The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

“The land we occupy today is the very same ground on which these terrible crimes took place. We Californians are the beneficiaries of genocide. I suspect few Californians today contextualize their homes as sitting upon stolen land or land gained by bloody force or artful deceits, nor do they likely consider the social and political questions of present day Native American affairs in this light.”

—Brendan Lindsay, Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873

In fourth grade, attending a public school in Fullerton, I learned about the history of California. One aspect that was not covered in this curriculum was the fact that in the first three decades of American statehood, California’s Native American population experienced a genocide at the hands of white American citizens.

This was not just an accidental by-product of disease or “natural” forces—many thousands of Indians in California were violently massacred by legal state-sponsored militias. These roving death squads operated under color of law and with the support of politicians, the press, and local citizens. Other Native Americans perished due to starvation, slavery, and planned neglect.

This tragedy, often overshadowed by nostalgic recollections of the Gold Rush, has only recently been making its way into public consciousness. I would wager that most Californians today have no idea.

The first comprehensive treatments of this subject were published very recently, in 2012 and 2014. These are An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 by Benjamin Madley, and Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873 by Brendan Lindsay. Both authors are professors of history in California.

Over the past few months, I’ve read these books and have been working on this report. More than any other aspect of local history I’ve written about, this has been the most difficult. This is not because these books are not well-written. It is because this topic is, to quote Madley, “unrelentingly grim.” This project has taken me longer than normal because it is emotionally very heavy. It is profoundly disturbing and unpleasant.

So why, then, is it important to understand this history? The answers to this are many, but for Lindsay, they are actually very practical and relevant.

“The motive for this book rests upon a very practical foundation,” Lindsay writes. “Native Americans in California today are making inroads in matters of health, cultural renewal, sovereignty, and the reclaiming of lost lands and other rights. California voters, teachers, courts, and lawmakers thus continue to make choices that affect Native American people in the state.”

Over the past few years, in the course of researching and writing about the local Native American tribe (the Kizh), I’ve actually befriended living members of this tribe. They are a kind and generous people with a sad history, and they are still seeking official federal recognition today, in 2020.

An honest assessment of the way California and the United States have treated the Kizh and other California tribes (of which there are around 100) is essential in making fair public policy decisions about justice for living tribal members.

And so, in a spirit of honesty, empathy, and justice, I present a summary of what I’ve learned about California’s Native American genocide.

When scholars like Madley and Lindsay use the term “genocide” they are not being sensationalistic, but rather are referring to something that is clearly defined by international law, specifically the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide. Using this legal framework, it is clear that what Euro-Americans did to Native Americans in California meets the legal criteria for genocide.

A notable difference between what happened here and what happened in other genocides like the Holocaust is that, instead of being directed by a central authority, genocide in California was largely conducted by ordinary citizens through the democratic process (more on this later).

The Ideology Behind Genocide

Early in his book, Lindsay poses the question: “How did unthinkable acts, such as the purposeful murder of infants, become thinkable, thinkable in fact to people who valued freedom, had deep faith, loved their own children, and sought to make better lives for themselves and their families? How could otherwise good people commit such heinous atrocities, and indeed honor and celebrate those atrocities?”

A similar question was posed by Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: Notes on the Banality of Evil, in which she explores the 1960 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. During the trial, Eichmann appears to be a painfully ordinary bureaucrat, not a bloodthirsty monster. Arendt’s explanation is that most people who commit atrocities, past and present, do so because they uncritically accept a popular ideology, and act in accordance with this.

In the case of the California Native American genocide, two main ideologies lay behind the catastrophe: Manifest Destiny and racism against Indians.

“Manifest Destiny,” a term coined by Stephen O’Sullivan in 1845, was the popular notion that it was America’s God-ordained destiny to expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This despite the fact that, at that time, the west was part of Mexico and peopled by hundreds of indigenous nations.

This ideology, combined with a pervasive racism against Native Americans (as inferior savages), allowed for what Troy Duster has called “conditions for guilt-free massacre…the denial of humanity to the victim.”

Lindsay cites numerous examples of 19th century historians, politicians, and journalists expressing these twin ideologies of Manifest Destiny and racism to support territorial expansion of the US (and the resulting genocide).

Caleb Cushing, an influential politician and supporter of expansionism said in 1859, “We belong to that excellent white race, the consummate impersonation of intellect in man, and loveliness in woman, whose power and privilege it is, wherever they may go, and wherever they may be, to Christianize and civilize, to command be obeyed, to conquer and to reign. I admit to an equality with me, sir, the white man, my blood and race, whether he be the Saxon of England or the Celt of Ireland. But I do not admit as my equals the red men of America, the yellow men of Asia, or the black men of Africa.”

Cushing was not an outlier, but expressed commonly-held beliefs of the era. Newspapers and popular publicans in the 19th century routinely portrayed Native Americans as inferior savages. To quote but a few examples:

From Parley’s Magazine of New York: “Equally inanimate and filthy in habit, they do not possess ingenuity and perseverance…sullen and lazy, they only rouse when pressed by want.”

From the Chico Weekly Courant: “They are of no benefit to themselves or mankind…If necessary, let there be a crusade, and every man that can carry and shoot a gun turn out and hunt the Red Devils to their holes and there bury them, leaving not a root or branch of them remaining.”

Wagons West

From 1846-1848, guided by the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the United States waged an expansionist war against the fledgling Republic of Mexico. The US won and under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, acquired half of Mexico’s territory—all the way to California.

In 1848, gold was discovered in California, sparking what became known as the Gold Rush. Tens of thousands of Americans flocked westward seeking their fortunes.

The influx of tens of thousands of Americans into California proved disastrous for native Californians. In 1848, the indigenous population of California was estimated at around 150,000. Within 60 years, this population would collapse by nearly 90%.

The Real Gold Rush was Land

While the original impetus for massive westward expansion was gold, the commodity of more lasting value turned out to be land.

The US government offered “public” lands to Americans at the tiny sum of $1.25 per acre through many programs such as the School Land Warrant Program.

The War Department also decreed that up to 160 acres per person could be had by all veterans of the Mexican American War.

Upon claiming all this cheap or free land for grazing, timber, minerals, water, and farmland, some American Californians faced a problem.

As it turned out, much of the land was already occupied by Native Americans who had been there for millennia.

What to do?

Democratic Death Squads

While both Lindsay and Madley’s books cover much of the same material, Madley’s is more comprehensive in its documentation of direct massacres of Indians, primarily by white settlers in the form of militias.

In the appendices to An American Genocide, Madley documents dozens of specific massacres, taken largely from primary sources.

Madley was able to document these because those committing these mass murders were not ashamed. The unfolding genocide was not a secret, but something openly celebrated and called for by newspapers, politicians, and local leaders up and down the state.

The pattern became a familiar one, as Lindsay describes: “This cycle of starvation of native peoples, their stock theft for food, and the bloody, retaliatory vengeance by settlers and ranchers, exacted often with self-righteous fury, was the key sequence of events leading to the Euro-American claim that extermination of Indigenous populations was a practical necessity.”

That was the term often used at the time: extermination.

The Marysville Evening Herald proclaimed in 1853: “Extermination is no longer even a question of time—the time has already arrived, the work has been commenced, and let the first white man who says treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor and coward.”

Anthropologist Robert Heizer estimated that “for every white man killed, a hundred Indians paid the penalty with their lives.”

Many of these retaliatory massacres of Indian villages were conducted by democratically-organized militia of local volunteers with names like the Eel River Rangers.

In these punitive expeditions, the brave volunteers didn’t just kill men; they killed women and children.

U.S. Army Lt. Edward Dillon “reported to his supervisors in 1859 that he had received intelligence that during a twoweek expedition led by [a man named] Hall and other citizens, some 240 Indians were killed.”

Hall later recalled, “We took one boy into the valley and the infants were put out of their misery and a girl 10 years of age was killed for stubbornness.”

These “volunteers” were usually reimbursed for their expenses by the state and federal governments.

Here’s a list of some of the murderous “expeditions” documented in Madley’s book, along with how much the “volunteers” were reimbursed by the state of California:

Gila Expedition (1850) in Quechan country near the Colorado River: 12 Indians reported killed at a cost of $113,482.

First El Dorado Expedition (1850) in Nisenan territory: More than 19 Indians reported

killed at a cost of $101,861.

