San Diego

County History

An Illustrated History of Southern California - The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago - 1890

GENERAL HISTORY.

THE TERRITORY.

SOUTHERNMOST of the California counties is that of San Diego, lying between the 34th degree of north latitude and the line of the Mexican border. Eastward lies the Territory of Arizona, and on the west it is bounded by the beneficent Pacific Ocean and a small portion of Los Angeles County. Diagonally from northwest to southeast, it is traversed by the mountain ranges of San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and Chocolate. That section which is northwest of the San Jacinto range is known as the Colorado desert, being hot, arid, sterile. The rest of the country is of diversified topography; there are low mountain ranges, softly rolling land, and beautiful smiling valleys, where fruits and flowers reply like a benediction upon the head of labor, and whose climate is ethereal balm.

San Diego County is larger than either of the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, or Maryland; and it is nearly as extensive as the combined territory of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.  Draining this wide territory of more than 9,580,000 acres, run to the western ocean, as determined by the general southwesterly slope toward the Pacific, the rivers Tia Juana, Sweetwater, San Diego, San Bernardino, San Luis Rey and Santa Margarita.  Comprised within these limits are great diversities of climate; from the heights where winter's cold is piercing, to the equable, ever-springlike air of the bay and oceanside regions, and the sheltered warmth of the valleys. The pine from its mountain perch looks greeting to the palm of the seaboard. The hardy apple of the cooler uplands finds its way to where it lies against the tropical cheek of its not distant neighbor, the orange of the vales.

The mountains have long stood jealous guard over a wealth of mineral treasure, that they now begin to yield up to him who comes with the "Open, Sesame!" of Science. From the bowels of the earth have long poured thermal waters, that heal or soothe man's maladies. The sea gives stores, and the earth, and the sun, and the breezes nurture. And men, if their hearts be open, realize that here indeed are signs that God made man in his own image, and that he cares for and watches over him, and holds him "as in the hollow of his hand." To recite, briefly, unworthily, and incompletely, how man came into his own and won this rich heritage, is the province of the present writer.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

Of all the territory comprised in the limits of the present great State of California, the part now known as San Diego County is that first seen by the early Spanish explorers. First among these came Francisco de Ulloa, who in 1539 sailed up the California gulf to the mouth of the Colorado river.

In 1538 General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was appointed Governor of Nueva Galicia. He was of a progressive bent, and for some time he left his province in charge of a lieutenant, or acting-governor, while he devoted himself to exploration. Tired by the apocryphal tales of Fray Marcos de Niza, he raised a small army that in 1540 set out northward for the conquest of Cibola and its seven marvelous cities. His expedition was successful insomuch as that he reached the great cities of the Indians, however disappointing may have been the conditions he found there. The history of the enterprise is of interest in the present volume only because in connection with it was sent out, in May, 1540, Hernando de Alarcon, with two vessels, to co-operate with the army. Alarcon ascended the Colorado, apparently about to the mouth of the Gila, and found, it is claimed, several harbors not discovered by Ulloa. He found that the natives were ignorant of most of the names quoted by Niza as characteristic of that region, this prompting the suspicion that the good friar had drawn largely on his imagination for his account. The people told Alarcon also many marvelous tales of things to be seen inland. The river was by these explorers christened the Buen Guia (Good Guide).

Two years later, June, 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, and a navigator of some repute, sailed from Natividad with two vessels of Alvarado's former fleet, and acting under vice-regal instructions took his frail craft northward along the Pacific coast. On September 28, 1542, he discovered " a landlocked and very good harbor," which he named San Miguel, and which has since come to be called San Diego. Be recorded the latitude as 34° 20' north, an error of 1° 37' 2", due, no doubt, to the imperfection of his instruments. Cabrillo paid the first tribute to the excellence of San Diego's harbor, by recording that on the day after his arrival he sent a boat " farther into the port, which was large," and while it was anchored, " a very great gale blew from the southwest; but, the port being good, they felt nothing." Cabrillo remained at the good port six days. It seems that the Indians hereabouts, though shy, were savage and bloodthirsty, as they attacked and slightly wounded several of the Spaniards out fishing. After a time, they ventured to approach the strangers, and by signs told of men in the interior who wore beards, rode horses, and carried fire-arms. This was probably in reference to the party by sea of Ulloa, or that of Alarcon, or the land expedition of Coronado. Cabrillo spent a month in explorations of the coast and islands, up to Point Concepcion, making observations as to the latitude of various points, and taking notes of the characteristics of the country and its inhabitants. In November, he returned to the Santa Barbara channel islands, and here he died, from the effects of a broken arm, aggravated by exposure incurred on the voyage.

Up to the year 1597 there are accounts of voyages to Upper California, claimed to have been made by Lorenzo Maldonado and Juan de Fuca; but these narratives bear internal evidence of being, at least in detail, pure fabrications.

In 1594, Viceroy Velasco contracted with Sebastian Vizcaino to re-explore and occupy for the Spanish crown the Islas Californias (Californian Isles); and in 1597, Vizcaino accordingly sailed from Acapulco. He failed in his attempt to colonize the peninsula. Nevertheless, he was assigned as commander of another expedition which sailed from Acapulco May 5, 1602. Such explorations as they made along the peninsula coast brought them to San Miguel, which he renamed San Diego, on November 10; they left again on November 20, several men having died and several being disabled from the ravages of scurvy. They proceeded on northward and beyond Cape Mendocino, the two vessels locating a Cape Blanco, in latitude 42° one, and 43° the other. They reached Acapulco again on March 21 of the following year, having lost on the voyage forty-eight men by death.

