California
Mystique
Daughters and Sons
of the
Golden State
by
Jack Adler
Argus Enterprises International
New Jersey***North Carolina
California Mystique© 2011. All rights reserved by Jack Adler
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Introduction
This publication provides readers with quick, easy-to-read information about key personalities in California’s history with reference to places or sightseeing attractions related to that figure. California receives more visitors than any other state.
California has had a rich history filled with more than its share of adventurers, poets, politicians, bandits and assorted other luminaries of one sort or another. But other states also have interesting histories and colorful characters. What makes California distinctive are key personalities and their impact—sometimes controversial but always fascinating—on the area as it has emerged through its Spanish/Mexican/American periods. No other state has demonstrated the lure of California. More people—ordinary and celebrated - have been influenced to come to California than any other state. Its ongoing charisma is still alluring but the state is also a subject of some debate and dispute.
This book delves into the mystique of California as represented by some of the major figures that have marked its history. It offers to shed light on what combination of geography, size, climate, history and other factors have combined to make California one of the great beacons of the United States and the world at large.
Chapter 1
Junipero Serra: Missionary & Master
(1713-1784)
The historical role of Junipero Serra is still debated by scholars. Was he a noble missionary and protector of Indians and not just their souls, or an inflexible and ideological taskmaster who led to substantial loss of life, freedom and land for the oppressed Indians brought to the Spanish missions in 18th century California? Or was he both?
Serra was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1713. His original first name was Miguel Jose but he took on the name of Juniper in honor of Saint Juniper when he determined to study for the priesthood. He took vows to become a Franciscan priest in 1730. Subsequently, showing promise both on the piety and intellectual fronts, he taught and studied in Palma—capital of Mallorca—for 18 years. At the precocious age of 24 he became a professor of theology. Eventually, he received a doctorate at Lullian University in Palma.
The New World beckoned, and Serra was dispatched as a missionary to Mexico City, the major city of New Spain. After a difficult four-month journey by sea to Vera Cruz, Serra discovered that the expected mules for the land trip to Mexico City weren’t available. As a demonstration of his resolve, he walked some 250 miles to Mexico City. Unfortunately, he suffered an insect bite on a leg which became infected, and a lingering disability which caused pain and discomfort for the rest of his life, especially as his work included many treks of various durations as he went from mission to mission. One estimate suggests that Serra walked as much as 24,000 miles while traversing the El Camino Real-Royal Road from San Diego to Sonoma. His personal motto of “Always to go forward and never to turn back” reflects his dedication.
After missionary work in Mexico for around 17 years, a new assignment came in 1767 when he was 54. At this time Spain had decreed that all of its missions should now be administered by the Franciscans, and not the Jesuit Order. Spain was also greatly concerned over the northern part of California (Alta California) where it had far less physical presence. Threats abounded with Russia seeking more warm-weather territory from its Alaskan base, and the imperial expansionist designs of England. Accordingly, Serra, who had already been trained in how to organize and run missions, received this major responsibility.
The expedition, under the leadership of Don Gaspar de Portola, set out in 1769 with a contingent of about 50 soldiers and Indians already converted to Christianity. San Diego de Alcala was the first of nine missions established by Serra. Ultimately, there were 21 missions from San Diego to Sonoma. San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (at Monterey) became the second mission. The Mission San Antonio de Padua and San Gabriel Arcangel arose in 1771. The Mission San Luis Obispo was set up in 1772; the Mission San Francisco de Asis and Mission San Juan Capistrano, both in 1776; the Mission Santa Clara de Asis in 1777; and the last mission, under his authority, was Mission San Buenaventura in 1782. He made the mission at San Carlos, which he favored as he moved it from Monterey to Carmel, his headquarters. Overall, Serra presided over the formation of nine missions and created the framework for the others.
The missions had a quadrangle appearance with a chapel, a presidio/fort, a pueblo or town, military barracks, workshops, granaries, and separate accommodations for the Indians. Indians converted were subject to both theocratic and military rule, and the two disciplines didn’t always agree on policy. Regardless, the Indians—who produced the food by tilling the fields—were even required to eat cultivated foods rather than their previous diet. The Spaniards introduced European livestock, various tools and methods of production. They also spread diseases such as small pox and syphilis, which led to many deaths among the Indians.
Unlike some other Spaniards, Serra regarded the Indians as child-like human beings which only needed guidance to achieve salvation. In one letter he wrote: “They came—men, women, children of all ages—with such display of cleverness in everything they did … a people clever, sociable, and friendly.” To the viceroy in Mexico City he penned that the Indians “have stolen my heart away.”
However, Serra also believed in firm control of the Indians and commented in another letter that the “spiritual fathers should punish their sons” when needed, which meant that Indians might be flogged or worse if considered to be in spiritual arrears, trying to escape, or other sins. While in favor of corporal punishment and against any self-government by the Indians, Serra believed that the lands of the Indians still belonged to them and would someday—no date was set— be returned; this never took place, either during the Spanish period or after Mexico became independent in 1821, or even after California became part of the U.S. Many Indians were converted more by superior weaponry than newly-inculcated religious beliefs. However, by the time of Serra’s death in 1784, the nine missions had a converted Indian base that might have come to nearly 5,000. Ironically, the Indians living under control of the missions seemed to have longer life longevity than those Indians living freely—and with their own diet.
Friction between the military and the missionaries over the treatment of Indians—the soldiers, among other things, were charged with underpaying the Indians for their labor—led finally to Serra making an arduous journey to Mexico City to seek redress. After hearing Serra’s representations, the Viceroy decreed in 1773 that the missionaries should have control over the Indians. This political victory led to one of Serra’s sobriquets as “Protector of the Indians” (others are “Apostle of California” and “Father of the Missions”). In another missive, Serra wrote: “If I should die a martyr’s death at the hands of the Native Peoples, I ask that no revenge for my death be taken. What would be gained for our cause by such an action?”