Mariposa Battalion (1851) in the southern mines: Between 73-93 Indians killed for $259,372.

Second El Dorado Expedition (1851) in Nissan territory: 21 Indians killed for $199,784.

Siskiyou Volunteer Rangers Expedition (1852) in Modoc territory: Between 73-200 Indians killed for $14,987.

Shasta Expedition (1854) in the McCloud River Valley: 58-63 Indians killed for $4,068.

Coast Rangers and Klamath Mounted Rangers Operation (1854- 1855) in Del Norte County region: “Hundreds” of Indians killed for $0.

Klamath and Humboldt Expedition (1855) in Northwestern California: 45-80 Indians killed for $99,096.

Let me pause here for a moment for those tempted to think that these expeditions constituted “war” and were thus justified. In the vast majority of cases, the number of non-Indians killed was zero. This had to do with superior firepower of the militias and a strategy of opening fire from a distance upon unarmed villages. Again, the most common motive for these massacres was theft of cows or horses by starving Indians. Okay, on with the list.

Siskiyou Expedition (1855) in Modoc Territory: 25-45 Indians killed for $14,036.

Tulare Expedition (1856) in Tulare County region: Over 59 Indians killed for $12,732.

Modoc Expedition (1856) in Modoc country: 185 Indians killed for $188,324.

Mounted Volunteers of Siskiyou County: 59-72 Indians killed for $5,149.

Second Klamath and Humboldt Expedition (1859): 100-125 Indians killed for $52,185.

Pit River Expedition (1859) in Achumawi, Atseguwi, Maidu, and Yana territory: 200 Indians killed for $72,156.

Mendocino Expedition (1859-1860) in Yuki territory: 283-400 Indians killed for $9,347.

Humboldt Home Guards Expedition (1861) in Humboldt County: 77-79 Indians killed for an unknown amount of money.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

“Perpetrators, bystanders, survivors, and secondary sources indicate that non-Indians killed at least 9,492 to 16,094 California Indians, and probably more, between 1846 and 1873,” Madley concludes.

In Humboldt County, the citizens of Uniontown and Eureka voted for a tax to be levied on residents “to prosecute the Indian war to extermination.” Indian hunting could be a profitable endeavor.

“Scalp and head bounties were instituted in some towns and counties. In one example, a county paid 50 cents for every Indian scalp and $5 for every Indian head brought in…One man brought in as many as 12 Indian heads in one trip alone,” Lindsay writes. “Perhaps the most shocking bounty opportunity was one suggested by the editors of the Lassen Sage Brush in 1868, a $500 bounty for “every Indian killed.” This would be such an incentive as to make killing Native Americans tantamount to California’s new Gold Rush.”

This “war of extermination” was not just the result of some callous locals, but found sanction at the highest levels of government.

In an address to the state legislature in 1852, California governor Peter H. Burnett, said, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian becomes extinct, must be expected; while we cannot anticipate this result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert.”

Meanwhile, his administration reimbursed the Indian-killing militias hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“By January 1854, the state of California had already spent $924,259 on Native American genocide,” Lindsay writes. “Some of the money had been reimbursed by the federal government, but much remained unpaid. The state resorted to issuing war bonds to pay for the costs of campaigns against Native Americans.”

Under California law at this time, Indians had little recourse or protections for crimes committed against them. California’s criminal code prevented Native peoples from serving as witnesses against whites, stating “No black or mulatto person, or Indian shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of, or against, any white person.”

Indian Slavery in California 

Although California was never officially a slave state, white settlers created a system of de facto slavery for Native Americans.

“Destroying Native lifeways, economies, and people, EuroAmericans created an economy based on stolen land worked by what was, in many of its essentials, slave labor,” Lindsay writes.

In the early 1850s, the California legislature passed the ill-named “Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.” According to Lindsay, this act made California’s indigenous population “practically legal non-entities and the objects of legalized kidnapping, enslavement, and murder, ensuring that access to Native labor would not only continue, but increase.”

In Los Angeles in the 1850s, there was actually a de facto slave mart for Native Americans.

“Euro-Americans harnessed laws contained in the act against Indian vagrancy and drunkenness to obtain a form of short-term slave labor from Native Americans,” Lindsay writes.

A lack of Native resources created an “economy of slow starvation” for native peoples.

In addition to this legalized slavery, “the legal system placed Native workers in homes all over Southern California through apprenticeship laws, also contained in ‘An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.’ Scholars have estimated that white Americans enslaved as many as 20,000 Native Americans in California. This slave system, disguised as an apprenticeship in advanced civilization for inferior peoples, contributed to the genocide of Native peoples tremendously. By separating families, depriving children of Native linguistic and cultural education, and inflicting mental and physical hardships, Euro-Americans destroyed Native families, lowered birthrates, and committed physical, cultural, and economic genocide.”

Broken Treaties and Neglected Reservations

In 1850, the year California became a state, three federal treaty commissioners were sent to the new state. They were able to negotiate 18 separate treaties with various Native American tribes.

Unfortunately, under pressure from California senators, the US senate voted not to ratify these treaties. They also voted for an “injunction of secrecy on the treaties, which were hidden from the public until 1905.”

With no ratified treaties, the federal government allotted no land to California tribes, but instead created reservations that were “federal property where Native Americans were housed.”

“Native Americans living east of California had for centuries been pushed westward but in California that option was unavailable, lest one push California’s population into the Pacific Ocean,” Lindsay writes.

Lacking official treaties which might have guaranteed rights and sovereignty, California Indians were left at the mercy of federal Indian commissioners.

The first superintendent of Indian affairs in California was a man named Edward F. Beale. Upon his arrival in 1852, he sent this report back to Washington:

“Driven from their fishing and hunting grounds, hunted themselves like wild beasts, lassoed, and torn from homes made miserable by want, and forced into slavery, the wretched remnant which escapes starvation on the one hand, and the relentless Americans on the other, only do so to rot and die of a loathsome disease, the penalty of Indian association with frontier civilization. This is not idle declamation—I have seen it; and I know that they perish by the hundreds; I know that they are fading away with a startling and shocking rapidity, but I cannot help them. Humanity must yield to necessity. They are not dangerous; therefore they must be neglected.”

Beale, like later Indian commissioners, was eventually fired for mismanagement and fraud.

His replacement, Thomas J. Henley, was even worse.

“In 1855 John Ross Browne, a US Treasury agent empowered as a special investigator for the federal government, was sent to inspect Indian affairs and conditions on California’s reservations…Brown excoriated Henley and other federal agents associated with Indians affairs in California. In a series of reports to the commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, he described the corruption apparent on the reservations he visited and the utter waste of federal funds. In particular he noted the shady dealings of the officials, including Henley. In one telling report, Brown said that private enterprises by the officials were seen on the reservations and seemed to make use of Native labor, federal funds, and land set aside for the care of Native people on the reservation. Timber from federal land was being harvested without recompense, and the discharges of a sawmill were destroying the fisheries Native people depended on. Much of this, Brown charged, was for the profit of Henley and other whites living on the reservation. Indeed his many reports charged that those empowered to carry out the operations were inept, ineffective, and downright corrupt,” Lindsay writes.

Under Henley’s leadership “funds in the thousands of dollars meant for the subsistence of Native peoples were being expended on for-profit ventures of federal employees and white settlers on reservation lands.”

Many on the reservation were being slowly starved to death or died of disease brought on by malnutrition or their weakened state.

Henley, like his predecessor, was eventually fired for mismanagement and fraud.

There also existed a lucrative trade of kidnapping women and children from the reservations.

Army Lt. Dillon reported in 1861 “that he knew of at least 50 instances when Native children were kidnapped and sold to local settlers.”

Despite being fired from their positions as Indian commissioners, both Beale and Henley “obtained land near reservations and used Native Americans as unpaid labor to make their fortunes.”

By 1860, the seven reservations in California “were either reduced or closed altogether.”

Lindsay concludes that “genocide in the state of California in the 19th century was planned by white settlers, miners, and ranchers who used extermination, either physical or cultural, to obtain Indian land and resources…Hopefully this study is sufficient to generate shame and outrage, today at least, and help in the process of revitalizing, rebuilding, and enumerating Native communities by educating all Americans of the genocidal past of the shared place that Native and non-Native persons now call home.”

