for reinforcements, and lost nine men before reaching San Bias, although she
made the voyage in twenty days. Such was navigation on this coast at that
time. Portala returned to San Diego on the 24th of June, six months and ten
days after his departure. He had been at the port of Monterey, stopped there
and set up a cross without recognizing the place. Father Crespi, who kept the
diary, said he supposed the bay had been filled up, as they found a great many
large sand-hills. This disappointment caused Portala to keep on further towards
the north, and at forty leagues distant in that direction they discovered the port
of San Francisco, which they recognized at once by the description they had of
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 281
it. The fathers considered this circumstance as providential. They remem-
bered that when Galvez was instructing Father Juuiperoby what names to call
the three missions he was to found, the father had asked him : "But, sir, is there
to be no mission for our father, St. Francis?" and that the visitor general had
replied : "If St. Francis wants a mission, let him show us his port, and we will
put one there." And in view of the discovery, they thought that it was now
clear that St. Francis did want a mission, and had concealed Monterey from
them purposely that they might go and find his port ; and Galvez to some extent
may have been of the same opinion, as they say, for he ordered a mission to be
founded there, and a presidio also, as soon as he received the news. However
this may be, a question of more historical interest, or curiosity, at least, is whether,
notwithstanding that Portala kneiv the port from description as soon as he saw-
it, any other white man had ever seen it before. His latest guide was the voy-
age of Vizcayno, who had entered the port of San Francisco on the 12th of
January 1603, and anchored under a point of land called Punta de Los Reyes,
namely, in the bight outside the heads and north of Point Bonita.
In the port of San Francisco, as known to Vizcayno, the Manilla galleon San
Augustine had been wrecked a few years before. Did a galleon ever enter our
bay ? Vizcayno was searching for a port to shelter the Manilla trade ; if he had
seen our harbor would he have ever thought of recommending Monterey 1 He
was doubtless following the pilot who gave the information of the loss of the
San Augustine ; if that pilot had seen this port would not the specific object of
Vizcayno have been to find it again, and not generally to explore the coast to
look for a good harbor? Had anything been known of it, would it not have
been mentioned by Galvez in his first instructions to Villa, in which he is so
earnest on the subject of Monterey? Would he have waited for this news to
have given the urgent orders that he did, that this important place should be
taken possession of immediately, for fear that it might fall into the hands of
foreigners ? It seems to me certain that Portala was the discoverer. And I
regard it as one of the most remarkable facts in history, that others had passed
it, anchored near it and actually given its name to adjacent roadsteads, and so
described its position that it was immediately known ; and yet that the cloud
had never been lifted which concealed the entrance of the bay of San Francisco,
and that it was at last discovered by land.
Although Portala reported that he could not find the port of Monterey, it was
suspected at the time that he had been there. Father Junipero writes that such
was his opinion and that of Don Vicente Villa, of the San Carlos. In the same
letter he mentions another matter, and one which disturbed him greatly. The
Governor Portala, finding his provisions very short, determined if a vessel did
not arrive with relief, to abandon the mission on the 20th of March.
But California was saved at the last moment. The San Antonio came in on
the 19th and brought such a quantity of provisions that Portala set out again
by land, and Father Junipero himself embarked on the San Antonio, which
had proved herself a good sailer and well commanded, and anchored in the bay
of Monterey, namely, on the 31st day of May, 1770, and found that the expe-
dition by land had arrived eight days before ; and we thus see that the journey
from San Diego at that time was made quicker by land than by water. Father
Juuipero writes that he found the lovely port of Monterey the same and un-
changed in substance and in circumstance as the expedition of Sebastian Viz-
cayno left it in 1S03 ; and that all the officers of sea and land, and all then-
people assembled in the same glen and under the same oak where the Fathers
of Vizcayno's expedition had worshipped, and there arranged their altar, hung
up and rung their bells, sung the Vcni Creator, blessed the holy water, set
up and blessed the cross and the royal standards, concluding with a Te Deum.