In his religious zeal, Serra practiced mortification of his flesh which included scourging and flagellating himself with whips and stones and holding a lit candle against his chest. Some of these measures were used to incite enthusiasm during his sermons. Living very simply he did without meat and wine.
Serra died of tuberculosis in 1784 and was buried at the Carmel Mission. Many honors have been accorded to him, including beatification by the Roman Catholic Church in 1987 in a process that might lead him to eventually being accorded sainthood. Many Native Americans, however, have opposed such a canonization on the grounds that Serra and the missionaries treated the Indians like virtual slaves. Others contend that Serra should be evaluated along the historical values of his period and not against contemporary currents.The Serra Museum in San Diego (619-297-3258) provides exhibits and displays of his life and work. Interstate 280 which runs from San Jose to Daly City was renamed the Junipero Serra Freeway. His birthday is an official holiday in California, and a stamp bears his likeness. The Serra Club International, a lay group serving the Church, as various outlets throughout the world. Statues of Serra stand at many places including one at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and in a Monterey monument. One can also climb the Junipero Serra Peak (5,862 feet) in Los Padres National Forest near Monterey.
But the missions themselves, popular tourist attractions, remain the greatest memorial to the life and work of Junipero Serra.
Junipero Serra
Chapter 2
The Russians: Lovers & Sea Otters
Fort Ross Blockhouse
The Russian came to California waters in the early 19th century in search of sea otters and other marine peltry. In those days, traders fetched huge prices for these skins in China, particularly for the sex organs of male seals which were dried and powdered into drugs that were supposed to provide greater sexual prowess.
Russian outposts in the Pacific Northwest had sprung up after Vitus Bering’s 1741 discovery of the sea named after him, Alaska, and many sea otters. In 1799, partially through the efforts of Count Nicolai Petrovich Rezanov, the Czar issued a 20-year charter to the Russian-American Fur Company. This gave the company a fur trade monopoly over Russian settlements in the Pacific, and Rezanov and some 400 other shareholders, including the imperial family, a considerable amount of revenue.
This was important to Rezanov—a trader and diplomat as well as an explorer and lover—as he had been born a “poor noble,” which meant he had a title but little money. After a short military career and thoughts of being a writer, he got into the fur business through a G.I. Shelekhov, head of the Shelekhov Fur Company, whose daughter he eventually married.
Rezanov did so well for the Czar he became imperial inspector of the company, which earned him the privilege in 1805 of leaving the safety of the capital to look into conditions at the distant Pacific settlements.
Conditions, he found, were bad. At Sitka, the major Russian post, the scurvy-ridden men were near starvation.
Rezanov decided to seek food south in Spanish California, although New Spain was on record for prohibiting trade with foreigners. The Russians had been obtaining otters in California since 1803 by contracting American ships out of Boston and supplying them with “Marine Cossacks”—the Aleut Indians, who did most of the work in their kayaks. The Spanish didn’t care for this arrangement, but the ships generally stayed far enough offshore to get away with it.
Rezanov might have sailed to Hawaii if it were only food he sought, but he also wanted to expand the fur trade and Russian rule. At first, he planned to drop anchor in the Columbia River area, but tides kept him going south to the San Francisco area. The Russians arrived at the port in April 1806 and were welcomed by Luis Arguello, the commander of the San Francisco Presidio. Initially, the Spaniards and Russians couldn’t understand each other except in Latin; meanwhile, Rezanov, who also spoke some Spanish, tried to build up his mystique by staying in his cabin.
Under the handicap of not knowing whether Russia and Spain were friends or enemies during the twisting fortunes of the Napoleonic Wars, Rezanov tried to negotiate. He asked for a treaty to permit twice-a-year provisioning of Sitka while trying to conceal the dire straits of the Alaskan outposts. But the Spaniards, hoping to keep the Russians confined to non-caloric Alaska, turned him down. Rezanov was told to inform the Czar of all the Russias that the Governor of all the Californias, Jose Arrilaga, would not break policy.
Cagily, the 42-year old Rezanov trained his experienced cavalier sights upon the 16-year old daughter of Arguello, Concepcion or Concha, as she was called by her family, was the belle of the province. The dashing Rezanov, a guest in the Arguello household, conducted a quick courtship. She improved his Spanish, while he improved the chances his mission would succeed. “I imperceptibly created in her an impatience to hear something serious from me …” he wrote.
Rezanov proposed. Concepcion happily accepted, but her father and the padres weren’t overjoyed. Among other factors, Rezanov was Russian Orthodox and not Roman Catholic. Finally, Arguello gave in, though the marriage still needed approval of such luminaries as the Pope, the Czar, and the King of Spain. Burdened with this prospective Slavic son-in-law, Arguello persuaded the governor to bend the law a bit.
Securing a full cargo of breadstuff and dried meats, and Concepcion’s vow to wait for him, Rezanov sailed six weeks from the day he arrived. He vowed, in return, to be back within two years. He also decided there was “no reason to divide the profits of the fur business with anybody” and wrote letters to the Czar praising the fertility and beauty of California. In recommending full-scale immigration and eventual annexation of the West Coast of North America, he even foresaw importation of Chinese coolie labor to help work the vast Russian farms he pictured.
From Sitka, Rezanov journeyed to Siberia and began the long haul back to St. Petersburg to report to the Czar and presumably seek permission to marry Concepcion. At Krasnoyarsk, however, he died of fever and exhaustion in 1807 and never had the chance to show his sincerity.
Expecting her Russian fiancé back year after year, Concepcion remained faithful. Legend has it that only after 36 faithful years, having refused all suitors and having dedicated her life to the church as a “beata” (a sort of unofficial nun) did she learn of her lover’s fate through a casual dinner comment. Chances were, however, that she discovered the truth much earlier and chose to spend the rest of her life teaching the poor and caring for the sick. She became California’s first nun, and died in September 1857 at St. Catherine’s Convent in Benicia.