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the Gold Rush of 1849, and California becoming an American state in 1850, American settlers began arriving and putting down roots on the land that would become Fullerton.

In the 1860s, much of this land was owned by the Stearns Rancho Company, and so many of these early settlers purchased land from this company. The town of Fullerton wouldn’t be established until 1887.

My source for this initial survey of early pioneers is Bob Ziebell’s Fullerton: a Pictorial History.

An early settler was the Basque sheep herder Domingo Bastanchury, who arrived in 1868, and first leased, and then purchased land in what is now north Fullerton for his growing sheep herd. Over time, he acquired more acres, and expanded his business into cattle, hogs, citrus, and other crops.

Another early farmer/settler was Daniel Kraemer, perhaps more known as a Placentia pioneer who purchased 3,900 acres from August F. Langenerger and moved his family into the old Ontiveros adobe and began farming in 1867.

In 1868, Jerome B. Stone and his wife Anna arrived and purchased two hundred acres of land that extended from present day Harbor/Orangethorpe to the Santa Fe railroad tracks. Before it was called Fullerton, this area was known as Orangethrope. Other early settlers in the Orangethorpe area were the Germans Henry Burdorf, Chris Rorden, and Henry Boeckman.

In 1869, William McFadden purchased 90 acres around what is now Placentia and Yorba Linda Boulevards, and began farming. He, like many of these early settlers, would become involved in civic affairs like the Chamber of Commerce and water issues.

Alexander Gardiner, a native of Scotland, moved here with his family from Tennessee in 1869, and established a walnut farm.

Benjamin Franklin Porter came here from Texas on a wagon train in 1870, and purchased 40 acres of land on the north side of Orangethorpe. He and his wife raised 15 children. Porter helped establish the Orangethorpe school in 1872 and Fullerton High School in 1893.

In 1873, Otto Des Granges, a native of Prussia, bought 80 acres of land around present day Cal State Fullerton and Acacia Ave. and built up a citrus and walnut farm.

Richard H. Gilman owned another citrus ranch near Des Granges’. It was here that the first Valencia oranges would be cultivated.

I plan to research more about these early settlers, and will post more as I learn more.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Juan Crespi was a Franciscan missionary who accompanied Gaspar de Portola on his 1769 overland expedition from San Diego to Monterey. The party included another friar named Franscisco Gomez, several Spanish soldiers, and a number of native “footmen” who did much of the grunt work of clearing the trail.

At this time, there was no European settlement in Alta (“Upper”) California. The purpose of Portola’s expedition was to begin the process of Spanish colonization of this region by establishing missions, presidios (military forts), and pueblos (towns). 

Both Portola and Crespi kept journals of the expedition, and both of these journals survive. Of the two, Crespi’s is way more detailed. In 2001, San Diego State University Press published Crespi’s journals in both English and Spanish, translated by professor Alan K. Brown.

What follows here are excerpts from the portion of Crespi’s journal as he traveled through present-day Orange County–from July 22-30, 1769. To me these first-hand accounts provide a unique window into first contacts between the native inhabitants of this area, and the Spanish colonizers. The journals are also valuable in that they record what the land looked like before it was developed by Euro-Americans into the landscape we know today.

July 22, 1769: [To Christianitos Canyon, which reaches the Pacific at the southern edge of today’s city of San Clemente]: “At eleven o’clock we came to a pool of fresh water, found by the scouts yesterday at a dry creek where there is a great amount of sycamore and live oaks. We must have gone four leagues to reach this spot. We stopped close to the pool and close to a village of heathens who visited us once, some fourteen men and as many more women with boy and girl children. They are all very tractable Indians. They say there is another large pool further downstream at this place. The spot, a good one for a farm, has its small share of soil and good grass. 

On our reaching this spot the scouting soldiers told us that they had seen yesterday a girl infant in arms who was dying. We requested the Governor for two or three soldiers to go with us, and then we two Fathers went to the village to try to see this infant in arms and baptize her if she was in danger. We did find her in her mother’s arms, scarcely able to nurse, but the mother would not in any wise see us. We gave her to understand, as well as we could that we did not wish to harm the child, only to wash its head with water, so that if it died it would go to Heaven. As well as he could with her clutched to her mother’s breast, Father Fray Francisco Gomez baptized her; she was named Maria Magdalena, and I have no doubt that she will die and that in passing by we have won this soul’s passage to Heaven. We named this spot the small pool of San Apolinario, Saint Apollinarius. 

We met not a heathen upon this whole day’s march before reaching this spot. As I was finishing writing up this day’s march, we were reminded of another little girl, about two and a half years old, who had also seemed ill to us though we had never been able to assure ourselves whether this were the case. In the end we went back with some soldiers and learned that she had been burned and was feeling very sick, so that I took the measure of baptizing her. Since Father Gomez had baptized the other, I christened this one myself, naming her Margarita. God take both of them into Heaven; and so, in passing by, we have gained these two who would to pray in Heaven for the winning over and conversion of all these poor wretches here.

About on a parallel with this spot lies the first island of the Santa Barbara Channel, called San Clemente.

July 23: [North up Christianitos Canyon, over the hills and down to San Juan Creek (named later for the mission). They followed the creek west to the future location of Mission San Juan Capistrano. The state highway that now follows San Juan Creek in this area is named Ortega Highway after the leader of Portolá’s scouts]: 

A good many live oaks have been seen all along the way, here and there on the knolls and hills. We came across a good-sized heathen village at one of the two hollows, where they commenced shouting to us as soon as they were aware of us, and came to meet us as though to set us on the watering place whither we were bound…The spot seems a very fine one for a mission…

In all of the past days marches, I have been forgetting to set down that they possess dogs at all of the villages. We have seen villages having two or else three black and white parti-colored dogs; in the village we set out from today we saw a black one. 

On this day’s march we came across two mines of what seemed good red-earth, ochre, and a very white earth. They were located at some small knolls, and we passed nearly through their midst; clearly, they must have been opened by the heathens to get the paints which are their normal dress. 

This hollow and stream rises at the foot of the mountains within view here, and runs from about north-northeastward, with the whole of this direction being very much lined with a great deal of trees, sycamore, willows, large live oaks, cottonwoods and other kinds we could not recognize. It is a well-watered spot, one for founding a good-sized mission at…On reaching this spot, we heard some heathens crying out across some knolls, but they have not shown themselves nearby.

July 24: To Aliso Creek. [The neighborhood where the creek exits the hills is now called Portola Hills]:

Before our setting out, about nine heathens belonging to the villages of this hollow showed themselves, coming up unarmed. They are very friendly, tractable Indians, and by no means unruly like what we had experienced with the ones at San Diego. Coming down into the hollow here, we shortly came upon two good-sized villages worth of of them where they were encamped beneath some bushes with their women and children. We were unable to count them because of their being packed together; with the heathen men all smoking upon very big, thick Indian pipes of baked clay. Upon our greeting them, none of them stirred, except to make the usual speech (no telling what they were saying to us), and we passed on. 

We went two leagues through this hollow, with very good soil; its width between hills must be three to four hundred yards in spots; it had all been burnt off by the heathens [local tribes would do controlled burns as a type of land management].

…On going about another league over good-sized tablelands, we came down to a pleasant stream and hollow all lined with a great many large sycamores and large live oaks, so that the entire bed of this hollow looking so handsome makes a very agreeable effect, seeming like a fig orchard. On going about three hours, in which we must have made three leagues…

This lovely spot, so excellent for a good-sized mission…hoping for it to be in time to come a good-sized mission for the conversion of the tractable, well-behaved, and friendly heathen folk here.

