HISTORY OF PLACER COUNTY

Those who studied geography forty or fifty years since, recollect how little was known of the "Great West," "Lewis and Clarke's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains and Oregon," contained about all that was known of the Pacific Coast; and hundreds of persons now living, remember that that portion of the map now marked California and Arizona, was occupied with a table of distances from Washington to our larger cities. The Rocky Mountains were represented as a single range, running from the Isthmus of Darien to the North Pole. More facts concerning the Pacific slope were learned in the first fifty years after the discovery of the New World, than in the following two hundred. The deserts of Arizona and the "Great Canon," shut off exploration and settlement from this direction, though rumors of a country rich in gold, had circulation among the hordes that overrun Mexico soon after its conquest by Cortez and his followers. On such rumors, was founded the story of "Sergas" by Esplandin, the son of Amadis of Gaul, which contained "the story of a country called California, very near to the terrestrial paradise, which was peopled by black women without any men among them, because they were accustomed to live after the manner of the Amazons. They were of strong and hardened bodies, of ardent courage, and great force. The island was the strongest in the world, from its steep and rocky cliffs. Their arms were all of gold, and so were the caparisons of the wild horses they rode."

At that time, the world was filled with rumors of wonderful discoveries, by land and by sea. Some, like De Soto, set off in quest of the "spring of eternal youth," which it was confidently asserted was just on the other side of a certain range of mountains. It was easier to believe in a land of gold, than in a spring of eternal youth. This exciting book, written to satisfy the literary market of that age; was universally read in Spain; and, it is highly probable, was partly the cause for the expedition which afterwards, under the charge of Hernando Grijalva, actually discovered "California very near to the Terrestrial Paradise;" so that it is probable that a dreamy old romancer in Seville, Spain, suggested the name of the country that was to upheave new continents in the commercial world.

Cortez had achieved the conquest of Mexico with but a handful of men, in 1519; and nine years after returned to Spain, laden with the spoils of an empire larger and richer, and, perhaps, more civilized than Spain herself; also with accounts of countries still richer and larger, to the north-west of Mexico. He was received with distinguished honors by Charles V., and rewarded by many royal concessions, among which were the right to one-twelfth of all the precious metals he could find, and a perpetual vice-royalty for himself and heirs, over all the countries he should discover. It must be remembered that the Pope, in consideration of the dissemination of the "True Faith," had granted to the Emperor of Spain all lands that his subjects might discover; so the title seemed to be fee simple in Cortez, who, from being a piratical, roving vagabond, bounded into royal honors.

Returning to Mexico, he immediately set about the expedition; but, delayed by the difficulty of building and fitting out ships on the western coast, he did not get off until 1535. Having landed on the lower peninsula of California, he found the country so barren and uninviting, that he abandoned the expedition, and returned to Mexico in 1537. On his return, he heard of the De Soto expedition, which, like all the other expeditions, had nearly, but not quite, reached the land where arms, as well as trappings for horses, were made of pure gold. This led to the fitting out of another expedition in 1542 under Jose R. Cabrillo, who sailed northward as far as Cape Mendocino, which he named Cape Mendoza, in honor of his friend, the Viceroy of Mexico. Keeping within sight of the coast the greater part of the way, he discovered the Farallone Islands, also some of the more southern groups; but, like his predecessor, failed to see the future Golden Gate. In an English work printed in 1839, Mr. James Alexander Forbes states that two out of three vessels, composing this expedition, with some twenty men, were lost in the Gulf of California, in consequence of a mutiny and a difficulty with the natives, near La Paz.

These expeditions were so unsatisfactory, that Cortez resolved upon exploring the coast himself. Three vessels were fitted out at Tehuantepec, he marching overland with a large body of soldiers, slaves, settlers, and priests. Cortez explored the Gulf of California, proved that California was not an island, but part of the main land. For some time the Gulf of California was known as the Sea of Cortez. It was also called the Red Sea (El Mar Rojo), from having a reddish color from the wash of the Colorado River, which empties into the gulf at the head. Cortez returned to Acapulco, but continued to employ others in the explorations, which were confined mostly to lands in the vicinity of the gulf. Several attempts were made to settle the land, but, as it was very barren and poor, the colonies made little progress. The natives were destitute of means and character, both sexes going nearly or quite naked.

