Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815-1848
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Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815-1848
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780806148724 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Oklahoma Press |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2015 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 508 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
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.
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Testimonios
Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815 â" 1848
By Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M. Senkewicz
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Copyright © 2006 Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. SenkewiczAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-4872-4
CHAPTER 1
Isidora Filomena
INTRODUCTION
When he arrived in Sonoma for the first time, at the end of March 1874, Henry Cerruti took a room at the Union Hotel on the plaza. He spent his first few weeks visiting Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo at his home, attempting to gradually charm him into cooperating with Hubert Howe Bancroft. During his free time Cerruti wandered through the town looking for people to interview. He also struck up a friendship with Mariano's brother Salvador.
Over these first few weeks, Vallejo appeared alternately accommodating and resistant. Around April 8, Cerruti went to interview Isidora Filomena, accompanied by Salvador Vallejo and Captain M. A. McLaughlin. Isidora was the widow of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo's important ally during the 1830s and 1840s, Suisun chief Sem-Yeto. The chief was better known among the Mexicans by his baptismal name of Francisco Solano. He had been dead for over two decades, and Isidora was living close to the Vallejo residence in a house lent to her by the family. Cerruti did not indicate in his memoirs whether he or one of the Vallejo brothers had first suggested interviewing Isidora. Nor did he state what he intended to try to learn from her.
Cerruti knew two things about Isidora. First, she was less than friendly to the Americans who had taken over the land in 1846. Their arrival had meant the end of the system under which her husband had become one of the most powerful men in northern California. Second, she was widely reported to have a weakness for alcohol. Cerruti therefore made sure to equip himself with a bottle of brandy. His belief that alcohol would enable him to control the conversation and wrest secrets from his interviewees was especially strong when he was talking to Indians and to those he considered to be lower-class Californios.
We do not know what her house looked like. Cerruti called it a "hut." When she let them in, Cerruti reported, "I did my best to engage her in conversation, but to no purpose. She was rather shy." Vallejo spoke up and inaccurately assured her that Cerruti was "one of her people, and an innate enemy" of the North Americans. That seemed to lessen her apprehension, and Cerruti immediately offered her some of the brandy.
Isidora frankly admitted that she was living in very poor conditions. Cerruti noted this and took advantage of it. Fascinated by her accessories and wardrobe, he determined to obtain parts of it cheaply. At one point during the interview, as Isidora was describing the jewelry the Indian women wore before the arrival of the Europeans, he convinced her, through means he did not disclose, to sell some of her jewelry to him. At the conclusion of the interview, he saw an opportunity to come away with an even larger prize. He stated:
When we were about to depart, the Princess Solano went to her sleeping room and presently came forth holding in her hand a bag containing several strings of beads made out of bones and shells, a belt about six inches wide made from the same material, and many other articles of adornment worn by Indian women in ancient days. She assured me that those things constituted the whole of her wedding dress. I offered to purchase the whole and laid a ten-dollar gold piece on the table, but she laughed at me and felt indignant at my presumption. Nothing daunted, I offered her another drink and begged her to introduce me to her son, who happened to be in the courtyard cleaning fish. She called Bill — the name of the young prince — and he came forward. I had the opportunity of conversing with him, and I found him an intelligent man about thirty years of age, well learned in the art of reading and writing, tolerably well versed in the mysteries of the Catholic Church, of which he is a constant attendant, strongly in favor of local option, and always ready to censure his mother, who is a decided worshiper of Bacchus. Bill has a few thousand dollars deposited in the San Francisco banks, but being very fond of his aged mother, he prefers to remain by her and watch over her in her old age. He greatly deprecates the drunken habits of the Princess but is powerless in effecting a reform.
When Bill returned to his fish-cleaning business I offered the Princess another drink and again broached the subject of selling me her wedding dress. I offered her twenty-four dollars and the rest of the brandy contained in the bottle. She accepted my offer, and I thus became the happy possessor of a sacred relic of days gone by. Having paid the cash and noted in my portfolio the story of the Princess, I retraced my steps towards the residence of Salvador Vallejo, thanked him for having been so condescending with me, and then went home, where I wrote down in an intelligible style the record of my interview with Isidora and her son.
In the midst of such a set of intrusions, with three men crowding her house, deceiving her about the purpose of the visit, plying her with brandy, and casting greedy eyes over the few prized possessions that remained to her, Isidora gave her interview. As was the case with all Cerruti's interviews, her words were embedded within a larger narrative composed by the interviewer. The last two paragraphs are openly Cerruti's own. In them he described her appearance and implicated Salvador Vallejo in her "sale" of the wedding dress to him. He also rendered explicit the judgment which no doubt guided him during the encounter: that she was not a "woman of esteem" and that the respect which she did deserve stemmed mainly from the deeds of her husband.