Here we met a good-sized village of heathens who at once, on seeing us approaching, all set up a sort of general howling at us, as though they had been wolves, but all of them well-pleased; and at once upon our arriving, they all came over entirely weaponless to our camp, and have stayed with us the whole time we have spent here. A very fine heathen folk indeed: they presented us with a great deal of their grass seeds, which are very good [and] a great deal of very good sage [gruel] refreshment; while the soldiers have also gotten a great amount of them by barter. Our governor, and the Captain, presented them with beads, with which they were well-pleased…

They make very good-sized and fine baskets, bowls, and a sort of rushwork-wickerweave made of very close-woven rushes. Because we stopped very close by their village, we have had them at the camp almost continually, men, women, and children showing such friendliness, cheerfulness, and happiness as though they had been dealing with us forever. We counted twenty-some men; there were a good many women and children, and some of the children are very fair and red-haired. The women are very decently covered up. The two of us have been saying many things to them about God, saying “love-God,” “amor a Dios,” very often, and we have had them kiss the crucifix and our rosary crosses, which they did many time without the slightest reluctance. Whenever we would retire into our little tent, the moment we came out to get anything they would see us and all together would break out with “Amar a dios, amar a Dios.” I have had the little ones repeating the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity over and over; indeed these heathens have so entirely won my heart that I very gladly would have stayed with them. 

From a high knoll at this place, we saw the first two islands of the Santa Barbara Channel, called San Clemente and Santa Catalina, about four leagues off.

(Every day, we can plainly recognize that there is a change in the language.) I shall set down here some terms belonging to the language of this spot; as I saw afterward, it goes on being understood over a distance of some leagues. They are as follows; first the Spanish and then come the word in the language:

What is it called: Ibi

Water: Pal

Bear: Junut

Live oak: Uasal

Hand: Nima

Is Coming: Igage

Fish: Loquiuchi

Hare: Suichi

Deer: Sucuat

Antelope: Pat

Way: Petlou

Sea: Momt

Village: Esat

Sun: Temete

Moon: Muil

Sage: Pasal

Sky: Tupachi

Canoe, or balza float: Paut

Earth: Exel

Stone: Tot

Man: Potato

Woman: Sungal

Small child in arms: Amaisicalla

Cup or bowl: Joil

Fire: Cut

Tobacco: Piut

Pipe: Cabalmel

Reed: Juiquichi

Flint: Tacat

Arrow: Jul

Bow: Catapichi

July 26: [Short march northwest along the edge of the foothills, to a spring at the northern edge of today’s Irvine, California. From a hill above, the party first sees the broad coastal plain of northwestern Orange County]:

On our setting out from there, the entire village gathered together as though to show they were sorry, telling us over and over what we had taught them to say, “Love-God, Love-God,” by way of a farewell…

We traveled over very open country of very low rolling knolls and tablelands all very grass-grown, up hill and down through three of four hollows with very good soil and a great deal of sycamore trees in the hollows. We came across six antelopes and a great many hares, none of which could be taken, all of them being very swift runners. 

July 27: [To Santiago Creek, so named by Crespí]:

The water here flows through the midst of this large plain of apparently very good soil and of leagues in breadth and length; how far away the sea must be there is no telling. We christened this grand, fine, and lovely spot with the name of Santiago Apostol, Saint James the Apostle, Patron of the Two Spains…

July 28: [To the Santa Ana River, one of the major rivers of southern California. The soldiers of the expedition gave the river the name Santa Ana. A strong earthquake is felt that afternoon; aftershocks are recorded over the next few days]:

We pursued our way and at about a scant league and a half came to this full-flowing river, and indeed it is one, a good-sized river going through the midst of the plain here. It is not sunken in: its bed must hold at least ten yards worth of running water, with a depth of half a yard of water all across the bed.

Its course comes out of the mountain range that must lie about two or three leagues away from us, from northeast to southwestward, an it is imagined that southwestward it must empty into the sea…This river bed here is very much lined with trees, white cottonwoods, willows, sycamores, and other kinds we have not recognized.

By what we have noticed from the sands along its banks, this river must plainly carry very large floods, and we had some trouble fording it even now, in the depth of the dry season and the dog days. There will be no crossing it in the rainy season–its current is rapid enough now. They have seen good-sized catfish in it. 

A large village of friendly tractable heathens is upon the other side of the river, who came over as soon as we had arrived and set up camp, about 54 heathens, bringing us their usual present, two large bowls half full of sage gruel, and other sorts of parched grass seeds that they consume…The women and children were so many that we were unable to count them…Their chief gave the usual speech and presented it to our Governor, and their chief took a string of shell-beads of the sort that they use and a net out of his pouch and made a present of it as well. (Our Governor presented them with the usual beads, and a handkerchief.)

They are all very well-behaved, tractable folk, who seem somewhat lean–though the men were very strongly built–and food must be in short supply with them. 

We made camp close to the river here, and we have felt these strong earthquakes within less than an hour today at noon. The first and most violent must have lasted the length of a Creed, the other two less than a Hail Mary, a great shaking of the ground, however, was felt during all three. 

This is the most beautiful spot, with a great amount of soil and water–with this beautiful river going, as it does, through the midst of the wide and far-reaching level here–for founding a mission…We christened this grand spot here The Most Sweet Name of Jesus, of the rio de los Temblores, River of Eartqhakes. This afternoon the villagers returned and kept inviting us to come dance at their village, but we told them it was not our custom to dance.

They also brought white gemstones appearing like fine glass, which we understood they had gotten from the islands of the Santa Barbara Channel. They urged us not to go away, saying that this is their land, that they will sustain us on sage [gruel] of which they have a good amount, and on bear [meat]. We told them that we are coming back, and we will stay with them and build a house with them.

In order to have us remain, they pointed out for us one man who is their chief and the owner of all this land. Our Sergeant and the two of us Fathers told them we would come back, and when we did, we would make a house for the Sergeant and for ourselves (and one for God that He might be worshipped by them), and upon our saying this, such tears of joy and happiness sprang to their chief’s eyes as he touched the hearts of all of us. 

And would they allow me to, I would most gladly return in order to stay with these poor wretches for their conversion and the good of their souls–That in case any people shall want to harm us, they will protect us, and we said the same to them, and that we will keep them fed and clothed as well. Blessed be God, for I trust the hour is near that they shall know and worship Him.

July 29: [North-northwest to the hills north of modern Fullerton, or possibly a little further north into La Habra]:

Once across the river, everything is overgrown with prickly pear and sage; very shortly the soil became very grass-grown with dry grass. On going a short way we turned north-northwestward, and on going about a league and a half back again to the northwest, and went up the aforesaid nearer range, which had become very low in this direction, and at a bit over two hours travel came down to a little, very green hollow where there was a large heathen village with a small pool of fresh water. Here at this village we met a great many heathens from the river we had set out from. They wished us to stop at their village, but as it lacked convenience there, we withdrew to a very grass-grown knoll about a musket shot away and there set up camp. Because this knoll lies in a large valley, three of four leagues in length, it may be; the width may be a league, and by what we understood from the heathens there, there is no water in it but this little pool, which only had what was needed for the people, and this evening the mounts had to go without. Once camp was made, the whole village came over, so that what with men and boys we counted about seventy souls of them, all very fine, well-behaved heathens like the ones at the river we last crossed, and we saw none of them carrying weapons.

We have been gathering that messengers are going out to the following villages to tell that we do not harm them but are good people, so that they are already notified, and quite fearless of us. I give this spot the name of The village of the little pool and valley of Santa Marta, Saint Martha. A strong quake was felt here, though lasting less than a Hail Mary.

July 30: [Leaving Orange County and entering Los Angeles County, the expedition heads north over the pass (La Habra) through the Puente Hills. Today’s North Harbor Boulevard follows the Portolá route over the pass. The march continued northwest to the San Gabriel River, where the party built “a bridge of poles” to cross the miry riverbed. This bridge (La Puente in Crespi’s diary) is remembered in the name of today’s nearby city of La Puente]:

Once across this valley here, which has very fine soil and better grass, we went up a hill, all grass-grown and sheer soil, and came into hollows with er large live oak, and sycamores, and through these, on going three hours in which we must have made three leagues, we came down to a very wide-reaching, green, exceedingly spacious valley of dark, very level friable soil, all burnt off by the heathens. Going about a league through this valley, we came to the water the scouts had found; it is a very large stream of running water flowing through the midst of a very green swamp much clad in all sorts of plants and good grasses, and here we made our camp…

This swamp and watering place here lies upon the east of this valley, and because of it being very miry, a bridge had to be made to get across the aforesaid stream. In every way a very grand, excellent spot for a very large plenteous mission. I called it La puente del arroyo del Valle de San Miguel, the bridge of the stream of the Saint Michael Valley. A strong earthquake was felt this afternoon, though a very brief one, yet the ground shook a great deal. I observed this spot in north latitude 33 degrees 54 minutes.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Continuing my research into the history of my hometown of Fullerton, I’ve begun flipping through Samuel Armor’s massive 1,600 hundred page book History of Orange County: With Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men and Women of the County who Have Been Identified with Its Earliest Growth and Development from the Early Days to the Present (1921).  Here’s what I learned from reading the section on Fullerton pioneers Domingo and Maria Bastanchury. Fellow locals will recognize Bastanchury Road, one of Fullerton’s main thoroughfares, named after the Bastanchury family.