The ill-fated romance has been the subject of many litterateurs, with Bret Harte’s poem, “Concepcion de Arguello”, perhaps the best if not the most historically accurate.
Rezanov died but his plans for a Russian California didn’t. Persuaded to act, which mean ignoring Spanish claims to the area, the Czar approved an exploring expedition which naturally did some otter hunting on the side. Ivan Koskov, in charge of the 1808 expedition, made settlements at Bodega Bay (called “Rus” which was translated into Ross by Americans) and at Salmon Creek. With over 1,000 otter skins, he returned to Sitka. Back again in 1812 as governor of Russian California, he began permanent posts at Kuskov and at Fort Ross, 12 miles north of the San Sebastian River (renamed Slavyanka by the Russians and later called the Russian River).
The land was obtained from the local Indians, in a West Coast version of the Dutch purchase of Manhattan Island, for three blankets, three pairs of trousers, two oxen, three hoes, and some beads.
However small the price, the Russians were supposedly the only ones to ever pay any of the Indians for the California lands they occupied. According to the official Russian version (which came out in 1850), the Russians took over the Bodega area with permission of the Spanish. This was news to the Spanish but by this time they didn’t care too much as Spain no longer controlled California; Mexico became independent in 1821.
Spain, and then Mexico after 1821, were not enchanted with these Russian incursions in what they considered their territory; but they lacked the resources or will to force the issue although they did try to build up their own settlements in Northern California.
In 1824, in response to economic realities more than the Monroe Doctrine, Russia agreed to limit all future settlements in North America to Alaska. Meanwhile, Fort Ross became a favorite attraction for Russians and others visiting the Pacific coast, including the naturalist Adelbert Von Chamiss and the entomologist J.F. Eschsholtz. This scientific duo arrived in 1816, stayed a month, and collaborated in giving the California poppy (later to be the state flower) its Latin name, “Eschsholtzia California.”
In 1841 the Russians, having systematically decimated the sea otters, sold out completely. They were also concerned with the growing hostility of the Mexicans, the aggressiveness of the encroaching American settlers, failure of agricultural activities (the wheat crop didn’t work out), and Mexico’s reluctance to allow them more suitable land east of Fort Ross. Mexico might have been more willing to be generous with the Indians’ land if Russia had officially recognized their independence; but the Czar, always afraid of revolution among his own subject peoples, couldn’t bring himself to accept Mexico’s revolt from Spain, a fellow European country.
The Russians offered their settlements, everything but the land, to the British-run Hudson’s Bay Company for $30,000 in April 1840. The British didn’t bite, so the Russians went to General Mariano Vallejo, Mexican military commander on the northern frontier. Made basically the same offer, Vallejo wrote to Mexico City for instructions. While the prospective sale bogged down in bureaucracy, and the considerable distance between the Mexican parties, the Russians also dickered with Captain Johann Sutter, a Swiss adventurer who had started his own settlement nearby.
Thinking the Mexicans would buy, the Russians told Sutter the deal was off with him. Sutter complained bitterly about this treatment in a letter. ”The Russians have found buyers for all of their houses and ranches, a fact which pleases me not all all. In the meanwhile, you can get an insight into the character of the Russians. They spoke very loud of preferring to burn all the houses before selling them to a local man, especially to Vallejo who had insulted the Russian flag, etc., etc., and now, just to get a few thousands of piastres more, they are not ashamed to make arrangements like this one. Nobody but Russians would act like this that. I would much rather they had not made any deals with me.”
But the Mexicans, playing it cagy and hoping the Russians would just disappear and leave everything behind, finally forced the Russians to sell to Sutter for $30,000. Forgetting his previous indictment, Sutter was pleased to make the deal. Vallejo, meanwhile, wrote darkly of his ”fears that the British Cross might be substituted for the Russian two-headed eagle”unless Mexico annexed the land the Russians vacated. No one bothered to ask the Indians how they felt.
Rounding up most of their subjects, some 400 strong, the Russians sailed back to Sitka in 1841, closing out the Russian era in California. But if they had followed up reports of gold found in their vicinity instead of just clubbing otters and seals, Rezanov’s dreams might have come true and California might be spelling the “Gold Rush” in the Cyrillic alphabet.
****
In 1841 Russian princess Helena de Gagarin came to Fort Ross as the bride of count Alexander Rotcheff, governor of Russian colonies in the Pacific. An adventurous soul, she wanted to explore the interior and planned an expedition which included ascent of a nearby peak. There are conflicting stories on this event. One account has it that the peak was named after the princess; another version has it that the peak’s name came from a different Helena in the royal family; while still a third story asserts the peak somehow had already acquired Helena as a name from an unknown source. Regardless, the Russian climbers left a copper plate at the peak recording their accomplishment. This copper plate, eventually turned over to the Museum of the Society of California Pioneers, was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. A new copper plate, put on top of Mt. St Helena in 1912, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the founding of Fort Ross.
The major legacy left by the Russians is within Fort Ross State Historic Park which covers 356 acres. The park is located about 13 miles north of Jenner. The original fort was partially dismantled by Sutter. The 1906 earthquake damaged what was left, with portions destroyed by 1970-71 fires. Restored buildings include the stockade, two blockhouses, and the commandant’s house.
In San Francisco, Russian Hill—at the peak of what became Vallejo Street -- most likely received its name from a former Russian graveyard for Russian sailors.
Fort Ross Blockhouse
Chapter 3
Jedediah Strong Smith: Knight In Buckskin
(1799-1831)
As a fur trader, explorer and diarist, Jedediah Strong Smith didn’t smoke, drink, curse, or carouse with women. He believed in making a profit and in a certain measure of devoutness as he carried his Bible with him while becoming the first American to blaze an overland trail across the mountains and deserts to California. He opened the gates for eventual American domination of the southwest.