THE NAME SAN DIEGO.

It is perhaps proper and reasonable to explain, in this connection, the origin of the name San Diego. Many have supposed that from the name of the first mission came that of the bay, the port, the city, the county. This belief is erroneous; for, whereas the mission was not founded or named until 1769, the bay was thus called, as has been said already, 167 years earlier, namely, in 1602, for the following reason: Vizcaino, when he arrived, proceeding to survey the bay, either began or finished that enterprise on November 12, the day assigned in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church to the saint called in Spanish San Diego de Alcala, in honor of whom the bay was re-named accordingly. The English meaning of this is simply " St. James." The Spanish for James is either Iago, Jag, or Diego, the prefix Santo or San signifying Saint or Holy. The contraction Santiago is now given, indifferently with Diego, as a baptismal name, although the two are by no means interchangeable. A boy or man called Santiago is named for one particular St. James, and he who responds to Diego is called for another light of the old church—namely, San Diego de Alcala, the patron saint of the city and section in question.

In 1605, Governor Juan de Onate brought a party of soldiers down the Colorado, from the Gravel cañon, as far as the head of the gulf, having come from Chihuahua up the Rio Grande, into the New Mexico, and across the Northern Arizona, of the present day. Like his predecessors, he saw only the desert side of San Diego, and the natives along the river, whose accounts seemed to support the theory that the gulf was connected by a strait with the Pacific.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MISSIONS.

In 1700 there reached San Diego territory one of most notable characters in the religious history of America: this was Eusebius Kuhn, whose German family name is usually mis-written by the Spanish authorities as Kino, Quino, Caino, etc., Kino being the most common form. His career reads like some wonderful romance. He had come northward in indirect consequence of his devoted labors in behalf of the Indians of the Pimeria, and he was asked by the Colorado Yumas to visit their country. Accordingly he crossed the Gila, and followed its north bank down to the junction, to the chief rancheria of the Yumas, which he called San Dionisio, and where he preached to "crowds of gentiles, many of whom, of especially large stature, came from across the Colorado by swimming." Kino spoke of the lands thereabouts as Alta (that is Upper) California, and that was probably the first application of that distinctive term, as in contrast with La Baja (Lower) California. It has already been seen (section on Lower California) how prominent a part Father Kino bore in the establishment of the missions in the peninsula, where alone centered the Christianizing of "the Californias," up to 1767–'68, the date of expulsion of the Jesuits from La Baja and the other Spanish possessions.

On November 30, 1767, Don Gaspar de Portola, the Governor of La Baja California under the new regime, landed near San Jose del Cabo, and immediately set about enforcing the decree of expulsion of the Jesuits, and taking invoice, so to speak, of the mission and garrison property. These possessions he found to comprise some $7,000 in cash, and goods to the value of something like $60,000 besides, probably the mission cattle, vestments, plate, etc.

About the middle of the year 1768, Don Jose de Galvez, the Visitador-general, arrived in La Baja, and at once set about the institution of many and radical reforms of the existing system of administration. He also took action in the matter of extending the dominion of the Spanish crown to the northward, an undertaking

which he deemed of the utmost importance. The result of careful investigation was to decide that the most practicable plan was the sending of two expeditions by land, and two by water, to start separately, join forces at San Miguel (San Diego), and thence proceed to Monterey. Six months or more were given to careful preparations, and the gathering of recruits and collecting of supplies. Besides temporal conquest, and the prevention of Russian encroachments from the north, the enterprise was to comprehend a spiritual aspect, the conversion of the heathen; and Father Junipero Serra, the president of the mission forces, was invited to confer upon the them with Galvez. It hardly needs to say that the padres, disappointed and displeased with the situation on the peninsular, and full of hope in a project whose execution they had long desired but hardly dared to hope for, the padres entered with enthusiasm into the plans of Galvez.

On January 9, 1769, sailed the San Carlos under Vicente Vila, carrying sixty-two persons, among them Lieutenant Fages, later Governor of California. She was followed on February 15 by the San Antonio, Juan Perez commander, who carried, besides her crew, Padres Gomez and Bizcayno. On March 24, set out from San Fernando Velicatá the first land expedition, commanded by Rivera, and with it came Father Crespi. There was a command of twenty-five men from the presidio of Loreto, and forty two natives, in this party. Finally, on May 15, Governor Portolá set forth, accompanied by Father Serra, and escorted by ten or eleven soldiers, and another band of Californian Indians.

The executive ability of Father Serra had secured six friars for work in the northern field; one of these, Father Campa, was left in charge of San Fernando Velicatá, the only mission which the Franciscans founded on the peninsula. This was established mainly for a species of way-station, to facilitate communication with San Diego. It was ceremoniously founded only the day previous to the starting of Portolá and Serra, and it became in time quite prosperous.  From the old missions were taken supplies, with which to equip the new ones, of church paraphernalia, food, seeds, grain, livestock, tools, etc., to be repaid when the new establishments should attain to prosperity. A third paquebote, the San Jose newly built, was despatched later, but she soon put back, disabled, was sent after with supplies the next year, and never heard from after.

For upwards of a century and a half; since Vizcaino's day, in 1603, no white man had set foot on the coast of Alta California, when in April, 1769, the San Antonio anchored in the bay, after a prosperous voyage of twenty-four days from Cape San Lucas. She had gone as far north as one of the Santa Barbara channel islands, returning to the one objective point of San Diego. Nothing was seen of the rest of the expedition, but the captain's orders were to stay for twenty days, without taking the risk of landing, unless strengthened by the crew of the other vessel. The second ship not appearing the others became impatient and alarmed, and preparations were already making to sail at the expiration of the appointed limit, when on the eighteenth day the San Carlos appeared, with her complement of sixty-two souls. She had been less fortunate than her convoy, and had most of her people disabled from scurvy. She, too, had voyaged too far northward, and she had been out 110 days, when she anchored on April 29.