Domingo was born in Aldudes, Basses-Pyrenees, France in 1839, son of Gracian Bastanchury. He never received any formal education, but instead made his living as  sheep herder. At age 21, he sailed for America, around Cape Horn, and landed in California. The difficult voyage took six months. He continued working as a sheep herder, gradually acquiring lands. At one time, he was the largest sheep herder in LA County (before the formation of Orange County in 1889), owning between 15,000 and 20,000 head. He eventually acquired over 6,000 acres, in and around present-day Fullerton, and  switched his business to citrus cultivation. At one time, the family owned the largest citrus grove in the world. He and his sons (Gaston and John) formed the Bastanchury Ranch Company.

In 1874, he married Maria Oxarart, who was born in 1848, also in Basses-Pyrenees.  She obtained a limited education in her home country before immigrating to America. Biographer Samuel Armor writes: “Mrs. Bastanchury shared with her husband all the trials and hardships incident to pioneer life on the plains of Southern California and while he was in the mountains with his sheep she was alone with her little family, her nearest neighbors being several miles away. She well remembers the country when there was no sign of the present town of Fullerton; all the trading was done in Los Angeles or Anaheim…There were only two houses between her home place and Los Angeles, and where now hundreds of autos travel the main road between Los Angeles and Fullerton, in the early days there would not be more than one team a week.”

Evantually, Domingo and Maria had four sons: Dominic (who owned a 400-acre ranch in La Habra), Gaston (manager of the Bastanchury Ranch Company), as well as Joseph and John (who also oversaw the ranch). Domingo died in 1909, leaving the vast family holdings to his wife and sons.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

In his book The Gabrielino, Bruce Miller includes a number of photographs of objects from the native American tribe who were the original inhabitants of Los Angeles and north Orange County, who are also called the Kizh.

Additionally, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana has in its collection a number of objects of Kizh culture.

Here are some of the images from Miller’s book and the Bowers Museum, as they give visual evidence of some important aspects of daily life of local culture before Europeans arrived in Southern California.

Basketry

Wood and Stone Tools

Effigies (animal figurines with spiritual significance)

Hunting

Fishing

Food/Cooking

Clothing

Shelter

Trade

Art

Shamans

Music

And lest we forget that the Kizh are a still-existing tribe, here is former tribal chairman Ernie Salas with some cultural artifacts at an event at Ralph Clark Park in Fullerton in 2013.

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of meeting with the chief and other members of the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians, Kizh Nation, which is the tribe who first inhabited the areas of Los Angeles and North Orange County. When I tell people I met the local tribe, the most common reaction is, “There’s a local tribe?”  This is not a historical accident. The story of the Kizh people has been one of tragedy after tragedy, and their history has been largely suppressed or distorted.  When I met the members of Kizh nation, they told me their tribal history, and I picked up a relatively new book they published called Toypurina: the Joan of Arc of California.  The book tells the little-known history of a Kizh woman named Toypurina who, in 1785, led her people in a revolt against their Spanish oppressors.  She is a folk hero to the Kizh people and, according to the book, “She is the only Native American woman to have initiated, organized, and led a revolt against foreign oppression in all American history.  She is outstanding and unique in Native American history and therefore, in American history as well.”

Here’s a brief summary of Toypurina’s story, taken from the book:

“In 1785, she was approached by a neophyte (baptized captive) Nicolas Jose at Mission San Gabriel.  He was reacting to the conduct of the Spanish not only to his own situation, but also to the atrocities (murders, whippings, rapes, forced religious conversions, and slave labor) that had been committed against the Kizh from the beginning the Spanish invasion until that point. Toypurina, age 25, accepted the challenge and initiated, organized, and carried out a revolt utilizing an armed force of Indian warriors. On the night of October 25th, 1785, Toypurina led her force and attacked the mission. But because a corporal of the guard had been informed of the revolt ahead of time, the Spanish mounted an ambush.  When Toypurina arrived, she and some of her warriors were arrested. She was then subjected to a sham trial at the mission where no less than the governor of Alta California, Pedro Fages, sat in judgment.  As punishment, she was exiled, baptized into Christianity, forced to divorce her Native husband and remarry a Spanish soldier and then eventually was buried at Mission San Juan Bautista.”

Though the revolt was unsuccessful, it stands as an inspiring testament to the spirit of the Kizh, and their resistance to oppression. The authors of the book compare her to Joan of Arc because “Both were religious leaders of their people, both organized revolts against invading foreign powers, both led rebel forcers in the field, both were betrayed, both were subjected to sham trials, and both suffered tragic ends.” 

The authors also compare Toypurina to other, more well-known female American heroes like Betsy Ross, Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Coretta Scott King because “the common threads of all Ameicans are our love of freedom and our ‘American Dream’ to provide the best, both spiritual and material, for our families and for our children’s future…Toypurina rose to the occasion. She wanted to right the wrongs done to her people and to her land.”

The book serves as not only a biography of Toypurina’s life, but also as a kind of tribal history written, not from the perspective of outsiders, but by the tribe itself. The authors (which includes the chief) write at the outset: “With this work, we, the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians, are writing a new kind of history for us–our own history.  It is a humanistic history rather than a cold, dispassionate typical study.”

Because Toypurina has been so grossly misrepresented even by scholars, much of the work of the book Toypurina is deconstructing false histories (which abound for Native Americans) and trying to reconstruct the real history, based both on scholarly study and tribal oral history.  It is a unique book in this way. It is deeply self-conscious of the problems inherent in trying to reconstruct the past, and this is something more historians ought to wrestle with, especially when dealing with histories that have existed only on the margins of “official” history. It is a lovely, thought-provoking, and inspiring book that serves as a model of a how a group of people can, through research and storytelling, assert their identity and self-worth.

As the authors rightly note in the introduction: “Sometimes, in order to right the wrongs of the past, it is necessary to write the wrongs of the past.”

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Just as Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, represents an important (and representative) transitional figure in California’s history, stretching from the Native American Era to the Spanish Era to the Mexican Era, to the American Era, so does Abel Stearns, who once owned nearly all the lands that encompass present day Orange County, including Fullerton.  Who was he?  To answer this question, I just read a very interesting chapter on him from local historian Phil Brigandi’s book Orange County Chronicles. Here’s a little bit about Abel Stearns, aka Horse-Face.

He was born in Massachusetts in 1798, but was orphaned at age 12.  After spending his adolescence traveling on trading ships, he settled in Mexico in the early 1820s, where he became a Mexican citizen.  This was just after the Mexican War for Independence, and about 20 years before the Mexican-American War.  Stearns eventually moved to Los Angeles in the 1830s. This was when Los Angeles (and all of California) was still a part of Mexico. This was the era of the Californios–Spanish-speaking residents of Alta (“Upper”) California.

In LA, Stearns opened a store dealing with cow hides and tallow (oil), which were the main exports of California in those days.  The wealthiest California landowners at this time were almost all cattle ranchers. Abel became a sort of “middle-man” between the producers of cow hides, and the merchant ships. He was very successful at this, eventually establishing a warehouse near present-day San Pedro in 1834. The following year, he got into a knife-fight with a drunken sailor, who cut up Stearns’ face pretty bad. His ugly face earned him the nick-name “Caro de Caballo” aka “Horse Face”.

What he lacked in beauty, he made up in wealth. In 1841, at age 43, he married the 14-year-old daughter of a wealthy rancher. Her name was Arcadia Bandini. The following year, Horse-Face purchased his first rancho from governor Jose Figueroa, the 28,000-acre Rancho Los Alamitos, the first of many large ranchos he would purchase from debt-ridden Californios. The loss of the Mexican-American War proved disastrous to Californios, but provided a nice business opportunity for the Yankee Abel Stearns. By the late 1850s, Horse-Face had acquired the following ranchos: Los Coyotes, La Labra, Las Bolsas, Yorba, and San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana. At the height of his weath, Stearns owned around 200,000 acres of Southern California land.

