Colonial California

Spaniards explored and colonized Baja California (or Low California) and Alta California (Upper California) between 1539-1821. Initially, the territory of California signified Baja California only, and the Spanish assumed the Baja California Peninsula to be an island. It was named after the fictional island paradise of Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s tale Las Sergas de Esplandián (1510), which chronicles the adventures of a knight named Esplandián. On his journey, Esplandián was aided by Queen Calafia (ruler of the island of California), accompanied by her band of female soldiers outfitted in golden armor.¹ The word California, therefore, became entwined in the Spaniards’ imagination as a land rich in gold.

In April 1535, Hernándo Cortés led an expeditionary force of three hundred men to inhabit Baja California, initially discovered by a 1533 expedition that landed near present-day La Paz.² The heat, lack of water, and resistance by Guaycura and Pericú Natives stopped Cortés’ efforts to colonize the peninsula. Cortés commissioned voyages determined to find the Strait of Anián, a legendary water passage rumored to be the shortest route between Europe and Asia. One such expedition, commanded by Francisco de Ulloa, sailed around the tip of the Baja peninsula into the Pacific Ocean between 1539 and 1540.³ The voyage revealed the “island” of California was instead a peninsula. Despite Ulloa’s discovery, cartographers continued to illustrate Baja California as an island.

The colonization of Baja and the discovery of Upper California occurred after Cortés’ political rivals ousted him from power. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza ordered a maritime expedition to set sail at Barra de Navidad on the coastline of Jalisco.⁴ Commanded by Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the expedition during 1542 and 1543 sailed around the Baja peninsula and continued its northern trajectory, reaching north of San Francisco near Mendocino.

Spanish interest in Baja and the newly discovered Upper California strengthened as trading in the Philippines intensified. By 1566, Spanish officials recognized the fastest ocean route from the Philippines to New Spain went from Upper California south to Acapulco.⁵ With the arrival of the English privateer Francis Drake on the Mexican coast in 1579, northwestern ports became vital to protect and resupply Spanish trading ships.

In 1697, Jesuit Padre Juan María de Salvatierra established Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, the first permanent Spanish mission in Baja California. The Jesuits built eighteen missions in Baja, California and outside it in Sonora and Arizona, as shown by Mappa della California suo Golfo della na Nuova Spag (1760) (Map of California on the Gulf of New Spain).⁶ For native Baja Californians, colonization impacted cultural norms and birthrates. Common Anglo diseases also decimated the Indigenous population. At the start of colonization, there might have been 60,000 inhabitants of the Baja Peninsula.⁷ By 1835, an estimated 1,000-1,500 Indigenous inhabitants remained on the peninsula.⁸

The harsh rules of priests, marginalization of Native culture, and population decline led to a rebellion in August 1734. The Guaycura people were first to revolt, but Pericú rebels quickly joined the uprising. Included in Jesuit Miguel Venegas’ early history of California, Noticia de la California, the Mapa de la California su Golfo, y Provincias fronteras en el Continente de Nueva España (1757) (Map of California, Its Gulf, and Provinces Borders on the Continent of New Spain) shows the martyrdom of Padre Lorenzo Carranco and Padre Nicolás Tamaral who, along with two neophyte servants, were killed by rebels.⁹ In response, Manuel Bernal de Huidobro, the militant governor of Sinaloa, ordered the removal of Guaycura and Pericú leaders.

During the eighteenth century, the Jesuit order became powerful due to its enculturation practices, merging the Christian religion with the Native culture of the converted. During the height of the order’s power in 1767, the monarch of Spain, Charles III, campaigned to remove the Jesuit order, seizing their assets in the Spanish dominion.¹⁰ Inspector General José de Gálvez oversaw the Jesuit expulsion from Baja. Gálvez and Padre Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan, proved instrumental in Charles III’s plan to expand Spanish territory to Upper California. The expeditions of José Galvez and the coastline of Upper California are illustrated in the Carta geographica q’ contiene la costa ocidental de la California situada al norte de la sinea sobre el Mar Asiatico q’ se descubriò en los años de 1769, y 1775…( 1781) (Geographic Map that Contains the Western Coast of California Located North of the Sinea on the Asian Sea That was Discovered in the Years 1769, and 1775…).

Except for pirates and British vessels seeking the mythical Strait of Anián (or Northwest Passage), the Spanish dominion over the Pacific coastline had remained unchallenged by European powers for centuries.¹¹ By the 1760s, Spain perceived their claim on Upper California as vulnerable to other European powers. On January 23, 1768, Charles III warned Carlos Francisco de Croix (Viceroy of Mexico) of Russian expansion in the North Pacific.¹² In response to the Russian threat, Spanish authorities ordered the creation of presidios (military forts) at Monterey and San Diego.¹³ Spanish expeditions into Upper California further aimed to protect Pacific Coast territory rights and defend Mexico. Despite the Spanish unease, an expected Russian invasion never materialized. Russians did not arrive in the region until 1803 as members of the Russian American Company (a fur-trading business).¹⁴

Instead, the British claim to the Pacific Northwest, starting with Nootka Sound off Vancouver Island in 1789, became threatening.¹⁵ Created by Thomas Jefferys, an English engraver and cartographer, the Chart Containing the Coasts of California, New Albion, and Russian Discoveries to the North (1768) labels Upper California as New Albion, demonstrating Britain’s assertion over territory. While Spain contested territory with Britain in the Pacific Northwest in the following decades, it consolidated power over Upper California with presidios and missions strategically along the coastline from San Diego to San Rafael (north of San Fransico). Spanish control of Upper and Lower California ended in 1821 when Mexico attained independence from Spain.

Banner image credit: detail from Mapa de la California su Golfo, y Provincias fronteras en el Continente de Nueva España

Bibliography

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Burckhalter, David. Baja California Missions: In the Footsteps of the Padres. University of Arizona Press, 2013.

Crosby, Harry W. Antigua California: Mission and Colony on the Peninsular Frontier, 1697- 1768. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.

Farris, Glenn J. So Far from Home: Russians in Early California. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2012.

Fireman, Janet R. “The Seduction of George Vancouver: A Nootka Affair.” Pacific Historical Review 56, no. 3 (1987): 427–43.

Jackson, Robert H. “Epidemic Disease and Population Decline in the Baja California Missions, 1697-1834.” Southern California Quarterly 63, no. 4 (1981): 308–46.

Kimbro, Edna E., Tevvy. Ball, and Julia G. Costello. The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2009.

Moriarty, James R. “The Discovery & Earliest Explorations of Baja California.” ed. by Ray Brandes, The Journal of San Diego History vol. 11, no. 1(January 1965).

Priestley, Herbert Ingram. José de Gálvez, Visitor-General of New Spain (1765-1771). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1916.

Starr, Kevin. California: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2005.