Despite many sterling qualities and accomplishments, the “Knight in Buckskin” and “Pathfinder of the Sierras” (two of his sobriquets), spent most of his time in California in jail or captivity. Today, save for a stray river or park named after him, he is relatively unknown.
Smith was born in upstate New York in January 1799, sixth of fourteen children. There was nothing singular about his family, except that it was hardy stock (one grandfather even survived going over Niagara Falls). His family moved west as many families seeking land did in those days. One of his pivotal childhood experiences was reading a book on the epochal travels of Lewis and Clark through the northwest.
This work so inflamed Smith that he went to St. Louis (then the big outpost on the edge of the wilderness) in 1822, where he responded to one of the most famous want ads ever printed. The ad called for “enterprising young men” and the enterprise turned out to be a fur-trading exploration of the Missouri River—an expedition which ultimately helped the American march to the Pacific though its motivation was strictly commercial.
Young Smith, equipped only with his rifle, Bible and native intelligence, handled himself so well that he rose quickly to a position of leadership. He also kept a journal, filled with religious homilies as well as descriptions of the terrain and how hard it was for trappers to make a living, what with hostile Indians, lack of food and water, and other hardships. Others termed Smith “a mild man and a Christian” and he was noted for remaining clean-shaven on the trail unlike his hirsute associates.
At the age of 27, Smith went into partnership with two other trappers. He was now chief of some 300 burly mountain men, few of whom were mild or religious—perhaps because many only earned about $1 a day. His contemporaries called Smith, among other things, the “Bible Toter” and “Old Jed.”
While their primary purpose in the wilderness was to trap beavers and other game for their furs, Smith’s men also served as unofficial explorers. Smith duly reported his findings to the government. Among his harrowing experiences Smith was forced to eat roast dog, and suffered a savage mauling by a grizzly bear. Despite losing an eyebrow and having an ear virtually torn off, Smith coolly directed the sewing and dressing of his wounds.
Desiring mainly to determine trapping possibilities in the area south of Salt Lake but also interested in tales of California told by friendly Indians, Smith and men crossed the mountains in November 1826. Dissatisfied with the number of pelts obtained, they kept pushing on. Finally, exhausted by the drive to survive as well as to make a profit, they staggered half-starved into the San Bernardino Valley. Guided to the San Gabriel Mission, they were well received by the padres.
As a Methodist, Smith even discussed religion with a Father Joseph, noting in his journal: “He asked me if I had anything to eat, thinking, I suppose, that two or three days was nothing for a heretic to go without eating; as this was the first time he had mentioned the subject perhaps he had presumed that I lived on faith instead of food.”
Throughout his journeys, Smith had the habit of naming places, blithely ignoring the fact that they might already have names. Grateful to Father Joseph for their treatment, he generously named a few mountains after the good friar.
The trappers made bear traps for the mission orchards while the padres provided the ragged mountain men with 64 yards of shirt material. Smith wrote letters for his men, drew maps for the friars, sampled mission wines sparingly and resisted mightily the Indian women in the Mission who thought it “an honor to ask a white man to sleep with them” to get a “blanco Pickanina” or white child. Mostly, he got restless—and prayed.
Seeking permission to go north through California, Smith had to go south first to San Diego to see the governor of California, Jose Maria Echeandia. He found frolicking with a bear not nearly as frustrating as coping with a frightened bureaucrat. The governor was suspicious that Smith was more than just a lost trapper. It was more likely, he thought, that the Americans were spies and that a very important geopolitical barrier had been breached by the frontiersmen.
The Mexicans didn’t even have a word for beaver hunt and Smith was classified as a “pescador” or fisherman. He tied to convince the governor “of the truth that I was only a hunter and that Dire necessity had driven me here.” Giving Echeandia his journal to check and a gift of eight furs, Smith even provided a commercial demonstration on how the Mexicans could face their cloaks with the furs.
Unimpressed with both furs and fittings, the Mexicans finally told Smith he could only go back the way he came. Since that route had almost been fatal, Smith and men only went as far as the mountains and then detoured as pleased. Once out of California and back at his Salt Lake base, Smith made sure to send Washington a report of his activities, enclosing samples of flint, marble and salt, and perhaps mention of the loose control Mexico seemed to exert over California.
In 1827, Smith set out on another expedition, writing, “I of course expected to find Beaver, which with us hunters is a primary object but I was also led on by the love of novelty common to all which is much increased by the pursuit of its gratification.” Forced by the elements, and Indians more interested in scalps than furs, to again seek solace in California. Smith found the Mexicans even more suspicious this time. Put into a guardhouse at the San Jose Mission, he was accused of claiming Mexican land and enticing converted Indians away from the Missions and back to a life of primitivism, sin, and trading with the Americans when they should have been providing the padres with cheap labor.
Again, Governor Echeandia was uncertain what to do with the “pescador.” He thought of dispatching him to Mexico City for disposition of the troublesome case. Not having a budget for this type of situation, the governor asked Smith to pay for his own ship passage. Smith, not understanding the nuances of this system of captivity, demurred. Finally, some sea captains at Monterey got together and appointed one in their group as general consul. He then vouched for Smith’s good behavior while holding Smith’s signature on a $30,000 bond. At this point, afraid of losing the spring hunt, Smith might have signed anything. Discoveries and naming mountains was fun, but business was business.
Taking a ship north to the Bay area, with sea sickness added to his sorrows, Smith then proceeded as far east as the mountains and promptly veered north to Oregon, trail-breaking all the way. Crossing the Sacramento River he called it the Buenaventura, a name that almost stuck. He had better luck at the California-Oregon border where a branch of the Umpqua River was eventually named after him.
After spending some time in the northwest, Smith returned east a moderately well-to-do man. Meanwhile, Governor Echeandia complained to Mexico City of the criminal conduct of “Smith, the fisherman’s company.”
