Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846

by Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M. Senkewicz

Overview

This copious collection of reminiscences, reports, letters, and documents allows readers to experience the vast and varied landscape of early California from the viewpoint of its inhabitants. What emerges is not the Spanish California depicted by casual visitors—a culture obsessed with finery, horses, and fandangos—but an ever-shifting world of aspiration and tragedy, pride and loss. Conflicts between missionaries and soldiers, Indians and settlers, friends and neighbors spill from these pages, bringing the ferment of daily life into sharp focus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806151380
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	08/06/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Rose Marie Beebe is Professor Emerita of Spanish Literature at Santa Clara University.


Robert M. Senkewicz is Professor Emeritus of History at Santa Clara University. Beebe and Senkewicz are the coauthors of Junípero Serra: California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary.

Read an Excerpt

Lands of Promise and Despair

Chronicles of Early California, 1535â"1846

---

By Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M. Senkewicz

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

Copyright © 2001 Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-5138-0

---

CHAPTER 1

Exploration

The long and complex Spanish experience with California began when Spaniards first set foot on California in 1533, over half a century before the British attempted to colonize Virginia in 1585, and almost three-quarters of a century before the founding of the Jamestown colony. But California as an imaginative concept existed even before 1533. The word "California" was invented in a popular novel published in Spain in 1510, and that novel was influenced by the already developing history of Spain in the Caribbean. In the world of the imagination, "California" was tightly bound to the Spanish project of national expansion.

The thrust into California was part of the second stage of Spanish expansion in North America. The first stage had begun in the Caribbean, with Columbus's first voyage, in 1492. For the next quarter century, Spain's activity in the New World was basically limited to these islands and the surrounding coastal areas of the South and North American mainlands, where Spain had originally hoped to establish a series of trading bases with the rich lands of the East. But instead of the expected, though exotic, Asian peoples, Spain found itself faced with new lands and new peoples. In formulating policies for this unexpected reality, Spain fell back on what it knew, which was its own conquests of the Moors.

The second phase of Spanish expansion began in 1519, and it was directed into the Mexican mainland. This phase brought Spain face to face with an advanced and prosperous civilization that was, in its own fashion, an empire. Spain's encounter with this civilization and its ability to overcome it by force of arms brought issues of conquest and military force much more directly into the consciousness of its rulers: how to conquer these new lands and how to overcome the resistance of these new peoples; how to extract and exploit whatever wealth the land and its peoples possessed; how to treat the conquered peoples, how to convert them into Hispanics, and how to make them Catholics; how to consolidate the conquest; how to integrate this part of Spain's possessions with the fabulous expanse of empire which the nation was assembling in Europe, the Americas, and Asia; and how to keep the empire expanding.

California began to figure in these questions from a very early date; the Spanish arrived there less than forty years after the first voyage of Columbus and only a dozen years after the conquest of Mexico.

While California was not formally colonized by Spain until the end of the seventeenth century, it had an important role in Spain's geopolitical calculations well before then. As a mysterious place to the north, it was regarded as a potential path to the mythical "Strait of Anián," the hoped-for maritime path through the North American continent. Later, as Spain developed an active trade with Asia, California became a refuge for vessels arriving after the hazardous crossing of the northern Pacific Ocean. In the broad sweep of Spain's concerns in America, California was hardly central, but it was an integral part of the imperial designs that propelled Spain during its Golden Age.

1492

The First Meeting

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

The first Europeans to come permanently to the New World were a people flushed with victory in a war of religious conquest. On January 2, 1492, Boabdil, the last Moslem ruler of Granada, surrendered to the armies of Fernando of Aragón and Isabela of Castilla. Spain congratulated itself for a successful reconquest (reconquista) of its land from the adherents of Islam, who, because they had entered the peninsula centuries earlier from Mauritania (Morocco), were called Moors. While the actual history of the long struggle between the various Moorish and Spanish rulers and factions was quite complicated, a popular version took hold among the peoples who created early modern Spain: heroic Spanish Christians, assisted by no less than the apostle St. James (Santiago), who was believed to be buried in the northern town of Compostela, defeated the followers of Mohammed in a seven-hundred-year crusade. This became an essential element of the Spanish self-concept, inevitably coloring the way the Spanish would conceptualize their encounter with another group of non-Christians across the Atlantic Ocean.

Spain had already ventured into the Atlantic in the 1470s and 1480s, as Castilian forces subdued the native peoples of the Canary Islands. At the same time, Portuguese vessels were establishing a series of military and trading outposts farther and farther down the African coast. Portuguese ships reached the tip of that continent in 1488 and Portugal seemed to be advancing inexorably toward the Indies and their wealth. The successful conquest of Granada and the knowledge gained in the Canary Islands campaigns encouraged the Spanish monarchy to attempt to outflank the Portuguese by gambling on a possible Atlantic route to the riches of the East.