The sick were taken ashore, and for two weeks the nursing of the scourge-stricken and the burial of the dead gave the able more than enough to do, without dreaming of pushing Monterey-wards, or exploring their surroundings. Of some ninety sailors, soldiers, and artisans, far less than one-third the number survived. It would appear that, if any of the friars or officers were attacked, they recovered. To their aid arrived on May 14 Rivera y Moncado with his division, fifty-one days out from Velicatá, 121 leagues distant. Several of the Indians in the company had died en route, and many had deserted, but on the whole, the journey had been uneventful, save the suffering and privation, as it seems that the provisions of the party, through waste or otherwise, ran short.

This reinforcement facilitated preparation for permanent settlement. The location chosen was a spot called by the natives Cosoy, the site of the present old town, some four miles north of San Diego proper. Here were built rude huts and a corral for the live stock, and a fortified camp; then all able hands engaged in nursing the sick and unloading the cargo.

In the last days of June and the first of July, Portolá's division arrived, in somewhat straggling order. All but twelve of the neophytes had deserted. Their trip had been comparatively easy, the chief suffering being that of Padre Junipero, from his lame foot, whose pangs, however, were borne with the gentleness and fortitude characteristic of his nature,

The four contingents thus reunited, on the next day, Sunday, offered to their patron San Jose a thanksgiving mass, celebrated with all the solemnities within their compass. Of the 219 souls who had started on this expedition, only 126 remained, but seventy-eight of these being of Spanish blood.

Promptly enough, measures were taken for the carrying out of the original project.  On July 9, Perez sailed southward in the San Antonio, to obtain supplies for the colony, and crews to replace those who had died from the two vessels. Five days after his departure, Portolá set out for Monterey. He left at San Diego some forty souls. The concerns of the sick immediately after arrival, the occupations of settlement, and the preparations for departure of Portolá and Perez, had militated against the prompt formal establishment of a mission. But now Padre Serra at once proceeded to atone for this delay. On Sunday, July 16, he formally and officially raised and blessed the cross, dedicating this, the first of the long chain of California missions, to San Diego de Aka for whom, long before, the bay had been named by Vizcayno. More huts were now built at the little settlement, and one of them was dedicated as a church. Thus did a lonely little band of earnest men, few and weak, but devoted, on the strange, forbidding shores of that circling bay, then far remote from contact of civilization, lay the foundations of the future great common­wealth, great, rich, advanced, liberal, and progressive, of the State of the California of to-day.

Those pioneers found the conditions of their life and their surroundings far from easy or delightful. The natives were abusive and thievish; indeed, they presently became so bold that, on August 15, their attempt to rob the sick of their bedding led to a conflict with them in defense of the property. In this affray, Padre Vizcayno, a blacksmith, a soldier, and a California Indian were wounded, and a Spanish boy was killed. The Indians received therein a salutary lesson, and their behavior was somewhat unproved. It is chronicled, however, that nowhere else in the northwest did the natives so long prove refractory to conversion. For more than a year, not a single neophyte was entered. Meanwhile, death so ravaged the mission as to leave, by the beginning of the new year, only some twenty persons at San Diego. Porto returned on January 24, 1770, to find no advance in mission work save the construction of a palisade and a few huts of tale. He was discouraged and despondent from the result of his northward journey, and he counseled abandonment of the mission. The friars were greatly dismayed by this proposition, and Serra and Crespi determined to remain, at all hazards, trusting to Providence for maintenance. Captain Vila supported the padres. On February 11, Rivera was sent with Padre Vizcaino and a detachment to reach Velicatá and obtain supplies, if possible. He arrived there duly and at once set about collecting supplies, in conjunction with Father Palou, the acting president.

Meanwhile the situation at San Diego was gloomy. Abandonment of the ground seemed certain, and good Father Junipero's heart bled at the prospect. Full of devout faith, he instituted a novena, a nine-days course of prayer, for the intercession of the expedition's patron, St. Joseph, to close on the special day of the saint, March 19. And lo! at the very last moment, as his hope died out on that day, as the sun sank below the horizon, far away at sea, a sail appeared. The visible sign of support was given. The San Antonio had returned, conveying supplies in abundance, and bringing instructions from Galvez and the viceroy to persevere in the undertaking.

Portola's fainting faith revived, and his energy was restored. He at once made ready to return to the north. Vila with seventeen Europeans and ten Lower Californians, remained at San Diego, whither returned in July Rivera with his ample supplies, his livestock and his soldiers. Matters at San Diego now moved on for a time in quiet, but up to the end of 1770 there is no record of a single conversion.

The chronicle for 1771 is little important:— a few baptisms, the disablement by scurvy and retirement of Padres Gomez and Parron, two instances of desertion by two groups of soldiers, brought back to the mission and submission by intervention of the padres; and the departure, in August of the party who, a month later, founded San Gabriel Mission—such were the events. On August 6, 1771, Padres Cambou and Somera left San Diego with ten soldiers, four muleteers, and a supply-train, with four soldiers who were to be sent back. They followed the old route northward, with the aim to establish a new mission. The spot they chose, near the river now known as San Gabriel, but then called San Miguel, was fertile, well watered, and at that time well wooded. The natives, at first hostile, succumbed to the supernatural beauty of a painting of the Virgin. Offering their personal ornaments in tribute before her, they signified their desire for peace, and their willingness to pay her tribute of possessions and labor. Cheerfully aiding in the work, by bringing timbers, and helping in the construction of the stockade and the wooden houses roofed with tule, they also brought continually offerings of acorns and of pine nuts. Numerous as were their hordes, they all continued friendly, until exasperated by the abuses of the rough soldiery, when they attacked the aggressors, who killed one of their chieftains. The Indians fled, and it was by very slow degrees indeed that they were induced to resume friendly relations and to frequent again the mission.