Smith’s unofficial reports of California whetted American appetites for the territory. Not even descriptions that some of the Indian tribes he came into contact with were “the lowest intermediate link between man and the Brute creation” dampened American interest in the Far West. Basically, Smith tried to treat Indians with “relative kindness. When his men killed Indians promiscuously, he would punish them by denying trap-setting privileges and assigning menial camp keeping tasks!
Smith had his brother, Ralph, buy land for him in Ohio for $1,500 where he intended to retire as a gentleman farmer and to write a book on his travels. A ghostwriter, Sam Parkman, put his journal into manuscript form while Smith prepared his maps.
After being away from home nearly nine years he wrote to his family: “Your unworthy son once more undertakes to address his Much Slighted Parents.” To his brother, Ralph, he wrote: “It is, that I may be able to help those who stand in need, that I face every danger—it is for this, that I traverse the Mountains covered with eternal Snow—it is for his that I pass over the Sandy Plains, in heat of Summer, thirsting for water, and am well pleased if I can find a shade, instead of water, where I may cool my overheated Body—it is for this that I go for days without eating, and am pretty well Satisfied if I can gather a few roots, a few snails, or, much better Satisfied if we can afford ourselves a piece of Horse Flesh, or a fine Roasted Dog…”
For some reason he neglected to add profits, a factor which inveigled him into making another expedition along the Santa Fe Trail. Somewhere along the Cimarron River a band of Comanches killed him in May 1831.
While Smith may actually have seen more of the wilderness than his heroes, Lewis and Clark, his fur-financed forays netted his name scant recognition. He surely would have received more fanfare if he had followed up a minor discovery of gold near Mono Lake in 1825; but he was more intent on beaver skins at the time. After his death, his journals were ignored and some were lost in fires. But if the book he had in mind had been published in the 1830’s, California’s history might be rather different—and Smith might also be even more of a common geographic name.
In northwestern California, near the Oregon border, Smith has both a river and state park named after him. The Jedediah Smith State Park, which includes giant redwoods, is along the south fork of the Smith River about nine miles from Crescent City.
About 11 miles east of Bakersfield, a marker serves as a memorial to the Jedediah Smith Trail which the trapper/explorer created in becoming the first American to reach Mexican-California overland. The Garces-Smith Monument, about eight and a half miles north of Crestline, marks an old Indian trail called the Mojave Trail used by Smith in 1826. The National Old Trails Monument at Needles also denotes an Indian trail Smith used. Smith is also mentioned in the Madonna of the Trails Monument in Upland at Euclid Avenue and U.S. 66. A Smith campsite is marked at Fort Benson, east of Colton.
Chapter 4
Joaquin Murieta, Bandit Or Folk Hero
(1831-1853)
Man or myth? A Robin Hood-like folk hero or a vicious desperado? Fact or fiction?
The truth about the life and the death of the man called Joaquin Murieta may never be fully known, but the legend of his role in the 1850’s in the Mother Lode country of California has spawned various books and movies, both in the U.S. and abroad.
A man, who may have been Joaquin Murieta or possibly Joaquin Carillo, was born and baptized in Sonora, Mexico in 1831. He moved to California’s gold-mining area with his amour, Rosita. Mexicans, as well as other foreigners, were less than welcome as far as most Americans felt at the time. The facts start to get muddier here. At Murphy’s Diggings his half-brother was reportedly beaten and hung for a horse theft he may not have committed. Murieta, who was supposedly beaten himself in this incident, swore to exact revenge, and did exactly that with the help of some bandits including Manuel Garcia, engagingly nicknamed Three-Fingered Jack. Members of the lynching party were soon dispatched themselves.
But it was also believed that Murieta only abandoned the law when the law abandoned him. A Foreign Miners Tax was levied in the early 1850’s which led to Murieta to lose his claim (a fate suffered by other Mexican, Chilean and Chinese miners among others). Dispossessed and bitter Mexicans looked for and took a different sort of justice. Chile actually claimed Murieta as its own champion—El Bandido Chileno -- in redressing the wrongs of their people
Murieta’s short but crowded outlaw career ensued for about the next three and a half years as he and his band robbed stagecoaches, rustled horses, and generally pillaged and killed at will.
Curiously, as foreigners themselves for the most part, they were said to be particularly murderous toward the Chinese in the area.
Finally, the governor of California decided to put an end to this onslaught of lawlessness which included an ambush of a state militia and the death of the commanding general. The legislature passed what has been termed the “Five Joaquin” act which authorized the hunting down of Murieta. However, the identity—then as now—was clouded as there were quite a few men whose first name was Joaquin (with the last names of Murieta as well as Carillo, Valenzuela, Ocomorenia and Botilleras). In this fashion, it was presumably thought the right Murieta would surely be apprehended if all five weren’t all guilty. A transplanted Texas Ranger, Captain Harry Love, was authorized to raise a posse of no more than 20 men to find, capture or kill Murieta. A reward for success came to $5000, with the men to get $150 a month stipend for the three months allowed for the lethal project.
With time running out, the posse finally encountered what they claimed was Murieta and his gang in a canyon in July 1853. To avoid lugging their bodies back, or to do without more complete identification of the dead, Love cut off the head of Murieta and the hand of Three-Fingered Jack. He placed the severed body parts in jars of alcohol for preservation. If it was Murieta who was killed, he was only 22.
However, other accounts of this fatal shoot-out gave a radically different perspective. One contemporary version had it that the Love posse came across an innocent group of locals after some horses, and that the purported head of Murieta was of someone else whose first name was also Joaquin.
Though no positive identification was made of the detached appendages, the authorities were ready if not eager to have the death of Murieta established. Love and his men duly collected their reward. Murieta’s head, a great object of interest, was put on exhibit in towns through the Gold Country with a charge of $1 per person. This profitable enterprise led one wag to comment that the exhibitors took more money from people than Murieta.
Murieta’s head eventually, given a supposedly permanent home at the Pacific Museum in San Francisco, was lost during the 1906 earthquake.