Isabela came to an agreement with the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus a few months after the victory at Granada, and Columbus undertook the first of his four attempts to reach the East by sailing west that summer. When he met the Taíno people on the island he called San Salvador, his reaction to them set the tone for the manner in which Europeans from many nations would regard the indigenous peoples they met. Among the things he found remarkable were their way of dressing, so different from that of the Europeans, and their gestures of hospitality, which led him to speculate that they might easily be made to serve Spanish masters. The two excerpts which follow are from his log entries describing that first contact.

FROM THE Log of Christopher Columbus

At dawn we saw naked people, and I went ashore in the ship's boat, armed, followed by Martín Alonso Pinzón, Captain of the Pinta, and his brother Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, Captain of the Niña. I unfurled the royal banner and the Captains brought the flags which displayed a large green cross with the letters F and Y at the left and right side of the cross. Over each letter was the appropriate crown of that Sovereign. These flags were carried as standard on all of the ships. After a prayer of thanksgiving I ordered the Captains of the Pinta and the Niña, together with Rodrigo de Escobedo (Secretary of the fleet) and Rodrigo Sánchez of Segovia (Comptroller of the fleet) to bear faith and witness that I was taking possession of this island for the King and Queen. I made all the necessary declarations and had these testimonies carefully written down by the Secretary. In addition to those named above, the entire company of the fleet bore witness to this act. To this island I gave the name San Salvador, in honor of our Blessed Lord.

No sooner had we concluded the formalities of taking possession of the island than people began coming to the beach, all as naked as their mothers bore them, and women also, although I did not see more than one very young girl. All those that I saw were young people, none of whom was over thirty years old. They are very well-built people, with handsome bodies and very fine faces, though their appearance is marred somewhat by very broad heads and foreheads, more so than I have ever seen in any other race. Their eyes are large and very pretty, and their skin is the color of Canary Islanders or of sunburned persons, not at all black as would be expected because we are on an east-west line with Hierro in the Canaries. These are tall people and their legs, with no exceptions, are quite straight, and none of them has a paunch. They are, in fact, well proportioned. Their hair is not kinky, but straight and coarse like horsehair. They wear it short over the eyebrows but they have a long hank in the back that they never cut. Many of the natives paint their faces. Others paint their whole bodies, some only the eyes or nose. Some are painted black, some white, some red; others are of different colors.

The people here call this island Guanahani in their language, and their speech is very fluent, although I do not understand any of it. They are friendly and well-dispositioned people who bear no arms except for small spears, and they have no iron. I showed one my sword, and through ignorance he grabbed it by the blade and cut himself. Their spears are made of wood, to which they attach a fish tooth at one end or some other sharp thing.

I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force. I therefore gave red caps to some and glass beads to others. They hung the beads around their necks, along with some other things of slight value which I gave them. And they took great pleasure in this and became so friendly that it was a marvel. They traded and gave everything they had with good will, but it seems to me they have very little and are poor in everything. I wanted my men to take nothing from the people without giving something in exchange. They brought us parrots, balls of cotton thread, spears, and many other things, including a kind of dry leaf that they hold in great esteem. For these items we swapped them little glass beads and hawks' bells.

Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated to me that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves as best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language.

1510

The Invention of "California"

GARCI RODRÍGUEZ DE MONTALVO

The name "California" first appeared in a work published in Seville in 1510 by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo entitled The Labors of the Very Brave Knight Esplandián. Rodríguez de Montalvo was born in the middle of the fifteenth century. He participated in the final phases of the reconquista and was knighted for his service at Alhama de Granada in 1482. By the 1490s, he was hard at work on his five-volume set, Amadís de Gaula, one of the first of many published books of fiction on the themes of chivalry and courtly love which so captivated the Spanish reading public during the age of exploration and conquest. The first four volumes represented Rodríguez de Montalvo's reworking of oral legends that were centuries old. The fifth volume, whose composition was begun in the 1490s and which was partly influenced by the tales brought back to Spain by Columbus and the early explorers, was Rodríguez de Montalvo's own creation. It concerned the adventures of Esplandián, the son of Amadís. The passage reproduced below is taken from chapter 157 of the book.