At this time trouble was already fermenting at San Diego between Fajes, the military commander, and the friars. This disagreement grew into open rupture. The friars accused Fajes of unduly abusing his authority and hampering their labors, while he claimed that the fathers wished to extend their spiritual dominion over temporal matters. Be this as it may, in October, 1772, Serra sailed for Mexico to compass the removal of the obnoxious commandant, to secure certain desirable changes in the system of mission management, and to take the measure of the new viceroy, Bucareli.

In the spring of this year, a conference held in Mexico between the principals of the two orders, had resulted in the ceding to the Dominicans of all the peninsular missions, the Franciscans to control those of Alta, or Upper California. When the Franciscan friars were assigned, Palou, the retiring president, had himself included among those destined for the latter service, and in July he started for the north from Velicatá, with supplies for San Diego. At once he set about preparing a report which had been ordered sent to Mexico, on the condition of the Monterey (i.e. Alta California) Missions. This system comprised at the end of 1773, fifth year of Spanish occupation, five missions and a presidio; namely, San Diego de Alcalá, in latitude 32° 43' ; San Gabriel Archangel, 34° 10' ; San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, 35° 38' ; San Antonio de Padua, 36° 30' ; San Carlos Borromeo; and the presidio San Carlos de Monterey. At the close of the period stated, the baptisms chronicled here were eighty-three, a figure far below that of the younger northern missions. There were hereabouts, within a radius of ten leagues, eleven rancherias, or Indian towns, whose people lived on grass, seeds, fish and rabbits. At this mission only had there been unprovoked attacks made by the natives. Slight progress had been made here in agriculture. A small vegetable garden had been moderately productive. Grain was sown in the river bottom, and the crop all destroyed by a freshet. The next year, planting was done so far away from the water that drouth destroyed all but a few bushels, kept for seed. Next, the river dried up, and even in the rainy season pools must be dug for the watering of cattle and other uses. Pasturage was fine, and the flocks had flourished. San Diego and San Gabriel had jointly 63 horses, 79 mules, 102 swine and 161 goats and sheep.

It may not be amiss here to describe briefly conditions, material and otherwise, existing at San Diego, in common with the other missions. At each one, save San Luis, there was near by a rancheria, its little huts being made of tule, grass, boughs, or some such rude material. The mission architecture at that time was wooden stockades or palisading, for which adobe walls were substituted later. A line of high, strong posts, set close together in the ground, enclosed a rectangular space, in which stood the church and dwellings, in most instances also with stockade walls. The quarters of the soldier were distinct from the mission buildings, within a separate palisade, and the soldiers who married native women had each a separate house. At first the roofs were of mud, supported by vigas—horizontal beams; but this proving permeable to the winter rains, tule roofs were substituted. The timber used was pine and cypress. At San Diego, adobes—sun-dried bricks—were used in the construction of the friars' houses, besides wood and tales—rushes. There had been laid the foundations of a church ninety feet long, stone had been collected, and 4,000 adobes made; but the work had been suspended because of the non-arrival of the supply-ships.

The subjective conditions were still somewhat primitive. The rancherias were at war with one another, and the inland ones being barred out from the sea with its fish resources, they were very often in a state of famine. At San Carlos, converts could not be kept at the mission for this reason. At San Diego "a canoe and net are needed, that the christianized natives may be taught improved methods of fishing." At San Gabriel, there was much internecine warfare, and distress for food was frequent. Also, the soldiers' lawless conduct gave much trouble, yet the natives were rapidly yielding allegiance, and they were very numerous. At San Luis also the population was very large and kindly disposed also; yet it was difficult to attract them to mission life, they being better off for food than the Spaniards, thanks to their resources of seeds, fish, rabbits, and deer. At San Antonio, too, food was abundant, and the natives bestowed on the padres stores of seeds, pine-nuts, acorns, rabbits, and squirrels. They were willing, however, to domesticate themselves at the missions, as soon as the fathers should be ready for them. Many of the savages attended regularly the teaching of the doctrines, and sometimes they would come even from distant rancherias, attracted by the music, and by trifling gifts. Generally they would work when the padres could reward them with food; but this was not always easy a matter.

Such, briefly stated, was the condition of the missions at the close of the first epoch of California history. Their future maintenance seemed now established, the King of Spain having issued lately an edict directing that they should be continued, instructing the viceroy to aid and sustain "by all possible means" the establishments old and new of the province of California, and indicating a certain sum---$33,000 per annum—to be devoted to that purpose.

THE REMOVAL OF THE MISSION.-

THE PRESIDIO PERIOD.-

FOUNDING OF SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO.