And there flie name of Christ was again spoken for the first time after an
interval of more than one hundred and sixty-seven years of silence. After
282 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES
the religious ceremonies were over, the officers went through the act of taking
possession of the country " in the name of our lord the King."
When this news was received at the city of Mexico it created a profound
impression. At the request of the Viceroy the bells of the cathedral were rung,
and those of all the other churches answered ; people ran about the streets to
tell one another the story, and all the distinguished persons at the capital waited
upon the Viceroy, who, in company with Gralvez, received their congratulations
at the palace ; and that not only the inhabitants of the city of Mexico, but also
those of all New Spain might participate in the general joy, the Viceroy caused
a narrative of the great achievement to be printed ; and which, indeed, was cir-
culated throughout old as well as New Spain. It commences by referring to
the costly and repeated expeditions which were made by the Crown of Spain
during the two preceding centuries to explore the western coast of California
and to occupy the important port of Monterey, which now, it says, has been
most happily accomplished; and it is jubilant throughout. Nothing of this sort
occurred when they heard a short time before of the discovery of the Bay of
San Francisco ; and in this authoritative relation it is not even mentioned.
Governor Portala, with the engineer Constanzo, very soon returned to Mexico
in the good ship San Antonio, and carried themselves the tidings of their suc-
cess. We may imagine what a description they gave when we remember that
they left San Diego about the middle of April, and that" at that season
the country through which they passed to Monterey -was mottled all over
with the brightest and most varied colors. They were the first to behold
a California spring in all its boundless profusion of flowers. When they
were gone there remained only Father Junipero Serra and five priests,
and the Lieutenant Pedro Fages and thirty soldiers in all California ; for the
captain, Rivera y Moncada, with nineteen soldiers, the muleteers and vaqueros,
was at this time absent too, in Lower California, whither he had gone to bring
up a band of two hundred cattle and provisions. It is impossible to imagine
anything more lonely and secluded than their situation here, at the time the
bells were ringing so joyfully in Mexico on their account. Very soon, how-
ever, they began to get on good terms with the Indians, for Father Junipero
wa3 not a man to lose any time in beginning his work. And when they came
to understand one another, the Indians there, under the pines, told them awful
tales about the cross which Portala had set up the year before when he stopped
at Monterey without knowing the place ; how when they first saw the whites
they noticed that each one carried a shining cross upon his breast ; and how
they were so terrified when they found the whites had gone and had left that
large one standing on the shore that at first they dared not approach it ; that at
night it shone with dazzling splendor, and would rise and grow until it seemed
to reach the skies ; and how, seeing nothing of this sort about it in the day
time, and that it was only of its proper size, they had at last taken courage and
gone up to it, and to make friends with it, had stuck arrows and feathers around
it in the earth, and had hung strings of sardines on its arms, as the Spaniards
had found on their return. For the truth of this story the prudent father
would not vouch, but they were still willing to regard it as an omen, and to
attribute to it their easy success in converting the natives of those parts, as
Father Junipero wrote to the Viceroy for his edification and encouragement.
Father Junipero soon removed his mission from Monterey to a more suitable
place close by, on the river Carmelo. This was his own mission, where he
always resided when not engaged in founding or visiting other missions, or in
some other duty appertaining to his office of president of the missions of Upper
California. This high office he held for the first fifteen years of the history of
California, and until his death, which occurred at his mission of Carmel on the
28th of August, 1784. His activity and zeal in the conversion and civilization
of savages are really wonderful, and scarcely intelligible to us. The sight of
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 283
a band of Indians filled him with as much delight as at this day a man feels
at the prospect of making a fortune. He regarded them as so many souls that
he was to save ; and the baptism of an Indian baby filled him with transport.