The legend of Murieta, with different perspectives, began to emerge, primarily by word of mouth. But the course of Murieta’s life took greater hold as a champion of the downtrodden with the publication in 1854 of “The Life & Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit” by John Rollin Ridge, a San Francisco journalist who was part Cherokee and who wrote under his Indian name of Yellow Bird. His book, clearly fiction in touting a handsome and valiant young Mexican avenging his family’s honor besides fighting social ills, was the first novel published in California. The popularization of Murieta led to other books, including paperbacks and dime novels, and his life became bigger and better known (save for corroborating facts) in death than it had been in life.
One famous ballad named for him has these lines:
And any American I make tremble at my feet
The Indian poor and simple I defended with fierceness
Now my destiny is no other
Pistols and daggers are playthings for me.
A reputed cousin of Murieta was said to have uttered in a belated eulogy: “To the Mexicans he was a great liberator. He came out of Mexico to take California back from the hands of the gringos.”
To others, however, Murieta remained a bloodthirsty and rapacious cut-throat.. And the mix of fact and fiction, probably more the latter, continues to compose the legend of Joaquin Murieta today.
Chapter 5
Thomas Oliver Larkin: Consul & “C.I.A.” Agent
(1802-1856)
Without Thomas Oliver Larkin’s skills as a C.I.A. style undercover agent, propagandist and businessman, California today might have fewer subdivisions, a strong Gaelic heritage, and the 1849 Gold Strike might not have taken place for lack of credit.
The shrewd Yankee trader, who helped introduce the waltz as well as American bread and New England architecture to California, parlayed his machinations as California’s first and only U.S. consul into a considerable fortune although the land he sold turned out to be the richest of all.
Self-taught, which may explain why his correspondence was noted for its poor grammar and spelling, Larkin enjoyed keeping a record of his various enterprises. Some 3,400 letters are preserved in “Correspondence of the U.S. Consul at Monterey, 1844-49.”
Born in Charleston, Massachusetts in September 1802, Larkin was orphaned at 15. He spent some time as a storekeeper in North Carolina before following a half-brother to California. He arrived in Yerba Buena (still to be renamed San Francisco) in April 1832 at the age of 30.
After working as a trading post clerk, he decided there would be more opportunity at Monterey, then the capital of California. He was one of perhaps 40 Yankees then living in Mexican-governed California. Borrowing $5000 (his half-brother, Captain John Cooper, was married into the powerful Vallejo family) he set up shop as a trader and importer. He conducted what was no doubt the first market research survey in California, and determined that the lively senoritas of Monterey would purchase many more items if they were made available.
Meanwhile, he had met a Mrs. Rachel Holmes on the voyage from Boston to California. Learning in Hawaii that her husband had died, she sailed to California and was married to Larkin off-coast aboard the “Volunteer.” Later they had an on-shore Catholic ceremony to make sure their children would be recognized as legal heirs. Their son, Tom Jr., born in April 1834, was the first child born to American parents in California.
For the first decade Larkin dealt mainly in trading hides, furs, tallows, and notions. In that era, hides wee known as “California bills” or “California Greenbacks.” With the growth of the American population, although such immigration was not particularly sought by the Mexican authorities, he foresaw a need for more and better housing and started buying land. He also got into the timber business as the Americans preferred wood over adobe for their homes.
As there was a rather loose structure of accounts and credits, he became a banker of sorts using his store as a clearing house for notes and drafts; his office also had the only iron safe in the area. Larkin was also the first resident west of the Mississippi to invest in East Coast securities.
While he retained American citizenship, Larkin carefully adapted himself to local customs, even to the extent of smuggling to avoid revenue taxes.
In 1840 Larkin became a stringer or correspondent for some New York City newspapers. To avoid difficulties in California, however, he was careful not to have his by-line appear in any stories. His only immediate payment was copies carrying his letters or stories. Cunningly, he turned this journalist enterprise to business advantage, becoming a travel writer, press agent and civic promoter rolled into one. One example: “There is no doubt in my mind but that gold, silver, quicksilver, lead, sulfa and coal mines are to be found all over California, but I am certain they will under their present owners continue as they are. The Indians have always said there were mines but would not show their locations, and the Californio’s (a name given to the Mexican population in California) do not choose to look for them.”
More alert to opportunity, Larkin practiced as he preached and invested in quicksilver mines to go with his timber and beach lots.
Prospering, Larkin started the first chain store operation in California and also rebuilt his home. It became the first two-story house in Northern California, featuring two innovations: glass windows, and redwood for the upper story to provide heavier frames and rafters. He also built a Custom House for the government in 1842 and influenced the city to make municipal improvements such as putting up California’s first wharf; his lumber was used for this latter project, but he was never able to collect from either the city of Monterey, Mexico, or the U.S.
Seeing Americans tire of the native tortillas as a food staple, Larkin helped introduce a Yankee-style bakery featuring oven-baked bread with a crust. Each year he held a July 4th dinner party for his countrymen, and parties for visiting ships’ officers which led to the introduction of the waltz as well as other American customs.
His diplomatic prowess was really put to a test when American war vessels, thinking the war between the U.S. and Mexico that everyone expected to break out had already begun, captured Monterey in October 1842. Visiting Commodore Thomas Jones’ flagship with local authorities, Larkin interpreted as the Commodore apologized. As both the Americans and Californios took turns saluting each other with dances, Larkin turned the fiasco to advantage, subtly stressing how well-behaved and disciplined the American seamen were and the speed and precision of the fleet. To the New York Herald he wrote: “During the time the vessels lay at anchor here the officers spent their time ashore hunting wild deer or dancing with tame Dears, both plentiful in and around Monterey.”
Meanwhile, the State Department had been reading Larkin’s various dispatches and in late 1844 he was appointed the first U.S. consul in California. Larkin quickly asked a friend in New York to be his sartorial agent: “Never mind the expense, Alfredo. It must be right and have plenty of gilt buttons. Send several dozen extra buttons.” His friend did better and sent a uniform with heavy epaulets trimmed with gold braid, and as extra symbols of Larkin’s “high office”, two gold-headed Malacca canes.