The history of San Diego at this period might almost be reduced to a chronicle recording almost continual dissensions between various members of the existing political organization, or else between the military and the clergy. Nevertheless, there was zeal and co-operation enough to make no little material progress in diverse directions. One of the most important features was the removal of the mission from its original site, which was not considered a desirable one since the drying up of the river. The first suggestion to this purpose was made in 1773 by Fages, who desired the rancheria containing the neophytes and many of the gentiles to be located at a distance from the stockade, in order that the Indians might not have the advantage afforded by the shelter of the huts, should they become hostile. Padre Serra opposed the move, but Padre Jaume, the minister, favored it, for the considerations of agriculture. The matter was referred by the viceroy to Rivera y Moncada, the commandant, and the change was effected in August, 1774. The new site was a point called by the natives Vipaguay, about two leagues up the valley northeastward from Cosoy. By the end of the year, the buildings here included a church 57 x 18 feet, built of wood and roofed with tules; and a dwelling, storehouse, and smithy of adobes. The mission buildings here were better than those at Cosoy, which were given up to the use of the presidio, all except two rooms, of which one was reserved for the use of visiting friars, and the other for the reception and temporary storage of mission supplies brought up by ship. On September 26 of this year Ortega reached San Diego with the troops and families recruited by Rivera; and not a little trouble they gave him by their refractory conduct, chiefly in connection with the food question. Father Palou sent back from San Diego mules to bring up from Velicatá supplies and part of the church property left there; but, as has been seen, the contumacy of Barri prevented their removal for about a year, or until some time in 1775. Serra's second annual report for 1774, was mostly statistical, and showed the year to have been fairly prosperous, with no disaster. Agricultural matters had thriven, and the seed sown had produced forty-fold, yielding more than a thousand fanegas (a fanega is about three bushels), of which "sterile" San Diego had produced but thirty! This mission also came last in the matter of new neophytes, showing a list of ninety-seven only, while some of the others had more than 200.

Father Junipero when he arrived in Mexico had found the new viceroy, Bucareli, well disposed toward the California colonies, and many of the points of the president's memorial were acted upon. Fajes was removed from the governorship, and in his stead was appointed Captain Rivera y Moncada, instead of Ortega, who would have been chosen by Father Serra. Ortega was given brevet rank as lieutenant, and put in command at San Diego, now to be a regular presidio.

Father Junipero, President Serra, arrived at San Diego March 13, 1774, on the return voyage from Mexico. On August 4, Fajes, the deposed governor, sailed from the same port.

San Diego did not become a regular presidio until the new reglamento went into effect in 1774, although the stockade was in one sense, practically, a presidio, having two bronze cannon there mounted, one pointing toward the harbor, and the other toward the rancheria.

The records show little of note in the history of San Diego for some months. The letters of Ortega to Rivera complained of a lack of arms and servants at the presidio; supplies were brought by land and by water, and hostile Indians gave some little trouble on the frontier. At the mission removed, it will be remembered, some six miles up the valley, affairs were bright and promising. A well had been dug, new land was prepared for planting, and new buildings were erected. Moreover, on October 3, sixty converts had received the rite of baptism. But a heavy blow was impending. So satisfactory, however, were the apparent conditions that, in 1775, Father Lasuén, with a force gathered from the other missions was at a point between San Diego and San Gabriel, for the purpose of establishing the new mission of San Juan Capistrano. The natives there were well disposed, the buildings were under way, and all appeared in favorable condition, when there arrived, on November 7, tidings of a disaster at San Diego, that called the whole company back to that presidio, abandoning the work in hand, and burying the bells designed for the mission, to guard against their possible destruction.

At the Mission San Diego, on the night of November 4, the inhabitants of Spanish blood, eleven in number, had had a rude awakening a little after midnight. The buildings were ablaze, and they were surrounded by a multitude of fiercely yelling savages. At the first alarm, the two ministers, Padres Luis Jaume and Vicente Fuster, accompanied by two lads, the son and the nephew of Ortega, rushed forth from the building. Padre Jaume turned toward the Indians with the accustomed salutation, “Amad a Dios, hijos" (Love God, my children), and then he was seen no more by his companions, who ran to join the soldiers at the barracks, which they succeeded in reaching. José Manuel Arroyo, the blacksmith from the presidio, had come to make a visit to his confrere of the mission, and the two were sleeping in the smithy. Arroyo, who was ill, was the first to awake, and seizing a sword, he too rushed out of doors, but immediately staggered back into the shop, crying to the other, "Comrade! they have killed me!" and fell dead instantly. Romero, being awakened by that dread cry, sprang from his bed, caught up a musket, and, shielding himself as best he could, he killed one of the assailants at the first shot, and then, favored by the resulting confusion, escaped to join the soldiers. The carpenter, José Urselino, had already made his way thither; but not without having received two arrow-wounds, which a few days later proved fatal. The mission guard consisted of three soldiers—Alejo Antonio Gonzalez, Juan Alvarez and Joaquin Armento, under Corporal Juan Estevan Rocha. There was a fourth man in the guard, but he was ill at the presidio. There was no sentinel posted, and the soldiers were aroused by the sounds of the attack. Being re-enforced by the surviving friar, Padre Fuster, and by the blacksmith and the wounded carpenter, the guard defended themselves for a time, but were soon driven from the barracks, which were of wood, by the progress of the flames. They accordingly fell back to a room of the friars' dwelling, where Padre Fuster sought in vain for his priestly companion. This shelter was also soon rendered untenable by the fire. Thence they ran to a small enclosure of adobe, where they made a last despairing stand. The opening through which poured a dreadful shower of arrows, they barricaded as best they could with two boxes and a copper kettle. By this time, all of the little party were wounded, two of the soldiers and the carpenter being disabled. The wounded exerted themselves to the utmost to ward off the fatal missiles. There was a sack containing fifty pounds of gunpowder, and the burning brands showered upon them, with the sticks and stones, menaced a dreadful calamity from this source, and Father Fuster covered it with his cloak and threw himself upon it, that his body might be interposed between it and a spark of fire. All the while he continued to pray unceasingly, as men can pray only in such an extremity of peril; and fasts, masses, and novenas were offered, in promise for preservation. It was these prayers, the fathers declared, rather than their human exertions for defense, that saved them. They asserted that after the utterance of these vows no one was touched by an arrow. The blacksmith and one of the men kept reloading the muskets, while Corporal Rocha discharged them with effective accuracy into the horde of savages, and the astute old soldier, with wily tactics, at the same time kept shouting so many orders that the Indians doubtless thought their prey had found reinforcements, and they slunk away when the slow-coming dawn at last rendered them clearer targets for sharpshooting. The white survivors, more dead than alive, crept out of their shelter, and with the neophytes and the Lower Californians sought for Father Jaume. All too soon they found him in the dry bed of the creek, stripped and mutilated, beaten with stones and clubs and pierced by eighteen arrows. Besides Father Jaume and the smith Arroyo, the carpenter, Urselino, died from his wounds a few days later. The mission defenders felt much alarm for the presidio, as they were told the Indians had sent a party to attack there also; but the garrison, consisting at the time of fifteen men, was found unharmed and ignorant of the hostilities. Had the presidio been attacked it would have been utterly destroyed, in all probability, as Ortega's absence left a garrison of only a corporal and ten soldiers, of whom two were in the stocks and four on the sick list. The few men available hastened to the mission, and returned with the lacerated body of Padre Jaume and the charred remains of the smith. The few cattle left were driven down to the presidio, and a few neophytes who came creeping out from their retreat were left to fight the fire and save what little might be saved.