With what sort of a spirit he worked for these creatures you see pleasantly
exhibited in the foundation of the mission of San Antonio de Padua, some
twenty or thirty leagues below Monterey. With an escort, a couple of priests,
and a pack train carrying all the necessary articles for a new church, he goes
off into the mountains, examines all the hollows, and selects a beautiful little
plain, through which flowed a small river. Here he orders the mules to be
unpacked, and the bells to be hung upon a tree, and as soon as that is done
he seizes the rope and begins to ring, crying out at the same time at the top of
his voice, "Hear ! hear! oh ye gentiles! Come to the holy church ! Come
to the faith of Jesus Christ!" Father Pe'yras, who was with him, remon-
strates, "What do you stop for? Is not this the place for the church, and are
there no gentiles in the neighborhood?" " Let me alone," says Father Juni-
pero; "Let me unburthen my heart, which could wish this bell should be
heard by all the world, or at least by all the gentiles in these mountains" and
so he rang away there in the wilderness.
The missions of San Francisco and Santa Clara were not founded for several
years after the occupation of Monterey. The wants of the new missions of
his jurisdiction induced the Reverend Father President Junipero to take a
journey to Mexico to see the Viceroy in person, and although he succeeded to
his satisfaction in other things, it was only after much entreaty that he obtained
a promise that these two missions should be established after communication
was opened by land. This was done by Captain Juan Bautista Ariza, in 1773,
whilst Father Junipero was absent on his visit to Mexico. [NoTE. A grand-
daughter of Captain Juan Bautista Anza is now living in this city. She is the
wife of Don Manuel Ainsa, and the mother of a large family of great-
grandchildren of the first pioneer who came to Upper California, direct
from Mexico by land.] He made his report to the Viceroy in 1774, and cartie
back again with a considerable number of soldiers and families in 1776. In the
mean time, in anticipation of his arrival, the San Carlos was sent up to examine
the port of San Francisco, and ascertain whether it could be really entered by
a channel or mouth which had been seen from the land. This great problem
was satisfactorily solved by the San Carlos, a ship of perhaps some two hun-
dred tons burden at the very utmost, in the month of June, 1775. When she
entered they reported that they found a land-locked sea, with two arms, one
making into the interior about fifteen leagues to the southeast, another three,
four", or may be five leagues to the north, where there was a large bay, about
ten leagues across and of a round figure, into which emptied the great river of
our father, St. Francis, which was fed by five other rivers, all of them copious
streams, flowing through a plain so wide that it was bounded only by the hori-
zon, and meeting to form the said great river ; and all this immensity of water
discharging itself through the said channel or mouth into the Pacific ocean,
which is there called the Gulf of the Farallones. This very striking descrip-
tion was accurate enough for the purposes of that day ; and as soon as Anza
and his people had arrived, and Anza in person had gone up and selected the
sites, a party was sent by land and another by sea to establish the presidio and
mission of San Francisco. The date of the foundation of the presidio is the
17th of September, and of the mission the 9th of October, 1776. The historian
mentions in connection with these proceedings some things which may claim a
moment's attention. In the Valley of San Jose, the party coming up by land
saw some animals which they took for cattle, though they could not imagine
where they came from; and, supposing they were wild and would scatter the
tame ones they were driving, the soldiers made after them and succeeded in
killing three, which were so large that a mule could with difficulty carry one,
284 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES.
being of the size of an ox, and with horns like those of a deer, but so long that
their tips were eight feet apart. This was their first view of the elk. The
soldiers made the observation that they could not run against the wind by reason
of these monstrous antlers. And after the presidio, and before the mission was
established, an exploration of the interior was organized, as usual, by sea and
land. Point San Pablo was given as the rendezvous ; but the captain of the
presidio, who undertook in person to lead the land party, failed to appear there,
having, with the design to shorten the distance, entered a Canada somewhere
near the head of the bay, which took him over to the San Joaquin river ; so he
discovered that stream.
