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Article Excerpt
Spaniards undertook the exploration of the Pacific coast within half a dozen years of their final conquest of the Aztec kingdom in 1521. Baja California was spotted in 1533 and its peninsular identity discovered in 1539 when Francisco de Ulloa sailed around the Sea of Cortez (known today as the Gulf of California). The first colonization there was attempted in 1535 by the conqueror of Mexico himself, Hernan Cortez. This settlement and several others were quickly aborted before Spanish culture was finally implanted on the peninsula a century and a half later. Scarcity of arable land and water, absence of mineral wealth, and native hostility (largely brought on by Spanish abuses against them) caused the crown to turn its attention toward more promising frontiers.
The Jesuits entered the mission field in the state of Sinaloa in 1591. A century of mission development pressing from one riverine settlement to the next and stretching through Sinaloa and Sonora brought Mayos, Yaquis, Eudeves and Opatas, and Lower and Upper Pimas under the influence of church and crown. By the end of the seventeenth century, these missions were prospering and the Society of Jesus was looking toward new areas to bring into the fold. They proposed a bold plan to the crown: with the king's consent, they would undertake the colonization of Baja California at their own expense, including paying the salaries of presidial soldiers. The cost would be borne by the Pious Fund, donations made by wealthy patrons for the purpose, while supplies of livestock and grain from the established missions on the mainland would be shipped across the gulf to help maintain the new ones to be established. With permission secured from the crown, the new enterprise was inaugurated by Fr. Francisco Maria Salvatierra with the establishment of the mission and presidio of Nuestra Senora de Loreto in 1697.
For the next seventy years, the Jesuits struggled against incredible odds to introduce Spanish culture and instill Christian belief among the hardscrabble, subsistence cultures of Baja California. They established eighteen missions, which stretched from San Jose del Cabo at the tip of the peninsula to Santa Maria just below the 30 [degrees] north parallel. Before the Black Robes could extend their chain of missions to the upper portion of the peninsula, however, the decree of expulsion of all members of the order working in the New World was signed by King Carlos III on February 27, 1767. The decree was kept secret until June 25 to allow the time needed for it to reach all Spanish territories. Because of the distance to California, however, the order could not be put into effect until early the following year. At that time, the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) arrived to take charge of the missions.
An assessment of the Jesuit accomplishment was recorded by the later Dominican missionary Luis Sales:
the missions which the aforesaid fathers left were in a very flourishing condition because of the many and large contributions which they had had and because they held the exclusive government and command and because they settled everything as seemed to them. They planted fruit trees of all kinds, they brought in herds of cows, bulls, she-goats and he-goats, ewes and rams, mares, horses and mules. Likewise they introduced the seeds of wheat, maize, beans, chickpeas, etc. (1)
The Franciscans' stay was short-lived, lasting only tour years. They built one additional mission before they moved on to lead the colonization of Alta California. They were replaced on April 7, 1772, by the Order of Preaching Friars (Dominicans). The Dominicans concentrated their efforts on the northern quarter of the peninsula, establishing nine missions in that area between 1774 and 1834.
The coastline of Alta California as far as the Rogue River at 42[degrees] north was first explored in 1542 by the maritime expedition of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and Bartolome Ferrelo. They discovered San Diego and Drake's Bay in the process. The 1602 expedition of Sebastian Vizcaino led to the discovery of Monterey Bay. However, Spanish dreams of colonizing Upper California were forgotten as Spanish monarchs attempted to hold their unwieldy empire together through the seventeenth century. The crown was jolted into espousing colonization again in the mid-eighteenth century in response to the threat of Russian and English occupation of the northwest Pacific coast. In 1767 a new naval department was established at San Bias, Sinaloa. The Department of San Blas was given the tasks of safeguarding the Pacific coast and shipping between the Philippines and New Spain, provisioning land forces moving against hostile Indians in Sonora, and overseeing the occupation and supplying of Alta California.
The colonization of Alta California began in 1769 with initial outposts established at San Diego and Monterey. Franciscan missionaries from Baja California were in the vanguard, and within four years began turning over the established missions to the Dominicans, in order to concentrate their efforts on the new frontier. In contrast to the seventy years of sweat and toil expended by the Jesuits to found eighteen missions on the rocky, barren peninsula, only fifty-four (1769-1823) were needed in lusher Alta California to establish twenty-one missions, four presidios, and three civilian settlements.
Beginning in the 1820s, outsiders, both American and European, began arriving in Alta California in considerable numbers. General political unrest in the province following Mexico's declaration of independence from Spain in 1821 and the agitation of outsiders convinced the United States that California was part of its "Manifest Destiny." As the Mexican War broke out in 1846, three American warships entered Monterey Bay and the capital was surrendered without a shot. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo two years later, Alta California was formally ceded to the United States, while Baja California was retained by Mexico.
BUILDING IN BAJA CALIFORNIA
To build a church was no easy task in this land, destitute of natural resources...
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