Several factors contributed to Stearns’ decline. The dwindling of the Gold Rush hit him pretty hard–he’d made a fortune selling beef to gold-hungry miners in the 1850s. Then, there was a massive drought in 1863-64, which took a major toll on his cattle. By the late 1860s, Stearns began selling off his vast holdings to pay off debts. Along with his friend Alfred Robinson and other businessmen, he formed a real estate company, which sold off subdivided acreage to prospective settlers and town-builders. Two of these town builders were George and Edward Amerige, who bought the land which would be called Fullerton.

As part of my research of Fullerton history, I will often read books about California history more broadly, to help give context for local events. Such a book is Pio Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California by Carlos Manuel Salomon. Pio Pico is often not given his just place in California history, and this book seeks to show how this one man’s life embodied dramatic changes in California. Here is a book report on what I learned. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Pio Pico’s Ancestry

Born in 1801 at Mission San Gabriel, Pio Pico had a relatively poor childhood. His lineage included Indian, Spanish, and African ancestry, which initially placed him near the bottom of the racial caste system of Spanish society in the New World.  His grandfather, Santiago de la Cruz Pico, accompanied the Spanish soldier/colonizer Juan Bautista de Anza in 1775 on an expedition north into Alta California, part of Spain’s plan to settle California with missions and soldiers.

Pio’s father, Jose Maria Pico, served as a guard in California missions. He was instrumental in foiling Kizh-Gabrieleno leader Toypurina’s rebellion at Mission San Gabriel. Jose Maria joined the Mexican Independence movement, for which he was imprisoned in San Diego in 1811. He never achieved his goal of obtaining a California land grant.

Pio Pico’s Political Rise

Pico rose to prominence through the marriages of his sisters to prominent Californio families. In 1826, he was elected to San Diego town council, and eventually became a part of a political leadership cadre known as the disputation, which also included the Yorba family (who owned the rancho where modern-day Yorba Linda exists). In 1829, California governor Jose Maria de Echeandia gave Pico his first land grant, Rancho Jamul, east of San Diego, and he became an emerging cattle baron. 

In Mexico at this time (including California) the two political factions were: conservatives (who favored a centralized military-type authority), and liberals (who favored more local/civilian authority). Pico was a liberal. When the conservative General Manuel Victoria was appointed governor of California, Pico opposed him. 

In conjunction with other political and business leaders, Pico began fomenting dissent against Victoria, writing manifestos and distributing circular pamphlets. In 1831, he and other leaders led a rebellion against Victoria’s government. They marched into San Diego, captured military leaders, and took weapons. At the Battle of Cahuenga (outside LA), the two forces met and Victoria was defeated. Pico became temporary governor of California.

There followed a power struggle between Pico and Echeandia in the south, and Victoria’s secretary Augustin Zamorano in the north. In 1833, Jose Figueroa was appointed governor of California. In 1834, Pico married Maria Ignacia Alvarado in the plaza church in Los Angeles. Governor Figueroa was present as the best man.

Secularization of the Missions

In 1833, partial secularization of the missions was enacted, divesting the catholic church of mission lands, but not distributing them to the Indians, as was seen by many as the goal of secularization.

Instead of re-distributing the mission lands to the Indians, regional politicians were given control over them as comisionados.  In 1835, Pico was named comisionado of Mission San Luis Rey, and almost immediately ran into conflict with the Luisenos (native tribe) over the labor requirement of secularization (the Indians were still required to work the lands for free).  In 1836, Pico was named encargado de justica, a position of judicial power which basically undermined the authority of the local leader of the Luisenos, Pablo Asis.

Author Carlos M. Salomon writes, “His primary aim was to operate an enterprise rather than to ensure the transition of former neophytes into Mexican society…Forcing the Indians to work, denying their promised liberties, treating them harshly, and encroaching on Temecula, where he grazed his own cattle, led to Indian protests and eventually rebellion.” Eventually Pico acquired the Luisenos’ land of Temecula.

Thus, the Luisenos despised Pico. Salomon writes, “Although many historians say he was the worst exploiter of the missions, he seems to have done no worse or better than the other administrators…The proponents of secularization believed that liberty, private ownership of land, and the ‘gift’ of entering Mexican society would transform the Indian population. Yet, in many instances, the Indians simply wanted to be left to themselves.”

In 1837, Pico joined a rebellion against the new governor of California, Juan Bautista Alvarado.

War With the United States

Under the administration of governor Alvarado, Pico lost Mission San Juis Rey and Temecula, but gained Rancho Santa Margarita.  Thus, his status and wealth remained relatively intact.  At this time, Pico lived in Los Angeles, as a member of a kind of rancher-political elite.  Los Angeles at this time was the most populous town in California.   In 1845, after another uprising against the governor, Pico was appointed interim governor and he named Los Angeles the capital of California.

Meanwhile, illegal immigrants (Yankees) from the United States began arriving in California. After the annexation of Texas, and the continuous tide of Anglo settlers, war with the US seemed imminent. The United States’ designs on California were an embodiment of Manifest Destiny and the expansionist policies of president James K. Polk.  In 1846, U.S. military leader/explorer John C. Fremont arrived in Caifornia with soldiers and unstated intentions.

Not only was California facing a potential external threat (from the US), but it was having strong internal problems too. In 1846, Pico was officially made governor, however, he immediately came into conflict with the northern military leader Manuel Castro, who threatened civil war. Meanwhile, in defiance against the Mexican government of California, Fremont raised an American flag at his “fort” and lead a rag-tag independence movement called the “Bear Flag Revolt” (or, California Republic). At first, Pico thought it was a hoax. But when Fremont refused to leave, Pico protested the actions of the American squatters.

In the face of imminent attack, Pico and Castro reconciled their differences for the defense of California. In 1846, the U.S. occupation of California began, as part of the larger Mexican-American War. Military leader Robert F. Stockton landed in California with troops intent on conquest. Despite being outnumbered, Pico refused surrender. Instead, he left California to seek assistance from Mexican president Santa Anna.

During the war (seeing opportunity), some Californios sided with the US, including Abel Stearns. Meanwhile, American troops besieged Los Angeles. Andres Pico (Pio’s brother), a valiant leader of the Californio defense against the United States, defeated general Stephen W. Kearney at San Pasqual, just outside of San Diego.  Ultimately, however, the Californio forces were outmatched by the American forces. President Santa Anna did not send reinforcements, and in 1847, Andres Pico signed the Treaty of Cahuenga, which ended fighting in California.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo was signed, which ceded half of Mexico to the United States, including California.

After the War

After the Mexican-American War, under the U.S. military occupation, Californios experienced new kinds of racial discrimination. Salomon writes: “To the racially conscious Yankees, Pico’s African features made his wealth and influence problematic. When California became a state, less than two years after his return, blacks weren’t allowed to own land or attend public schools…The first state legislature passed a statute prohibiting blacks, Indians, and individuals having at least one-eighth African ancestry from testifying against white citizens.” Indeed, the 1850s were “a period of unrelenting violence and prejudice against Mexicans.”

Describing racial violence in Los Angeles in the 1850s (the years immediately following the American conquest), Salomon writes: “Los Angeles became the most violent city in California in the 1850s, and for a time it claimed the highest murder rate in the United States.  Lynch mobs were not uncommon, and many Mexicans fell victim to racial intolerance.”

In 1850, California became a state, and in 1854, the Know Nothing Party gained political power—known for their anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant views. Pico sided with the newly-formed Republican party (Lincoln’s party). Democrats at this time were pro-slavery. He even supported the presidential candidacy of John C. Fremont! Pico used his influence as an arbiter between Californio and Anglo tensions. He supported Lincoln’s candidacy for US president.

Pio Pico’s Decline

The main problem facing Californios after the war was land. Though they enjoyed some legal protection under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they faced legal challenges to their land grants, Yankee squatters, and real estate speculators keen on acquiring former rancho lands. The Land Act of 1851 proved disastrous for Californios, divesting them of thousands of acres. At first, Pico proved economically resilient after U.S. annexation. He and his brother held over 290,000 acres.