Then there are some traits of the first inhabitants of this place, the primitive
San Franciscans. They lived upon muscles and acorns, blackberries, straw-
berries, and fish, and delighted above all things in the blubber of whales, when
one was stranded on the coast. They wore no clothes at all, at least the men,
and the women very little; but they were not ashamed. They found it cold
all the year round, as did the fathers who first took charge of the mission, and
to protect themselves, were in the habit of plastering their bodies with mud. They
said it kept them warm. Their marriages were very informal, the ceremony consist-
ing in the consent alone of the parties; and their law of divorce was equally simple,
for they separated as soon as they quarrelled, and joined themselves to another,
the children usually folio wing the mother. They had no other expression to signify
that the marriage was dissolved than to say, "I have thrown her away,"
or "I have thrown him away." And in some of their customs they seemed to
have been Mormons. In their marriages affinity was not regarded as an objec-
tion, but rather an inducement. They preferred to marry their sisters-in-law,
and even their mothers-in-law; and the rule was, if a man married a woman, he
also married all her sisters, having many wives who lived together, without
jealousy, in the same house, and treated each other's children with the same love as
their own. Father Junipero's death closes the first period of our history. It is a
period marked by exploits. They are those of humble and devoted, yet heroic
missionaries. The story is diversified with only such simple incidents as that, in the
summer of 1772, the commander, Pedro Fages, had to go out and kill bears for
provisions to subsist on, which formidable game he found in abundance some-
where near San Luis Obispo, in a Canada that still justly bears the name of
Canada de los Osos : and that in 1780 the frost killed the growing grain at
Easter. And only one instance of bloodshed attended the happy course of the
spiritual conquest. The vicious Indians of San Diego, on a second attempt,
murdered one of the fathers and two or three other persons, and burned the
mission, which some little time afterwards was re-established. We are told
that they were prompted to this deed by the enemy of souls, who was very
much incensed at finding his party falling into a minority by reason of the con-
stant conversions of the heathen in that neighborhood. All the seeds that
Galvez was so provident in sending up took root and prospered beyond the
most sanguine expectations which he could have entertained when he predicted
that the soil would prove as fertile as that of old Spain ; and the cattle in-
creased and multiplied with an increase without a parallel, so that in short time
his purpose, that there should be no lack of something to eat in this country,
was fully accomplished.
Our historian is the friar, Father Francisco Palou, one of the followers of
Father Junipero, whose life, like a devout disciple, he wrote here at the mission
of San Francisco. He was the first priest who had charge of this mission, and
his book was written here in 1785. It was printed in the city of Mexico in
1787. It is the first, undoubtedly, out not the worst book written in California.
Copies of the original edition may be found in some private libraries of this
city, bound in sheepskin, clasped with loops and buttons of the same, and with
a long list of errata at the end. This volume is of itself an object of interest.
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 285
To the work there is a preface which bespeaks the indulgence of the reader,
because it was written among "barbarous gentiles, in the port of San Fran-
cisco, in his new mission, the most northern of New California, without books
or men of learning to consult." There are also the reports of several censors,
and both a civil and ecclesiastical license to print it, and likewise a protest, of
which ihe writer is entitled to the benefit at this day. He declares, in obe-
dience to the Church, the Inquisition, and the Pope, that he intends and de-
sires that no more faith should be given to his performance than to a mere
human history, and that the epithets he gives Father Junipero, and the title of
martyrs which he bestowed on some of the other missionaries, are to be under-
stood as mere human honors, and such as are permitted by a prudent discretion
and a devout faith. The narrative is clear and circumstantial, well supported
by public and private writings, and obviously true. The miraculous is always
introduced as hearsay, and, whilst it does not impeach the veracity of the writer,
serves still further to illustrate the times by showing us the simple credulity of
the class to which he belonged the founders and first settlers of California.