Two days later the dead were buried and funeral rites performed in their behalf. On the morning of the 8th the San Juan party returned. On the 9th the wounded carpenter died, and on the 10th he was buried. The investigations which were at once instituted showed that the uprising had been instigated by two brothers, apostate neophytes, who had absconded from the mission, probably because a charge of theft was pending against them, and they had visited all Indians for many leagues around, inciting them to revolt and kill the Spaniards, on the ground that these would convert all the rancherias, in support of which they cited the recent baptism of sixty persons. Some of the rancherias refused to join the plot, but mostly they entered into it, and some 800 to 1,000 assailants had been mustered. These were divided into two bodies, for simultaneous attacks on mission and presidio. The mission buildings had been fired prematurely; and this had caused the retreat of the other party, through fear of detection before beginning their assault. The silence of the neophytes had been secured, either by threats and force, or else, as the Spaniards inclined to believe, by complicity.

The lesson taught by this calamity did not fail to bear good fruit for the mission. The old huts of tule were destroyed, and the families and stores were removed to the friars' dwelling, which was roofed with earth. Letters asking for aid were sent to Rivera at Monterey, and to Anza, who was approaching from the region of the Colorado; and they both arrived early in the following year. Father Serra did not fail to argue from the disaster the need of increased mission guards, although he wrote also to the guardian that the missionaries were not frightened or disheartened. On January 11, 1776, Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza, who had been sent at Government expense with a large train of colonists for California, arrived at San Diego, having deflected his course northward in order to come hither, on hearing of the insurrection of the Indians, whom Rivera, meeting him at San Gabriel, had requested him to punish. Ortega and his little command had been, naturally enough, in constant fear of further warfare on the part of the Indians; but such danger as had existed in that direction was dissipated by the arrival of re-enforcements. Indeed, so readily were the insurgents subdued, and so effectively were they punished, that very soon Anza was chaffing to carry out his commission, particularly as supplies for his immigrants ran short at San Gabriel. Accordingly, after some preliminary disputations, he left for Monterey on February 12.

In May, 1776, Rivera visited San Diego, but rather with a view to punishing the Indians, than to rebuilding the destroyed mission. On July 11 arrived Father Junipero, the president, who, backed by the judgment of the viceroy, set to work to conciliate the natives, and restore the mission buildings. Fired by the enthusiasm of the padre, Captain Choquet of the San Antonio, proffered the work of sailors and his own labors; and Rivera, with some reluctance, furnished six men. Work was vigorously prosecuted for two weeks, and the mission would have been finished in a fortnight but for a false alarm of attack from the Indians, which caused

the force to be withdrawn, at the instance of Rivera. The arrival of troops for the protection of the missions on September 29 facilitated the resumption of the work, and before the end of October the corps were installed in their new quarters, so that Father Junipero, with a mind at ease, could journey northward to found the mission of San Juan Capistrano, on the site whence the workers had been called the preceding year by the attack on San Diego. The situation chosen was near a small bay, sheltered from all but south winds, with good anchorage, which for a long time served as a port fur the mission cargoes. The native name for this place was Sajirit. The bells that had been buried were dug up and chimed, and on November 1 was formally founded another mission under the jurisdiction of the San Diego station, and one which became very prosperous.

In 1777 there were diverse troubles with the Indians, consequent upon misbehavior of the soldiers, and these led to the first public execution in California—that of four native chiefs, whom Ortega, in April of that year, somewhat arbitrarily, not to say illegally, sentenced to be shot at San Diego for conspiring against the missions.

An event, notable from the ecclesiastical standpoint, was the issuing by Father Juan Domingo de Arricivita, commissary and prefect of the American colleges, of the "faculty to confirm" to President Junipero Serra. Up to this time the Californians had been unable to enjoy the rite of confirmation, as no bishop had visited the country; nor was one ever seen here until the province had such a prelate of its own, in 1841.

In 1779 two Indian alcaldes and as many regidores were chosen from among the neophytes at San Diego, as well as at San Carlos. In 1780 was completed at San Diego a new adobe church, ninety feet long by seventeen wide and high, strengthened and roofed with pine timbers.