Sir Francis Drake reached the Pacific Ocean in 1578, through the Straits of Magellan, thirty-six years after Cabrillo named the Cape of Mendocino, and, not having heard of the former expeditions, took possession of the whole country in the name of Queen Elizabeth. It has been claimed for him that he entered the Bay of San Francisco; but the latitude in which he located it (37 deg., 59'5"), proves it to have been some miles north, at a place now called Drake's Bay, though most of the old geographics give the present sea port as "The Bay of Sir Francis Drake." It is strange that, having much intercourse with the natives, he should have failed to discover the great harbor which was in sight from some of the surrounding hills. The real discovery of the Bay of San Francisco, was made by Portala, in an overland expedition. What a vision, when he stood on the top of some of the low ranges of mountains surrounding, and saw the rich valleys reposing in a perpetual Indian Summer, stretching to the northward sixty miles. Little did the Spaniard, or those who came after him, suppose that the rivers flowing into the bay ran over golden sands, or that the hills near the outlet would be covered by a city larger than any of the cities of magnificent Spain.

The ill success attending the expeditions up the coast, induced explorations by land, especially as marvelous reports of rich walled cities in the far north, occasionally reached the capital of Mexico. In less than fifty years from the discovery of America, soldiers and priests had explored the Colorado River for a considerable distance above its mouth. The stories of a gigantic people, walled towns, and impassable canons a mile or more in depth, were consigned to the same fate as the stories of mermaids and other sea monsters. Cervantes in Spain, and Dean Swift in England, had poured unsparing ridicule on the fabulous stories and achievements of the age succeeding the discovery of America. Since the exploring expeditions sent out by the United States, the accounts of the great Colorado River have been overhauled and read with avidity, and what was then deemed a pleasant after-dinner fiction of some bibulous priest, has proved to be substantially correct, though the Mojaves, who, doubtless, are the persons described as giants, do not quite come up to their ancestors of three hundred and fifty years ago.

As early as 1540 the Viceroy of New Spain, interested in the stories of a San Franciscan monk who had seen some of the territory, sent out an expedition under the command of Vasquez de Coronado. When they struck the river, a party of twenty- five was detached and sent to the westward. They explored the river to the mouth, and from this point was sent the expedition which eventually succeeded in discovering the bay. Another of Coronado's captains, named Cardinas, reached the pueblos of the Moquis, and from these towns made a visit, under Indian guides, to a portion of the river some hundreds of miles above the exploration of previous parties. The history states that after a march over a desert of twenty-days, they came to a river, the banks of which were so high that they seemed to be three or four leagues in the air. The most active of the party attempted to descend, but came back in the evening, saying they had met with difficulties which prevented them from reaching the bottom; that they had accomplished one-third of the descent, and from that point the river looked very large. They averred that some rocks, which appeared from above to be the height of a man; were higher than the tower of the cathedral of Seville. This is the earliest notice in any work of the celebrated canon of Colorado, the most astonishing of all mountain gorges, and, which may, without doubt, be reckoned the greatest wonder of the world.

About one hundred years ago, Father Escalante visited the region north of New Mexico, keeping along the head-waters of the Colorado to Salt Lake, thence south-west to the Colorado River at a point nearly opposite that reached by one of Coronado's captains over two hundred years before. Their meager account of the great canon is about all that is on record previous to the acquisition of Arizona by the United States, though trappers and hunters sometimes related incredible stories of a country where great rivers ran in canons so deep that daylight never reached the bottom. As this river forms a part of the boundary of California, and was, to a great extent, from its unapproachable character, a barrier to the early settlement of this coast, thus perhaps preserving it for its present occupants, and it has recently become a center of interest on account of the mines in its vicinity, a somewhat extended account of this remarkable, and, even now, little known wonder may be justifiable, and will be incorporated into the work in a separate chapter.