At this point in the novel, the "pagans" (i.e. Moslems) are attacking the Christian city of Constantinople. Word of this reaches even to the fictional island of California in the Indies. It is inhabited only by women and ruled by a queen named Calafia. She convinces her women to join the pagan alliance and they sail to Constantinople. Their fabled griffins, creatures with the heads and wings of eagles but the bodies of lions, prove to be especially formidable fighters and capture and kill many Christian defenders of the city. But the griffins are unable to distinguish between Christian and pagan males, and soon take to killing Calafia's allies as well. Accordingly, she has to remove them from the battle. Instead, she and a male warrior, Radiaro, challenge Amadís and his son Esplandián, who is called "the Knight of the Great Serpent," to combat. When she visits Constantinople to confirm the challenge, she sees Esplandián and is smitten with love for him. During the combat Esplandián defeats Radiaro, and Amadís bests Calafia, who is taken prisoner. During the final battle for the city she sends a message to her women not to participate in the battle, and the pagans are routed. Esplandián marries the daughter of the emperor, who then abdicates so that Esplandián and his new wife can rule. Calafia becomes a Christian and marries Esplandián's cousin, Talanque. The two of them return to California, where Rodríguez de Montalvo says "they underwent many amazing adventures, including very large challenges, many battles and victories over great seigniories, but we decline to say more about what became of them because, if we wished to do so, it would be a never ending story."

The names Calafia and California were rooted in the Arabic word khalifa, which enters English as "caliph." The use of the word is clearly meant to call to mind the reconquista. In the novel, California is consistently associated with gold and wealth. Queen Calafia and her women left the sea to enter the battle "wearing their golden armor that was studded all over with very precious stones which were found on California Island as abundantly as rocks in a field." In her challenge to Amadís and Esplandián, Calafia identified herself as "the very courageous ruler of California Island, where an amazing abundance of gold and precious stones are found." When Calafia went to meet Esplandián to formalize the challenge, her robes "were made entirely of gold and many precious stones." Also, she wore a "finely designed headdress with a huge volume of twists and turns, and when she finally put it on her head it was like a capeline: it was made completely of gold and studded with gems of great value." In this work of fiction, "California" is associated with wealth, conquest, indigenous people who are willing to convert to Christianity, and indigenous women willing to give themselves to European men.

Esplandián was a very popular work, a quintessential chivalric novel. After its publication in 1510 it went through at least ten more Spanish editions and was translated into French, Italian, German, and English in the sixteenth century. Hernán Cortés is known to have read it. Towards the beginning of Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605), two of Quixote's neighbors, a priest and a barber, become convinced that Quixote's eccentric behavior stems from his having read too many of these sorts of novels, so they go through his library, determined to burn the offending works. The first book they select for their bonfire is none other than Esplandián. But by that time, "California" had evolved from an imagined to a real place.

FROM The Labors of the Very Brave Knight Esplandián

I tell you that on the right-hand side of the Indies there was an island called California, which was very close to the region of the Earthly Paradise. This island was inhabited by black women, and there were no males among them at all, for their way of life was similar to that of the Amazons. The island was made up of the wildest cliffs and the sharpest precipices found anywhere in the world. These women had energetic bodies and courageous, ardent hearts, and they were very strong. Their armor was made entirely out of gold — which was the only metal found on the island — as were the trappings of the fierce beasts that they rode once they were tamed. They lived in very well-designed caves. They had many ships, which they used to sally forth on their raiding expeditions and in which they carried away the men they seized, whom they killed in a way that you will soon hear. On occasion, they kept the peace with their male opponents, and the females and the males mixed with each other in complete safety, and they had carnal relations, from which unions it follows that many of the women became pregnant. If they bore a female, they kept her, but if they bore a male, he was immediately killed. The reason for this, inasmuch as it is known, is that, according to their thinking, they were set on reducing the number of males to so small a group that the Amazons could easily rule over them and all their lands; therefore they kept only those few men whom they realized they needed so that their race would not die out.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Lands of Promise and Despair by Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M. Senkewicz. Copyright © 2001 Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

List of Maps xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction xv

Part 1 Exploration 1

1492: The First Meeting Christopher Columbus 5

1510: The Invention of "California," Garci Rodriguez de Montaho 9

1513: Conflict in the Caribbean Bartolomé de las Casas 12

1514: The Task of Conversion The Requerimiento 16

1519: The Market in Tenochtitlán Bernai Díaz del Castillo 19

1521: The Conquest of Mexico Aztec Poems 25

1535: Taking Possession of California Hemán Cortés 27

1542: Ensenada and San Diego Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo 30

1602-1603: Monterey Bay Sebastián Vizcaíno 38

1620: The First Plan for Missions in California Antonio de Ascención 46

California as an Island 54

Part II Colonization 65

1697: A Permanent Spanish Presence in California Juan Maria de Salvatierra 73

1716: A Foray into the Wilderness Trancisco Maria Piccolo 80

1734: Indian Rebellion Sigismundo Taraval 85

1744: Tensions between Missionaries and Soldiers Juan Antonio Balthasar 91

1744: Life in the Missions Sebastián de Sistiaga 93

1760s: The Natural and Social World of California Miguel del Barco 97

1768: The Decision to Move Farther North José de Gálvez 108

1769: A Beachhead at San Diego Miguel Costansó 112

1769: The Santa Barbara Channel Juan Crespí 118

1769: Searching for Monterey Gaspar de Portolá 128

1770: A Beachhead at Monterey Junípero Serra 137

1771: Encounter at San Gabriel Francisco Palou 142

172: The Division between Alta and Baja California Rafael Verger Juan Pedro de Iriarte Francisco Paloóu 147