Larkin kept sending material to eastern newspapers, factual and otherwise, following a plan to foster a peaceful U.S. acquisition of California. With his Californio friends, Larkin strived to point out the benefits of association with the U.S. such as free trade, representative government, public education and new posts for the local leaders. To a considerable degree he had some success in his claim that his efforts had many Californios “eating out of his hand.”
As an American who didn’t opt for Mexican citizenship, Larkin wasn’t able to help himself to all the land grants available. In a letter to the New York Sun he wrote: “English, Americans and Germans are flocking into California. By applying to the local Govtm and a petition with two men, a foreigner becomes a regular built Mexican on paper, and with another petition and 26 dollars to the Governor he obtains a grant of any vacant land, not over eleven square leagues.”
Paying, Larkin accumulated some 100,000 acres along the Sacramento and Feather Rivers. Constantly extolling California (for people to buy his lands and from his stores) he wrote of the opportunities for farmers and those with capital. To the New York Journal of Commerce in July 1845 he penned: “The time will come, must come when the country will be peopled by another race. Many children have been sent to the Oahu English school to learn the English language to prepare them for the coming events be the visit from John Bull or Uncle Sam. One of the two will have the country and the place will teem with a busy race.”
On the 1845 civil war in California, he sent in this wry comment: “The last battle between the Mexicans and the Californios was fought in February with cannon on each side and plenty of small arms. The loss- four horses killed. The men were wise keeping out of the way of cannon ball and grape—they only like the latter when distilled.”
In a July 1845 letter he reported a rumor that Britain was financing Mexican reinforcement of California, and that appointment of British and French consuls in Monterey was particularly suspicious. His concerns about England really soared when he learned of a British-supported plan to resettle 10,000 Irish famine victims in California.
In this political climate Larkin was appointed a confidential agent (at the per diem rate of $6) in a seven-page missive from the Secretary of State, James Buchanan, which cautioned: “You will take care not to awaken the jealousy of the French and English agents there by assuming any other than your consular character.”
But the advent of American explorer John Fremont and his party of frontier scouts posing as “scientists” meant the end of his non-violent assimilation approach. He managed to prevent a fight between the Californios and Fremont’s contingent (writing that Fremont was now “quietly pressing (sic) his way to the Oregon”) but the Bear Flag revolt broke out and Larkin received secret word that American war ships were en route.
The Pacific fleet arrived in July 1846, marines landed, and Mexico surrendered without much opposition. Amid official duties as an interpreter, businessman Larkin made sure the American force were suitably clothed, fed, and entertained. It was a peaceful as well as profitable occupation, as reflected in this comment: “Since the 7th, affairs are finding their proper level—the fear and dread and excitement has gone by—people have not been forced from their homes as they expected and they are now looking around to see what part of the several hundred dollars that is daily spent in Monterey should come to them—some little shops take in 20 to 30$ in a morning for bread and coffee.”
Sales for the first time were for cash. “Dollar days,” he wrote, “had come to California.”
Larkin now received the additional position of Navy agent in California, which enabled him to turn a tidy profit in purchasing and storing supplies. But the warfare continued in Southern California, and he sent his family to Yerba Buena for safety. Setting out to see a sick daughter, he was captured by the Californios and forced to watch the battle of Natividad. He wrote his wife later: “One side was my countrymen, on the other those whom I had known and traded with twelve years. A fall of either appeared sad & disagreeable to me.” But not so disagreeable that he didn’t foreclose on some dons, who were forced to sell their land to pay him.
Released, and with the U.S. formally in control, Larkin entered into the first conventional real estate deal in California. Put in charge of finding a home site for Fremont in the Mission San San Jose area, there was a mix-up and Fremont got a different tract. Initially asking Larkin for either his original choice or his money ($3,000) back, Fremont finally accepted the second site with Larkin winding up the purchaser of the land Fremont had wanted. Whatever the intentions of both parties really were, Fremont came out way ahead as gold was found on his land and this wealth financed part of his unsuccessful 1856 bid for the Presidency.
However, the discovery of gold might have been somewhat delayed had not Larkin kept extending credit to Johann Sutter on whose “land” the mineral was found. Actually, the famous sawmill constructed at the gold discovery site was built with a saw bought from Larkin’s store.
Sensing a land boom, Larkin and two business partners (General Vallejo and Robert Semple) conceived a new metropolis, “Benicia, the Queen City of the Bay.” As godfather of this first preconceived town west of the Alleghenies, Larkin served as both business manager and city planner. He went to Washington, trying to get the nearly $30,000 he had billed the government for his various wartime services, and to push a bill to establish Benicia as an official port of entry in California.
He failed on both scores. No longer a consul or agent of any sort, the official response to his presence was less than spectacular.
Shifting back and forth from east to west, Larkin finally settled in San Francisco in 1853, feeling the city had a better future than Monterey. He planned to establish a “Trinity College of Larkin” on a 500-acre grant on his land near Sonoma, but this project fell through.
Pursuing his various business interests, Larkin caught typhoid fever and died in October 1856. Before his death in 1856 he wrote a friend that he yearned for “The times prior to 1846 and all their honest pleasures, and the fleshpots of those days. Halcyon days they were. We shall not see their like again.”
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The Larkin House on Calle Principal and Jefferson Street in Monterey was built in 1853 of wood and adobe as a combination of Spanish Colonial and New England architectural styles (sometimes referred to as “Monterey Colonial”). It cost about $5,000 including “Rum for raising the roof.” The house served as the American consulate from 1844-48. Many of the furnishings are original Larkin items, though the partially restored house passed out of Larkin family ownership for a period of time.
