to "take the waters" at mountain resorts or to tour Yosemite and other natural wonders. Settlers also continued to arrive, hoping to take advantage of the state's continuing development. Later writers tended to focus on California's advantages as a vacation spot or a place for making a new home far from the harsh winters of the East and Midwest.

Voices Included, Voices Absent

Throughout the half century covered in this collection, observers recorded their thoughts in diaries, descriptive accounts, guidebooks, and later reminiscences. Most of the writers represented here, like most published American authors of the day, are white, well-educated male Americans--those with the leisure or professional standing to write for publication. Lack of formal education, public encouragement, or interest prevented many women, members of minority groups or of the working class from recording their personal stories for publication. And in the years after 1860, tales of "ordinary" life in California became so much like those of life in other parts of the country that they were largely ignored.

Readers are encouraged to consult additional works in order to compensate for this collection's tilt toward male Anglo-American voices. Some of these additional works were omitted because they did not fit the collection's guidelines: for example, they may not have been mostly about California, first-person accounts, or in the public domain.

One noteworthy example is the fascinating memoir of Mifflin W. Gibbs, one of the many African Americans who participated in the Gold Rush. His autobiography Shadow and Light (Washington, 1902) includes a brief but vivid account of his eight years in California, 1850-1858. This work has been twice reprinted, most recently by the University of Nebraska Press in 1995. Beyond this first-person work, readers interested in the African-American experience during California's first half century may also consult Rudolph M. Lapp's Afro-Americans in California (San Francisco: Boyd & Fraser, 1979), a pamphlet in the "Golden State" series. For more detailed treatment of the role of African-American settlers in California before 1860, see the same author's Blacks in Gold Rush California (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). Kenneth Goode's California's Black Pioneers: A Brief Historical Survey (Santa Barbara: McNally & Loftin, 1973) is a good one-volume study of the subject through the mid-twentieth century.

Only in recent decades have books relating to the Hispanic experience in California received publication in English. The first-person account of a Chilean miner may be found in California Adventure (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1947), the English translation of the chapters of Vicente Perez Rosales's Recuerdos de Pasado that record his experiences in the California Gold Rush, a rare chronicle of this critically important national group in the gold fields. Readers with an interest in this area are urged to consult David J. Weber's Foreigners in their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973), a collection of English-language texts drawn from the writings and speeches of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Anglos.

This collection includes but one work by a California visitor or resident of Asian background: Joseph Heco's The Narrative of a Japanese. Interesting as this two-volume study is, it could not be less typical of the Asian experience in California, 1850-1900. Heco came to California as a shipwrecked sailor and spent nine years in the United States under the sponsorship of wealthy California businessmen as a student and pampered tourist. And in the years 1850-1900, it was Chinese immigrants, not Japanese, who played a significant role in California history. There was no substantial immigration of Heco's countrymen until the 1890s. In addition, China's immigrants came as laborers, sometimes rising by their industry and intelligence to become storekeepers or proprietors of small farms, never sharing Heco's access to the world of white America.

No first-person memoirs of the Chinese experience in nineteenth-century California are known to survive. There is always hope that further research in the United States and the People's Republic of China will produce such a narrative, but for the time being, readers must content themselves with studies such as Robert McClellan's The Heathen Chinee: A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1971) or Betty Lee Sung's Mountain of Gold: The Story of the Chinese in America (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

It is little wonder that there are no known book-length first-person narratives by California Native Americans for this period: none of these indigenous groups had a written language before the introduction of European culture, and many of the clans and family groups were wiped out so quickly that there was no chance for a record to be made of their experience. However, students may compensate for this gap in the historical record by turning to the works of Robert F. Heizer. The beginner might start with the edition entitled The Destruction of California Indians: A Collection of Documents from the Period 1847 to 1865 in Which are Described Some of the Things that Happened to Some of the Indians of California (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1993). While this anthology is based on the writings of white observers--missionaries, army officers, settlers--it presents a valuable contemporary picture of the process by which California's rich indigenous cultures were lost. More advanced students of Native American history will profit from a book compiled by Heizer in collaboration with M. A. Whipple: The California Indians: A Source Book (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951). This volume contains nineteenth- and twentieth-century discussions by scholarly observers, historians, anthropologists, and archeologists. Heizer helps fill other gaps in this collection with an anthology formed in partnership with Allan F. Almquist: The Other Californians: Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico, and the United States to 1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). This study of attitudes toward Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, and women draws heavily on documentary sources and offers generous extracts from contemporary accounts of historical attitudes.

Although somewhat under-represented in this collection, white women fare better than non-European ethnic groups. The works presented here include the letters home written by the female Gold Rush pioneer Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe, who saw her correspondence from California published and read widely in the 1850s; and the works of post-1860 female travel writers and activists on behalf of native peoples and the environment, like Helen Hunt Jackson and Mary Hunter Austin. In later years, women like Luzena Stanley Wilson had their day in print as their descendants uncovered their diaries or handwritten memoirs and made them available to the public. Readers can supplement the women's books in this collection with Christiane Fischer's edition of Let them speak for Themselves: Women in the American West, 1849-1900 (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1977), which offers extracts from books not included in this collection and transcriptions of unpublished manuscript letters and diaries.

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About this Collection | California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century.