The Gold Rush was actually an economic boon for Pico. The 49ers needed food, and became a steady a consumer market for his cattle. Also, Andres co-founded California’s first oil company, Star Oil, which eventually became Standard Oil (by this time the Picos had sold their stocks). Meanwhile, Pio invested in the Los Angeles Plaza (today, Olvera Street). He built the luxury hotel Pico House, which still stands.

However, in the 1850s, the cattle industry in California began to decline, and the last decades of Pico’s life would be years of loss and decline. He lost Rancho Santa Margarita to his brother-in-law John Forster over a debt. His brother Andres’ developed a major gambling addiction, which cost Pico a lot of money and land. In 1876, Andres was beaten to death in Los Angeles, probably over a gambling debt.

The final loss would come with the case of Pico vs. Cohn, in which the aging don lost the last of his once vast empire. Pico won the case, but lost in retrial. And he lost everything: the Pico House, a bank building in LA, and his beloved Ranchito in Whittier.  He lived the rest of his days poor, with friends and family. Meanwhile, the California demographic was changing—Anglos began to outnumber Mexicans and Californios, and their contributions to California history, society, and culture would often be excluded from official histories.

Pio Pico died in 1894.

Pio Pico’s Legacy

In 1893, one year before his death, Pio Pico was invited to attend the massive World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago (basically, the World’s Fair), as a representative of the “Old West.”  He published his response in the Los Angeles Times: “No, I will not go, for two good reasons. The first is because I am poor, and the second is because I do not intend to go to the big show to be one of the animals on exhibit. If those gringos imagine for a moment that they can take me back there and show me in a side tent at two bits a head they are very much mistaken.”

Reflecting on Pio Pico’s legacy, Salomon writes: “Today, as the demographics of Mexican Americans in California soar to new heights, Pio Pico is a historic figure many look up to as a shining and inspirational example of the Mexican past. Pio Pico’s life story reminds us of a unique multicultural legacy in California. Pico’s two hundredth birthday celebration in Los Angeles revealed that he has taken on a new role in California’s history. Today, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration not only of the Mexican past, but also of a Californio past, rich in its Mexican, American Indian, African American, and European roots.”

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Any history of a human settlement must begin with “first families.” In the history of Fullerton, this “first family” is often considered to be the Ameriges, the brothers George and Edward, two commodities merchants from Boston who “founded” Fullerton in the year 1887.  But this was not really the first family here. The landscape they found was not empty or devoid of people or history.  In fact, the Amerige brothers were relative latecomers to this region.  Before they arrived, there was another lengthy history.

The true “first families” in this region were Native Americans, specifically the Kizh tribe, who had many settlements in the landscapes that would become Los Angeles and Orange Counties. In 1769, the first Europeans passed through what would become Orange County–it was the expedition of Gaspar de Portola, the Spanish soldier sent to make the first explorations and settlements of California, which was then a part of New Spain. Twelve years later, in 1781, another group of settlers arrived to found the town of Los Angeles. That’s right, Los Angeles was founded in 1781!

Among the settlers on this expedition was a farmer from the Sinaloa region of Mexico named Josef Antonio Ontiveros. Josef’s grandson, Juan Pacifico Ontiveros, would in time become a very important landowner and rancher in the area that would become Orange County. His Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana included the land that would become Fullerton. And so, in the interest in telling the complete history of this region, I’ve decided to tell some of the story of this first family–the Ontiveros family. The source of this information is a well-researched book called The Ranchos of Don Pacifico Ontiveros by a woman named Virginia Carpenter. Here’s the story of the Ontiveros family…

The Founding of Los Angeles

Los Angeles was founded in the year 1781 by a group of settlers from Mexico.  At this time, Spanish settlement in California was pretty sparse, and so the government financed pioneer parties to populate the region, sort of like how the United States would later create Homestead Acts to encourage settlement of its western regions.  An important early settlement party of this type was led by Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, Lieutenant Governor of Baja (lower) California.  He was commissioned by the government to recruit soldiers and settlers to found a pueblo (town) near Mission San Gabriel.

One of the settlers recruited was a farmer from the Sinaloa region named Josef Antonio Ontiveros, who was 36 years old at the time. Ontiveros was born in Pueblo San Pedro de Chametla (in Sinaloa) in the year 1744.  At age 22, he married Ana Maria Carrasco y Birviescas. Of their children, we know they had a boy named Juan Patricio and a girl named Juana de Dios. His wife and children would accompany him on the difficult expedition into California.

Thankfully, the Spanish were pretty good record-keepers, and in the files from this expedition we find a cool description of Josef Ontiveros: “His stature 5 feet 4 inches and 9 lines, his age 36 years, his religion Roman Catholic Apostolic. His characteristics were chestnut colored hair, blue eyes, brown skin, reddish thick eyebrows, curved or hooked nose, a gash in the eyebrow of the right eye, another one above the chin, or beard and another one on the left side of the forehead, a thin beard.”

The expedition to Los Angeles consisted of two parties: one traveling overland, and the other by boat. The Ontiveros family traveled by boat. It took them six months. Along the way, two soldiers deserted and three people died of smallpox. Meanwhile, most of the overland party was massascred by Yuma Indians, including the expedition leader Rivera.

Amazingly, all of the Ontiveros family made it safely to their destination.  On September 4, 1781, with the blessing of Governor Felipe de Neve, the settlers officially founded the town of Los Angeles. The full, original name of the town was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles (The Town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels). For a time, Los Angeles was the only town between San Diego and Santa Barbara. Interestingly, however, Josef Ontiveros would not stay there long.  The following year, 1782, he was transferred to the Presidio (military fort) of Santa Barbara.

Trouble in the Army

My source for all this material, Virginia Carpenter, does not say why Josef Ontiveros was transferred to Santa Barbara shortly after he arrived in Los Angeles, for which he was recruited as a settler/soldier.  Perhaps he was just transferred there because he was needed.  It also appears that his wife and children may have stayed behind, in Los Angeles and San Gabriel, while the father was away on military duty.

While at Santa Barbara, Ontiveros was arrested as part of a desertion plot, and sent further north, to Monterey, as punishment. Why would Ontiveros desert? Carpenter provides a possible explanation: “In the 1780s desertion became a problem for the army. Because conditions were so miserable (food, clothing, and other rations were sparse), many soldiers made the attempt to return to their homes in Mexico (there was no place else to go), in spite of the fact that it was almost impossible for a man to go alone. Even if he was lucky enough to steal a mule, there were the hundreds of miles of desert to cross and Indians to dodge or fight. If a man did reach Mexico, he had to live in hiding, for to be found was to be returned to the army–and California.” I can’t help but wonder if Josef wanted to return to Sinaloa or to Los Angeles, where his family was.

In either 1787 or 1788, Josef was discharged from military duty and rejoined his family in Los Angeles, where he was given a plot of land and became a shoemaker. Ten years later, in 1798, he died at age 54.

Rise of the Ranchos

In 1784, the governor of California, Pedro Fages, received petitions from three soldiers for land grants for the purpose of raising cattle. These were the first of the famous Spanish Land Grants, the largest of which went to Manuel Nieto, who received the land that would eventually contain the Ontiveros Rancho.

When his father Josef was transferred to Santa Barbara in 1782, nine-year-old Juan Patricio Ontiveros was left with the padres at the San Gabriel Mission. He was confirmed that same year. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the army, and reached the rank of corporal. In 1794, he married Antonia Rodriguez y Noriega, who was 14. This was considered a proper age to marry at the time. Antonia’s parents were both Indians from Sinaloa. The couple had eight children for whom we have records. The eldest son was Juan Pacifico, who will become the most important person in this narrative.

In 1814, when he was 42, Patricio was Mayordomo of the San Juan Capistrano Mission. Then, in 1825, he moved to Rancho Santa Gertruedes, which was owned by the Nieto family. There, he held the position of Encargador de Justicia, which was sort of like the Justice of the Peace.  Shortly before he died, in the mid-1830s, Patricio petitioned governor Figueroa numerous times for a land grant, but was ultimately unsuccessful. That task would fall to his son, Juan Pacifico Ontiveros.

Juan Pacifico Ontiveros Becomes a Ranchero

Juan Pacifico Ontiveros, son of Juan Patricio Ontiveros, was born in Los Angeles on September 24th, 1795. In 1814, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, he enlisted in the army, and served for 20 years. In 1825, he married Maria Martina Osuna of Santa Barbara. He was 30 and she was 19. The couple had an astonishing thirteen children in their fertile marriage.