There is a bronze tablet honoring Larkin and the other two founders of Benicia on the corner of First and G Streets at the old Capital Grounds. His name also graces several streets in various California cities including San Francisco.
Thomas Oliver Larkin
Chapter 6
Lola Montez: “Queen” of California
(1818-1861)
Known best as an adventurer, dancer and “a woman Napoleon,” Lola Montez—at least as far as her career in California went—was also a menagerist and women’s liberationist who “altered” gardening and dueling habits as well as clothing store displays. She was accused of conspiring to wrest California from the United States and set it up as a monarchy, with herself as queen of “Lolaland.”
While her beginnings were shrouded in mystery—among putative fathers were Lord Byron, the Sultan of Turkey, and the King of the Cannibal Islands—she was actually born Marie Dolores Rosanna Gilbert in Limerick, Ireland, in July 1818, the daughter of a British subaltern. After a youthful marriage which took her to India, she returned to Europe, studied dancing, and assumed the name of Lola Montez, claiming to be a native of Spain.
Not exactly a retiring type, she ran through liaisons with such luminaries as Franz Listz, Alexandre Dumas, and King Ludwig of Bavaria, gaining notoriety as “La Grande Horizontale.” She helped Ludwig both lose his throne and gain the sobriquet “Mad King of Bavaria.” On her part, Lola considered herself the uncrowned queen of Bavaria despite the fact there was already a queen, Ludwig’s wife.
California came to her attention in Paris during the Gold Rush period when she bought some shares worth around $9,000 in the Eureka Gold Mine. This investment repaid her, for a while, at a rate of better than seven to one. Eventually, at loose ends, she decided to go on an American tour and to be closer to her gold mine.
On her voyage to California, sailing with 39 pieces of luggage, she was accused of dressing like a man (she claimed she wanted to protect herself from insects) and was courted by both entrepreneur Sam Brannan and newspaperman Patrick Hull. She arrived in San Francisco, still beautiful at 35, in May 1853 and was given a rousing welcome—almost entirely by men. One newspaper reported: “What if Europe has exiled her? This is of no consequence. After all, she is Lola Montez, acknowledged Mistress of Kings! She is beautiful above other women; she is gorgeous; she is irresistible; and we are proud to welcome her.”
She became a big hit in various plays. Whenever Lola felt her show was slipping she did her famous “Spider Dance,” which was better known for its stage effects than its terpsichorean skill. For this arachnidian merging of a polka, waltz and jig Lola wore flesh-colored tights beneath a short skirt. Rubber and whale bone spiders were loosely sewed to the dress. As she wheeled about, simulating horror as an imaginary web enveloped her, the spiders fell to the stage where she indelicately stomped upon them.
The toast of the town, fashions were named after Lola and merchants for the first time devoted store window displays to women’s wear. Brannan named a race horse after her and there were even Lola Montez cigars—especially after it was noted she smoked in public and rolled her own cigarettes.
A woman’s liberationist in her era Lola began crashing male preserves such as gambling halls, saloons and restaurants. She also displayed her fierce temper by firing her scenic designer when he dared to argue with her, and whipped the theater director for a similar offence. But she stayed relatively cool when some fellow thespians mocked her in a burletta called, “Who’s Got The Countess?”
Pursued by Hull she finally gave in after consultation with a fortune teller (ignoring the fact that she had never been legally divorced from her husband of India days) and was married in the Mission Dolores on Mission Road. Calling herself Marie de Landsfeld Hull, she told friends she wanted to give up the stage for a simple life in the California hinterlands where she and hubby could hunt, fish, and rake in mine profits. But she informed her bridegroom, who wanted to be the family’s breadwinner or gold-winner in this case, that she was accustomed to making more in one night than he in a month.
The newlyweds started off in Sacramento where Lola was promptly booed and pelted with vegetables during her act. She felt this was unsporting and told the audience off, using a vocabulary equal to any of the miners (she also had the advantage of being able to hurl obscenities in languages ranging from French to Hindi). She added, at a later performance, that the unfortunate incident had occurred, “for the very reason that I am persecuted and followed by certain persons and their agents is because I made political enemies in Europe …”
The miners, admiring her spunk if not her talent, took to her as the underdog.
Meanwhile, accused by the editor of the Daily Californian of padding her audiences with paid applauders, Lola challenged the editor to a duel, giving him a choice of pistols or “pills.” The tablet duel called for two identical pills in a box. “One shall be poisoned and the other not, and the chances are even,” Lola said disdainfully.
Despite these even odds, the newspaperman declined the duel. But the novel choice of weapons quickly entered local folklore with men taunting each other with “pistols or pizen” challenges.
The end result was that Lola did well enough in Sacramento, possibly because her competition was such as “Zohara the Hemmaphrodite.”
Finally, Lola and Hull settled upon Grass Valley as a location. The little town at the foot of the Sierra Nevada reminded her of Bavaria and had the virtue of having the richest mines in California (it was known as the “Gold Capital of America”). It also had only 300 women among the population of 4,000.
Lola bought a house that had been a gambling and prostitution den and spent some $5,000 fixing it up, importing many items from San Francisco. She added glass panels, sliding doors, Louis Seize cabinets, a swan bed with a silk canopy, and a bathtub from the east. She had her bathroom attached to her bedroom, an innovation for Grass Valley. From Europe, Ludwig sent some of her favorite furniture as well as a crown-shaped gold comb.
In return, Lola installed a bust of Ludwig in the hall to greet guests. This didn’t sit well with Hull, who was already jealous of past lovers and current flirtations.
To scare off miners unaware of the house’s change of ownership, Lola put her pet bear cub, Major, out in front on a chain. Drunk or sober, the minors got the idea. When a visiting violinist asked for a lock of her hair she said, “I have a pet grizzly in my orchard. If you wrestle with him for three minutes, you shall have enough of my hair to make a bow for your fiddle.” Accepting on condition the bear was muzzled, the violinist made off with his hard-won treasure.