In the beginning of 1781 went into effect the new regulation or ordinance for the government of California, its chief aim being to bring the establishments here, as nearly as might be, under the system governing the other interior provinces.

Late in 1781 Lieutenant Jose de Zuñiga took command at San Diego. He remained in charge until October, 1793, and was very popular, trusted by the magnates, churchly and secular, and efficient in controlling the Indians. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Antonio Grajera, whose official record during his term of six years was good, while his private life and intemperance caused great scandal. He was followed by Lieutenant Jose Font, who was the incumbent till his departure in 1803 with a volunteer company.

The white population at this time was about 250, some 160 living at the presidio, the rest at the pueblo and missions San Diego, San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano. For several years a fort had been projected at Point Guijarros, but it had not been built in 1797. San Diego had little contact with, or knowledge of, the outside world. Wars and rumors of wars were talked of, but with a sense of remoteness and uncertainty that must have been at once a comfort and an annoyance. In the winter of 1793, San Diego was visited by the English navigator Vancouver, whose ships were the first foreign vessels that ever entered that harbor. He was received with courtesy by Grajera and Zuñiga, but Arrillaga's severe enforcement of the viceroy's exclusive policy caused him to be denied many privileges which he desired, in consequence of which he afterward wrote very bitterly of his treatment at San Diego.

In the winter of 1793 Vancouver anchored near by, but was shown scant courtesy, because of Arrillaga's enforcement of the viceroy's exclusive policy. Five years later arrived four sailors from Boston, who had been left on the coast below. Until they could be shipped to San Blas, they were put to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow at the presidio. These were the pioneers of their race at San Diego.

The fifth of the establishments of the southern district was founded on June 13, 1798, at a spot called by the Indians Tacayme. There were present President Lasuen, Padres Santiago and Peyri, Captain Grajera, the soldiers of the guard, a few neophytes from San Juan, and a vast concourse of gentiles. In addition to the usual solemnities, this occasion was marked by the baptism of fifty-four children. Such was the beginning of San Luis Rey de Francia (Saint Louis, King of France), so called in distinction from the northern mission of San Luis Obispo. This church here, still existing, is said to have been the handsomest of all the mission churches. Also the mission became one of the most prosperous. Before the close of 1800 there had been 371 baptisms. At that date the mission owned 617 horses, mules and cattle, and 1,600 sheep, and the agricultural products for the year were 2,000 bushels of wheat, 120 of barley, and six of maize.

At the end of this decade San Diego had passed from a minor rank to that of the most populous of the California missions. The list of neophytes had swelled from 856 to 1,523, with 1,320 baptisms and 628 deaths. Only Santa Clara had surpassed this in baptisms for that period. The greatest number enrolled was 554, in 1797. The mission cattle had increased from 1,730 to 6,960, and small stock from 2,100 to 6,000. The average yearly yield of grain was now 1,600 bushels,

It is an interesting fact, as significant of the beginning of intercourse with Americans, that in August, 1800, the American ship Betsy, Captain Charles Winship, touched at San Diego and took on wood and water. This was followed in June, 1801, by the American ship Enterprise, Ezequiel Hubbell, master, carrying ten guns and twenty-one men. Orders were received from Mexico directing that Anglo-Americans should be treated "with great circumspection and prudence." This and the following year were very uneventful to the Californian colonies.

The utter disregard of American and English traders for Spanish commercial and custom­house regulations led to several breezy encounters with the authorities. On February 26, 1803, the Alexander, Captain John Brown, demanded permission to remain for a time in the harbor, to recruit his men from the scurvy. He was granted eight days, and very briskly he improved his opportunities for contraband trade for otter-skins, until the night of March 3, when Commandant Rodriguez had seized and stored in the government warehouse 491 skins, taken from the vessel. Brown was then ordered to leave, and he did so. The Lelia Byrd anchored in San Diego harbor on March 17, having come up along the southern Pacific coast, trading and buying otter-skins. She was owned by William Shaler, her master, and Richard J. Cleveland second in command, and their errand was to obtain on easy terms the otter-skins confiscated from Brown. Disappointed in this aim, the Americans, who had been civilly treated by Rodriguez, made a nocturnal visit ashore, to try to buy skins against his directions, and the mate and one boat's crew were captured. Cleveland, the next morning, rescued his men at the pistol's point, and the vessel ran for the open sea, past the fort's battery, keeping the most dangerous positions filled by the guard that Rodriguez had placed on the vessel. In advocating and exalting the course taken by the commanders in these transactions, not a few American writers have let their race feeling triumph over their judgment, seeming to forget that our compatriots were violating lawful regulations, and thus exposing themselves to all the severity of treatment accorded smugglers the world over.

In 1803, San Diego, with all the other missions, suffered a great loss in the death, on June 26, of Padre Lasuen, whom the records show to have been a man of pure life, of kind and courteous habits, of lovely personal character and piety, yet gifted with great firmness of will; in short, an ideal Father, far in advance of his times.

In 1804 a royal order effected the political division of this region into two distinct provinces, whose names were officially fixed as Antigua (Old) and Nueva (New) California, Arrillaga to continue until further notice as governor of the latter-named section. In January, 1804, San Diego was visited by another American ship, the O'Cain, under Captain Joseph O'Cain, who had been mate on the Enterprise when she touched in 1801. Having no passport, the O'Cain was refused provisions.