In 1835, after his father’s death, Juan Pacifico took up the matter of applying for a land grant. After two years of legal negotiations between Ontiveros, the Nietos family, and the Mexican government, Juan Pacifico was granted the 36,000-acre Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, whose boundaries contained the present-day cities of Anaheim, Fullerton, Brea, and Placentia.

I’d like to include Carpenter’s description of the landscape in those days of the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, as this landscape is almost completely lost in my day:

“The ocean, 20 miles away, could be seen and occasionally heard.  Fairly level, there were hills on the northern part and in the east where it included part of Brea Canyon. The soil varied from sandy, the diseno (map) shows a large sand wash through the center, to red clay near the Brea end. It was covered with chapparal (low bushes), mustard and large patches of cactus. The wildlife included snakes, gophers, ground squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, wild cats and mountain lions, quail, ducks and geese during their migrations. Bears and deer stayed in the canyons. There were many, many insects from fleas to ants. Trees were so few that they were used as landmarks, there were sycamores and poplar where there was water, and live oaks in the canyons.”

Now I would like to quote some fragments of Carpenter’s description of life on the rancho, as this is also a lost way of life in my day: “Families arose about three a.m. prayed and ate breakfast…The boys and young men slept out of doors…As the Indians did all the work, the rancheros had only the management to do…Men talked and gambled and rode over their land–Boys practiced riding and roping skills and played games, while women had much work to do…Older women dressed in black, as there were so many deaths to mourn in the large families…The important things were births and deaths, weddings, everyday and seasonal events and always the church…There were no schools, so few people could read or write…There was hunting, particularly bear hunts; but no fishing, all their sports being on horseback…The father, as head of the family, ruled it. He often arranged his children’s marriages and what they would do…all houses were made of adobe (sun dried bricks)…roofs (were made) of tule reeds and tar until so many were set afire in Indian attacks that the missions began making clay roof tiles, shaping them in wooden molds…everyone, even women, carried their own knives…Juan Pacifico lived quietly on his rancho taking little part in public events.”

Damn Yankees!

Alas, this way of life was not to last long, for already American businessmen had set their sights on southern California markets and real estate. As early as the 1820s, Yankees were immigrating to California. Carpenter writes: “They came for business, a new market.  The New England clipper ships built to bring tea and spices from the Orient stopped in California and found that the vast herds of cattle were a source of tallow for candles and for the leather needed by the eastern shoe factories. About the same time a demand for beaver hats in the East brought the trappers, or mountain men, as they were called, overland into the west…Many of the Anglos who came in the late 1820s and 30s stayed and became Mexican citizens so that they could own land; they married Spanish girls and thereby inherited shares in ranchos as well. They opened stores and loaned money on cattle and land at ruinous rates, foreclosing when payments could not be met. The easy-living rancheros knew nothing about Anglo business methods, nor compound interest.”

One of these immigrants was an Italian named Giovani Batiste Leandri (or, as he was called in Mexican California, Juan Bautista Leandry). He moved to Los Angeles in 1827 and opened a store. He prospered as a businessman, became a citizen in 1839, married a Mexican woman named Francesca Uribe, and bought Rancho Los Coyotes from the Nietos. Next, Leandry brought suit against Juan Pacifico Ontiveros over the boundary between their ranchos, and managed to get a valuable water spring. Leandry died in 1843, but more losses were on the horizon for the Ontiveros family.

Between 1846-1848, there was the Mexican American War, which Ulysses S. Grant called “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.” This war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico was forced to cede half of her country to the United States. This included California, which was admitted to the Union as a free (as opposed to slave) state in 1850.

Conquest by Bureaucracy

In 1849, in the intermediary period between the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Statehood of California, Bernardo Yorba (owner of the neighboring Rancho Canon de Santa Ana) bought an area of the Ontiveros rancho called Canada de la Brea (which included modern day Brea Canyon). Yorba paid $400 for the land, which amounted to about 30 cents per acre. This sale was actually part of a more complex land deal, in which Yorba then traded Canada de la Brea to an Englishman named Isaac Williams, who’d married into a Mexican rancho family, and been given Rancho Santa Ana del Chino. If things start to get confusing at this point, I’m sorry. After the American conquest of California, things got notoriously confusing when it came to land ownership.

Carpenter explains the new and unfortunate situation for rancheros like Ontiveros in the early years after California became a part of the United States, an era which I will call Conquest by Bureaucracy: “The greatest difficulty which the rancheros experienced was to be in the matter of their land titles. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed Mexican citizens possession of their property; but the United States did not consider a declaration of ownership sufficient; there must be official records. A ‘Board of United States Land Commissioners [was] appointed to settle private land claims in California’ and every ranchero was ordered to present proof of his ownership and the location and size of his rancho. This was disastrous for many of them and contributed to the break-up of the rancho system, because of the casual way the grants had been handled and their indefinite boundaries. Few of the rancheros could read or write, so a man’s word had served in business, and as many had lost their papers, most of the claims had to go through the courts, a time-consuming and expensive process…The Land Commission of three men handled over 800 cases between 1852 and 1856.”

Carpenter does a valiant and detailed job of explaining and summarizing the lengthy and frustrating legal battles that Juan Pacifico Ontiveros faced in an effort to hold onto his rancho. I will spare you the details and explain it as simply as possible. In 1854, the United States Land Commission rejected Ontiveros’ claim to the rancho he’d owned for 20 years. He appealed the decision and, in 1856, the Court of Appeals reversed the Land Commission’s decision. But the attorney for the Land Commission didn’t give up. He took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme court, who in 1857 upheld Ontiveros’ claim.  

The End of the Rancho, and the Founding of Anaheim, Placentia, and Fullerton

In 1856, Juan Pacifico Ontiveros purchased another rancho called Tepusquet near Santa Barbara. Within a few years, he would sell off all of his Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana and move to his new rancho. This period is really interesting because, in this era, we see the birth of the present-day towns of Anaheim, Placentia, and Fullerton.

First, Anaheim.  In 1857, Ontiveros sold 1,165 acres of his rancho to a George Hanson, who was employed by a group of Germans in San Francisco who were interesting in forming a colony to raise grapes. These Germans formed the town of Anaheim.  

Second, Placentia.  In 1863, Pacifico and his wife deeded 3,900 acres of their rancho to their two sons Patricio and Juanito. Family tradition says that these brothers lost the land in a gambling debt to their brother-in-law, Augustus Langenberger. This guy then sold then land to a man named Daniel Kraemer, who was one of the founding members of Placentia.

Third, Fullerton.  In 1863, Juan Pacifico sold the lion’s share of his rancho to Abel Stearns, who (at the time) was the largest land owner and cattle baron in Southern California. He paid $6,000 for 30,672 acres. In 1868, beset by financial problems, Stearns and his friend Alfred Robinson, along with businessmen in San Francisco, formed a syndicate called the Stearns Rancho Company. It was from the Stearns Rancho Company that George and Edward Amerige, two merchants from Boston, in conjunction with the Santa Fe Railroad, purchased the land upon which they founded the town of Fullerton in 1887.

Conclusion

For the conclusion of this post, I’d like to quote Virginia Carpenter: “The orange groves and mainly rural life remained until the 1960s when the boom made Orange County the fastest growing county in America reached the area. The five towns grew until their borders touched and the trees were pulled out to make way for houses, apartments, condominiums, business and industry. Stearns Ranchos Company and the Anaheim Union Water Company continued in business until the 1970s.

The price of land has increased ever more than the population which has grown from one family to over 400,000. Juan Pacifico Ontiveros paid nothing for his land; the first purchasers $2 per acre; Langenberger in 1864 only .95 cents per acre; Daniel Kraemer the next year $1.18; McFadden four years later, $10.  By 1876 the price had risen to $50; orange groves were hundreds, then thousands of dollars an acre and now the price of an acre is in the hundreds of thousands and lots grow smaller.”

Juan Pacifico Ontiveros died in 1877 on his Rancho Tepusquet.  According to the existing records, Pacifico had 88 grandchildren and 103 years elapsed between the birth of the first child and the death of the last one. Thus they lived through California history from its Mexican days to modern times.