Faced with such an inhospitable environment, Isidora's performance was truly remarkable. Cerruti's major interest was the career and exploits of Solano, who had helped Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo bring "civilization" to north-central California. At points in the interview we can hear Isidora responding to specific questions about her husband: How were Solano's warriors armed when they went out to fight? What game did the men hunt? What were your people's celebrations like? Yet time and again, Isidora turned the conversation in directions she chose. She described her own influence on her husband's decisions. She placed the experiences of the female members of her group in the foreground as she recounted what the women did, how they dressed, and what they ate. She made clear that, even in her reduced state, she could still direct affairs. For instance, she would send Bill, whom Cerruti had mistaken for her son but who was in fact her husband in a rather loveless marriage, to San Rafael to gather amole (soaproot). She spoke all of this in Spanish, a language which was not her own, but which she had learned after she had begun to live with Solano. In the transcript of the interview, Cerruti tried to reproduce her broken Spanish, which he patronizingly termed "charming."
The woman who was able to maintain such initiative had already lived a very eventful life. Her account reached back almost to the beginning of the Mexican experience in the far northern frontier of Alta California. Mission San Francisco Solano, at Sonoma, was founded in 1823. It was intended to declare to the Russians who had established themselves at Fort Ross, and to their indigenous allies in the region, that the Mexican authorities did not intend to cede control of the area. The Mexican governor of Alta California, Luis Antonio Argüello, convinced Father José Altimira, who was unhappy in San Francisco's cold and damp Mission Dolores, to start a new mission. Father Altimira did so without bothering to obtain approval from his religious superiors. Although the Franciscan leadership fumed about this, there was little they could do. They did not want to begin their relationship with the new Mexican government in California on a sour note. So the mission continued to exist. The surrounding peoples were at times quite hostile. The mission was burned in 1827, underscoring the need for a more consistent military presence. In 1833, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who was then stationed at the San Francisco presidio, was ordered to begin plans to establish a military outpost in the region. Vallejo had gained a reputation as a frontier fighter by undertaking a campaign against Estanislao and his band of rebel Indians in the Central Valley four years earlier.
When Vallejo began to move into the region, the indigenous population of the immediate vicinity consisted largely of Suisun people. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Suisun homeland north and east of San Pablo Bay served as a protective zone for peoples east of the San Francisco Bay who were fleeing the advance of the mission frontier. When their southern neighbors, the Carquins, moved to Mission San Francisco in 1809, the Suisuns found themselves directly facing Spanish power. An expedition led by Gabriel Moraga fought with them the next year. Moraga brought some Suisun children back with him to Mission San Francisco and they were baptized. By 1815 most of the Suisuns had moved to San Francisco, and the last group of eleven members of the tribe located there by 1821. Sem-Yeto was one of the first children to enter the mission at San Francisco. He was baptized and given the name Francisco Solano on July 24, 1810. The priest who administered the sacrament estimated that he was about eleven years old.
The Suisuns were moved back north in 1824 so that they could form part of the core population of the new mission of San Francisco Solano. By 1826 Francisco Solano was one of the mission Indian alcaldes. He was married in 1827 to Helen Saquenmupi of the Aloquiomis, who lived at Pope Valley. She died in 1830 and three years later he married Guida Coulás of the Topayto group from the Lake Berryessa area. Solano was still an alcalde in 1836. The next year he was listed first in a census that was taken in October. He headed an eighteen-person household and was recorded as a widower. He married again in 1839. This time his bride was a twelve-year-old girl, María del Rosario Ullumole. No record of Solano's marriage to Isidora appears to exist. The remarkable number of deaths in Solano's family illustrates the high mortality rates suffered by many northern California native groups in the 1830s and 1840s, as introduced diseases, such as smallpox and measles, took a frightful toll.
Solano's prominence in the 1837 census most likely indicates that he and his group of Suisuns had become important allies of Vallejo by that time. The precise nature of the various military campaigns which Vallejo undertook against the northern Indians is difficult to ascertain. The one major source for many of these events is the memoirs that Vallejo provided to Bancroft in the 1870s. In these accounts Vallejo routinely exaggerated the number of Indians against whom he fought, so as to present himself as the heroic and embattled civilizer of the northern frontier. But it seems clear that after 1836 Solano did assist Vallejo in campaigns against a number of Sacramento Valley groups, such as the Yolotoy and Satiyomi. In her testimonio, Isidora associated her being brought to Solano with hostilities between the Mexicans and the Satiyomi; her capture and delivery to him may have resulted from one of these campaigns.
One effect of the growing Suisun and Mexican power was that a large number of Indian laborers were conscripted to work for the Mexicans, especially at Vallejo's nascent ranching operation in Petaluma. For a time, Solano became something of a labor contractor, and he sold some Indian children to rancheros in the San Pablo area. However, Vallejo forced him to cease working independently, and he generally worked together with the Vallejo brothers to obtain Indian workers.