With the book there is a map. It exhibits the coast of Upper California from
San Diego to San Francisco. The only objects visible on it are nine missions
and a dotted line, to show the road that the fathers travelled from one to the
other, viz : San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, San Buenaventura,
San Luis, (Obispo,) San Antonio, San Carlos de Monterey, Santa Clara, San
Francisco, and three presidios, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego, all
lying near the coast, and back all a blank. Looking upon this old map, we re-
alize that California was designed for the Indians. They were to be its people
after they were converted and instructed as others had been in Mexico. The
missions were to be the towns. The presidios were to protect the missions within,
and defend the country from enemies without. Only enough settlers were to
be introduced to relieve the government from some part of the burden of sup-
plying the presidios with recruits and* provisions from Mexico. For this pur-
pose, pueblos San Jose de Guadalupe and Los Angeles, one in the north and the
other in the south, were established, both in the time of Father Junipero Serra.
A small tract of land was given to these villages for their use collectively, and
smaller parcels to each inhabitant as his private property. Neither of these
pueblos appear on this old map, of such little consequence were they regarded.
Father Palou, in relating the rejoicings at Mexico in consequence of the discov-
ery of Monterey, says : ' The said extent of three hundred leagues in length"
an accurate measurement of the new dominions of the king in Upper Cal-
ifornia "is of fertile lands, peopled with an immensity of gentiles, from whose
docile and peaceable dispositions it was hoped they would be immediately con-
verted to our holy faith, and gathered in Catholic pueblos, (villages,) that thus
living in subjection to the royal crown they might secure the coasts of this
Southern or l D acific ocean." The first grant of land made in California was a
tract of one hundred and forty varas square, at the mission of San Carlos,
November 27, 1775, to one Manuel Butron, a soldier, in consideration that he
had married Margarita, a daughter of that mission. Father Junipero recom-
mends this family, to wit, the soldier and the native Indian woman, to the
government, and all the other ministers of the king, " as being the first in all
these establishments which have chosen to become permanent settlers of the
same." The Indian appears in everything.
In tranquillity this California of the Indians remained for more than fifty
years. The fathers built new missions, and continually replenished their stock
of converts, which at one time amounted to at least twenty thousand. They
planted vineyards, orchards, and the olive. They taught the Indians, to some
extent, agriculture and the mechanic arts. They made flour, and wine, and
cloth, and soap, and leather, adobes and tiles, and with their villages of disciples
about them, lived at ease as well as in peace. There was but one obstacle in
286 - EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES
their way. A great law of nature rose up to oppose them. The Indian of
California was not equal to those of Mexico. He was but a brute. The time
never came when he could be enfranchised and trusted to himself, and con-
verted into a Spanish subject as so many races had been further south. The
fathers must continue to hold their converts in subjection, or they would return
to the heathen state, or even worse would befall them. If the world could have
afforded to devote a paradise to such a purpose, and for the Indian, certainly it
would have been well if the missions could have lasted forever. I will endeavor
to present some of the features and some of the events of this Indian period, as
briefly as possible. And here, for whatever of interest I may be able to awaken
in the subject, I shall be indebted to Mr. R. C. Hopkins, the accomplished and
learned gentleman who has charge of the Spanish archives in the surveyor
general's office.
An American audience will of course desire to know something of the form
of the political government. Constitution or charter there was none. The
government was purely military, outside of the missions. All functions, civil
and military, judicial and economical, were united in the person of the com-
mandante of a presidio, in due subjection to his superior, and so on up to the
king, an autocrat, whose person was represented and whose will was executed
in every part of his dominions. In the archives is to be found a reglamento,
which, as the name imports, is a set of regulations for the peninsula of the
Californias, Lower and Upper. Its caption expresses that it is for the govern-
ment of the presidios, the promotion of the erection of new missions, and of the
population and extension of the establishments of Monterey. It was drafted
at Monterey by the governor, in 1779, sent to Madrid, and approved by the
king in 1781. When examined, it is found to adopt the royal reglamento for
the government of all the presidios, with such small variations as the circum-
stances of California required. There are minute provisions for paying, cloth-
ing, and feeding the officers and troops, and for supporting the families of the
troops, and other persons dependent on the presidios. The number of pack