The scrupulous administration of Manuel Rodriguez from 1803 to 1810; the rivalry and quarrels of Lieutenants Ruiz and de la Guerra, and the death of the veteran Lieutenant Grijalva, are matters to be studied in detail in works of greater space than the present volume. On May 25, 1803, the old church was somewhat damaged by an earthquake; in 1804 the remains of Fathers Figuer and Mariner, and the martyred Luis Jaume, were removed to a grave between the altars of the new church. It is probable that this decade witnessed the completion of an extensive system of dam and aqueduct, constructed under direction of the Fathers, the remnants of which, particularly the dam, were visible up to a few years since. The gain in neophyte population during this period was but five per cent., as against seventy-five per cent. in the preceding decade, while the death rate largely increased. Still San Diego remained the largest of the missions, and was fairly prosperous, though nearly one-half its cattle was lost. The average yearly grain crop was now 2,300 bushels. Between 1801 and 1808 the olives from the mission orchards were made into oil at San Diego.

In 1812 Mexico was in the throes of her war of independence from Spanish rule. The commandant of San Diego wrote to Arrillaga that he had, on learning the news, strengthened the defences of the port, but that the people remained loyal, in spite of incendiary documents sent among them. California was affected mainly by the consequent cutting off of supplies. In 1818 occurred "the invasion of the insurgents," or pirates, from Buenos Ayres, under lead of the privateer Bouchard. At the first note of warning instructions were issued to the commandants to send to the interior all articles of value, those of San Diego being destined to Pala, where, at the presidio, stores of provisions were ordered gathered. At the news of Bouchard's approach to San Juan Capistrano, Commandant Ruiz at once sent from San Diego an officer with thirty men; and he, sub-Lieutenant Santiago Arguello, assisted the friars to finish removing valuables and property from the mission, and remained to help defend it. For this good service he was later repaid by the friars with bitter reproaches and accusations of neglect of duty.

In 1817, the traveler, Captain James Smith Wilcox, brought down to San Diego the portion of cloth allotted to that settlement by the powers at Monterey, and he was also allowed to take a cargo of grain from San Diego to Loreto. Thus trade was gradually increasing.

The records of San Diego down to 1830 present little of interest, treating mostly of the various officials, their genealogy and peculiarities. The port was at this time formally opened to foreign trade, and vessels frequently entered. Improvements material were of slow increase; in 1830 there were but thirteen dwelling houses in the settlement, now known as Old Town. A wharf was ordered built in 1828. Governor Echandia made this presidio, for personal reasons, his residence, though it was not the official capital. Agricultural matters were now about at their zenith. In 1829 was raised the first American flag at San Diego, not from political motives, but as the signal of a few homesick sailors, left there to cure hides, who wanted company.

In 1829 also occurred the romantic elopement of Henry D. Fitch with Josefa Carrillo, one year after the advent of the Pattie party, of some notoriety.

During this period there is a notable paucity of detail in the records, naturally more notable after secularization in 1834, after which there were no more regular mission statistics.

In 1821 there were only five houses on the present site of Old Town, at the foot of Presidio Hill, namely: the old "Fitch House;" a small house on the land known as "Rose's Garden," which belonged to one Francisco Ruiz, a retired captain; a building on the corner of Washington and Juan streets, which belonged to Dona Maria Reyes Ybañes, who was the maternal head of the Estudillo family, this building being occupied a long time after by Don Jose Maria Estudillo's horses; a two-story house on Juan street, nearly opposite that last mentioned, belonging to Rafaela Serrano; and a small house on the Plaza, owned by Juan Maria Marron the elder. Up to the year 1825 the whole civilized population, with very few exceptions, lived within the presidio enclosure, or under the protection of its guns. But about this time there began a display of somewhat more confidence in building beyond those limits. In 1824 the "Pico House" was built on Juan street, and at some time between then and 1830 Juan Rodriguez built a house next to the site where stood the Franklin House in later times; also the house of Jose Antonio Estudillo, which the Estudillo family have continued to occupy down to present days; the house of Don Juan Bandini; a portion of the building afterwards known as the Seeley House; the house of Dona Tomasa Alvarado; the "French Bakery," and the house of Rosario Aguilar.

In 1830 the population of the district, exclusive of Indians, was 550; for the next decade no statistics exist in this respect, save the note that in 1840 the resident foreigners, that is to say, not Mexicans nor Spanish, were ten, of whom three had families. The Spanish and Mexican population by this time had much diminished, owing to Indian depredations and the scattering of the military forces. The ex-neophyte population would appear to have been some 2,250.

San Diego mission, together with five others, was secularized in 1834, Joaquin Ortega becoming its major domo in April. By November the Indian pueblo of San Pascual was in existence, having thirty-four families. At San Luis Rey, Pio Pico was appointed major domo early in the summer. The inventory at San Juan Capistrano showed that the assets were $44,036 more than the liabilities. At San Gabriel there is no record of a major domo.

In September, 1834, anchored at San Diego the brig Natalia, bearing many colonists of the Hijar-Padre's expedition. This was a colonizing organization, fostered by Gomez Farias, then vice-president of Mexico, whose purpose was to build up in the province of California a stronghold for the liberal party. But President Santa Ana, seeing in this movement a menace to his own most conservative designs, despatched a courier to the local officials of California, instructing them to withhold from the newcomers those powers demanded for them by the vouchers of Gomez Farias. Thus the colonists found themselves in a strange and thinly populated country, themselves discreditably repudiated and left without resources, owing to the confiscation of their effects by some of the over-zealous of the local officials. They would seem, however, to have been made very welcome during their short stay at San Diego. There were many progressive and practical-minded men among these people, who immediately set about maintaining themselves and their families by independent effort, and to them are due many improved methods and features in the community. Their descendants are among the most respected families of present times in Southern California.

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.