Until the American invasion, Vallejo and Solano were close allies. Solano skillfully positioned himself as the intermediary between the indigenous population and Vallejo. The epidemics which ravaged the area in the 1830s devastated many groups, including those that opposed the Mexicans, and probably increased Solano's personal power. Vallejo, in turn, honored the chief by outfitting a special honor guard of over forty Indians for him. He also presented him with a special horse and an elaborate uniform. He once took Solano and some of his men to Monterey, in order to impress the Mexican authorities with the prowess of his private army. He was also instrumental in obtaining for Solano a grant of land in the Suisun area. The grant probably consisted of a former mission rancho named Santa Eulalia. The petition for the grant spoke of Solano as "chief of the unconverted Indians and born chief of the Suisuns." It stated that "said lands belong to him by hereditary right from his ancestors, and he is actually in possession of it; but he wishes to revalidate his rights in accordance with the existing laws of our republic and of the order of colonization decreed by the Supreme Government." Solano constructed an adobe house on the land, ran some cattle there, and planted some crops as well. When the grant was legally finalized in 1842, Solano sold the land to Vallejo. This was most likely Vallejo's intention in the first place. Solano continued to live there whenever he wanted, and he was given the title of Vallejo's mayordomo.
All the while Solano continued to campaign with Vallejo. They organized military expeditions into the Napa Valley and Mendocino in 1843. Vallejo also used Solano to underline his continuing preeminence as more Anglo-Americans arrived in northern California in the 1840s. In 1844, for instance, Englishman Edward Bale, a resident of Sonoma, shot at Salvador Vallejo and then sought refuge in the house of alcalde Jacob P. Leese. Solano and a group of his men stormed the house and seized him, ostensibly to lynch him. Vallejo ostentatiously refused to allow that, thereby making the point that Solano's warriors answered only to him.
The Bear Flag rebellion and the American takeover put an end to the world in which this partnership had flourished. No Indian could be a significant public figure in gold rush California, and Solano dropped out of sight. Nonetheless, in 1850 Vallejo, then a member of the state legislature, convinced that body to name a county in the new state after Solano. Vallejo referred to him as "the great chief of the tribes originally denominated 'Suisuns' and scattered over the western side of the [Sacramento] River." But Solano's whereabouts at the time were either unknown or unadvertised. In 1852 Vallejo described him to the Land Commission as "the greatest and principal chief of the whole frontier ... civilized and friendly to the Mexican government and the white people." Manuel Vaca told the same commission that the chief had died the year before. Local lore says he died at the site of one of his old encampments, Yulyul, near Rockville. As her testimonio indicates, Isidora remarried after his death. The time and place of her own death are uncertain.
* * *
Narrative of the Interview I Had with Isidora, Widow of Prince Solano
MY NAME IS ISIDORA. I am ninety years old. The Indians who knew me when I was the wife of Chief Solano called me "Princess" and they still treat me like a princess. And even some of the white men, such as Remigio Berreyesa, Gonzalo Ramírez, Captain Salvador Vallejo, and many others who from time to time come to Lacryma Montis to visit us still call me Princess. They remember that whenever my husband would get angry, I would do everything possible to calm him down.
Although I was young, I, like the other Indians of my tribe, worshiped the god named Puis, who was a mortal being like myself. He dressed all in white feathers but wore black feathers on his head. My people worshiped him as if he were a real god.
Later, I married the great Solano, prince of the Suysunes, Topaytos, Yoloitos, and Chuructas. He became prince of the Topaytos after he conquered them. During his lifetime he inspired fear in everyone, white men and Indians, with the exception of his friend General Guadalupe Vallejo. Solano always refused offers of friendship from Sutter, Yount, and many other blonde men who wanted to be his friends.
The priest Guias (Prince Solano always called Reverend Fray Lorenzo de la Concepción Quijas by the name Guias), who baptized me and gave me the name Isidora Filomena, taught me how to be very charitable toward the poor, very gentle with my husband, and very compassionate toward the prisoners.* This is why I prevented my husband from killing enemy prisoners after he had conquered all of his enemies with the eight thousand men he led. Back then, it was customary to tie the prisoners to trees and shoot arrows at them. I told him, "Leave them with Vallejo. He will make them work the land." Fr. Guias advised the same thing. Solano followed our advice and many poor souls were spared.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Testimonios by Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M. Senkewicz. Copyright © 2006 Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Prologue xv
Introduction xxi
Testimonios
Isidora Filomena 3
Rosalia Vallejo 17
Dorotea Valdez 31
Maria Antonia Rodriguez 43
Teresa de la Guerra 49
Josefa Carrillo 69
Catarina Avila 85
Eulalia Pérez 95
Juana Maehado 119
Felipa Osuna 145
Apolinaria Lorenzana 165
Angustias de la Guerra 193
Maria Inocenta Pico 297
Appendices
Excerpts from "Ramblings in California" by Henry Cerruti 321
"Report of Labors in Archives and Procuring Material for History of California 1876-9" by Thomas Savage 341
Original Transcript of Interview of Rosalia Vallejo by Henry Cerniti 385
Original Transcript of Interview of Dorotea Valdez by Henry Cerniti 388
Biographical Sketches of Historical Figures 395
Chronology of Events in Early California 424
Governors of Alta California and Important Events during Their Governorships 427
Notes 429
List of Illustrations 442
Glossary 445
Bibliography 449
Index 461