Part III Settlements 151

1772: Soldiers and Indians Luis Jayme 155

1773: The Presidio at Monterey Pedro Fages 162

1773: Trip to Mexico City Junípero Serra 169

1775: Encounter in San Francisco Bay Vicente de Santa María 177

1775: Rebellion at San Diego Vicente Fuster 186

1776: The San Francisco Bay Region Pedro Font 193

1776: The Beginnings of San Francisco Francisco Palóu 205

1779: Rules for Towns and Missions Felipe de Neve 209

1779: Adapting to the Governor's Regulations Junípero Serra 217

1782: Neve's Instructions to His Successor Felipe de Neve 222

1784: The Death of Junípero Serra Francisco Palóu 226

1785: The Trials of a Frontier Woman Eulalia Collis 235

1785: Between Baja and Alta California José Velásquez 240

1785: Rebellion at San Gabriel Toypurina 247

1796: Judicial Proceedings against Silberio and Rosa at San Luis Obispo Felipe de Goycoechea 250

1797: Treatment of the Indians at Mission San Francisco José Maria Fernández 260

1797: Military Interrogation of San Francisco Indians José Argüello 266

1798-1801: The Mission System Evaluated and Defended Antonio de la Concepción Fiona Fermín Francisco de Lasuén 270

1809: Life in the Pueblo of San José José Joaquín de Arrillaga José María Estudillo 277

1812: The Killing of Fr. Andres Quintana at Mission Santa Cruz Lorenzo Asisara 284

1815: Captivity at Mission San Fernando Vassili Petrovitch Tarakanoff 293

1818: The Attack on Monterey Hipolito Bouchard Pablo Vicente dc Solá 298

1819: A Bear Hunt Juan Bautista Alvarado 305

Part IV Mexican California 311

1824: The Sea Otter Hunts Zakahar Tchitcbinoff Antonio María Osio 316

1824: The Chumash Revolt Rafael González 323

1820s: Indian Life at San Luis Rey Pablo Tac 329

1825: The New Governor Brings Liberal Ideas Manuel Clemente Rojo Angustias de la Guerra 341

1827: A Young California Embraces the New Liberalism Pío Pico 345

1827: A Mission-Oriented Proposal for Alta California Enrique Virmond 349

1828: North American Trappers Intrude into Alta California Luis Antonio Argüello 355

1829: The Missions in Their Last Years Alfred A. Robinson 360

1829: The Revolt of Estanislao José Sánchez Joaquín Pina 366

1830: A Secularization-Oriented Proposal for Alta California Juan Bandini 375

1831: The California Delegate Argues for Rulé of Law Carlos Carrillo 386

1833: The Citizens of San Diego Petition for Local Government José Antonio Estudillo 390

1835: Life at a Secularized Mission José Antonio Anzar José Tiburcio Castro 395

1835: Life in Northern California Agustin Janssens 401

1837: A Mexican Officer Urges Defense of Both Californias Andrés Castillero 406

1837: Indian Attacks near San Diego Juana Machado 413

1838: Secularization in Baja California Julían Pérez 417

1840: Indian Attacks near Guadalupe José Luciano Espinosa María Gracia 420

1841: The Arrival of a North American Wagon Train Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo 423

1842: Typical Land Grants Juan Bautista Alvarado 428

1840s: Life on a California Rancho José del Carmen Lugo 434

Herbs and Remedies Used by the Indians and Californios Andrew Garriga 443

1840s: Life and Customs in Mexican California Antonio Coronel 446

1842: Rehearsal for Invasion, Thomas ap Catesby Jones Antonio María Osia 453

Retrospective: An Indian in California Julio César 464

Appendix A Chronology 477

Appendix B Governors of the Californias 483

Glossary 485

Suggestions for Further Reading 488

Permissions 491

Index 497

Editorial Reviews

If we had only one anthology to cover the sweep of California history from earliest human habitation to conquest by the United States, it would have to be this extraordinary volume, which weaves learned annotation and original documents into a rich mosaic of narrative, fact, and interpretation.”—Kevin Starr University of Southern California

From the Publisher

"On the right-hand side of the Indies there was an island called California, which was very close to the region of the Earthly Paradise." So reads a 1510 Spanish novel about a mythic land populated only by women; by the time Cervantes published Don Quixote some 100 years later, California "had evolved from an imagined to a real place," write editors Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz. In Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846, the editors gather together an impressive collection of primary documents the writings of early California settlers, primarily, many of whom were Spanish or Mexican to provide a rich early history of the region and the lives and the culture of the people who resided there. Illus. ( Jan.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly