California Explorers and Colonizers
I. Spain
1. First to begin to explore Americas with support of Ferdinand & Isabella
A. Columbus ailed to a Caribbean Island.
B. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo
i. supervised pitching of ships for invasion of Mexico in Cuba 1514.
ii. was given Honduras and the Indian people who lived there to Cabrillo as personal property.
aa. his slaves mined silver out of the land in Honduras.
bb. he used captured Indian women and girls as sex-slaves.
iii. decided to exploit California and died of an infected wound.
C. Juan Bautista de Anza. (1736 – 1788)
i. 1772 began to plan expedition to cross Cahuilla territory to establish a colony at Monterey, CA in order to claim that land for Spain and buffer the Russian attempt to colonize and claim CA.
ii. January 8, 1774, set out with 3 padres, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, 65 cattle, and 140 horses, he set forth from Tubac south of present day Tucson, Arizona. At the confluence of the Colorado and Gila Rivers he met the Yuma people and established peaceful relations.
iii. He reached Mission San Gabriel Arcangel near the California coast on March 22, 1774, and Monterey, California, Alta California's capital, on April 19.
iv. A second expedition to take Spanish settlers to CA to prevent Russian occupation began in 1775 and as the trip was made during the winter with nearly 3,000 head of stock, the animals ate all of the plants the Cahuilla and other tribes relied on for food and many Indian people starved that year.
D. Spanish Mission system (1683 - 1823) - Baja and Alta CA both part of Spain.
i. Established to enrich the Spanish crown - priests paid soldiers
aa. vast majority of Indians who entered the Mission system died
bb. Indians who tried escape dragged back and left dead at Mission
as terrorist threat and warning to others who would try to escape.
cc. disease, overwork, and starvation killed Native people.
aaa. bones of Native Califs look like slave bones of Old South
dd. Indians prevented from gathering foods and tending lands - livestock eats Indian foods.
ee. Indian families broken up and people separated by gender.
ff. Indians required to be at work for Spanish every day, all day.
aaa. soap and tallow works, Spanish garden building, building Missions,
saddle making; personal services for priests and soldiers.
gg. rape, beating, overwork, starvation endemic.
ii. The Jesuits set up the initial 21 mission system in Baja (1683 - 1796)
aa. began in Baja California Sur (San Bruno) and moved north
bb. needed Indian labor to build their outposts. Paid soldiers directly.
cc. finally banished by Pope from the New World for embezzlement.
ii. Draconian Dominicans take over Baja from Jesuits (1772 - 1833)
aa. Inquisitors and cruel founded 9 missions and rebuilt a couple
iii. Franiscans took over and were less violent (1768 - 1834)
aa. Junipero Serra (1713 - 1784) began to build in Alta CA - gave up Baja
bb. Francisco Palou (1723 - 1789).
aaa. took over from Serra, expanded the system
iv. system collapses when Indians to enslave are all dead.
aa. last mission built in Sonoma in 1823
bb. Mexican governor closes missions in CA in 1833. Ends slavery.
2. Indian responses to Spanish
i. 1775 Indian people attack Mission San Diego de Alcala
ii. 1781 the Yuma revolt and close De Anza's route permanently.
iii. 1785 Toypurina leads Gabrielino uprising.
II. England
1. England on the Pacific Coast
A. 1578 Francis Drake sails into San Francisco Bay (?)
B. Cook arrives 1778.
C. Oregon border dispute.
a. England claimed Oregon but could not colonize it.
i. American colonists to Oregon settled dispute
III. Russia
1. First appear in America under the orders of Peter the Great
A. commissioned Bering to make the voyage from Kamchatka
a. two voyages 1728 and 1741
B. by 1760 Aleuts were so pissed off they retaliated
a. caused Peter to open the way for trading companies
C. By 1790 Russian abuses so feared that 800 women and children commit mass suicide
2. Spain founds colony under de Anza in Monterey in 1770 preempting Russians
3. Russian American Fur Company chartered in 1796
A. slow start because of lack of ships
B. established Sitka, Alaska which was starved out
a. declared capital of Russian Alaska in 1602.
C. Went to San Francisco in 1806.
D. Fort Ross, Mendocino County established in 1812.
a. sold to John Sutter in 1841 after sea otter extinguished
E. Russia relinquishes control of California and withdraws to Alaska
a. after exterminating sea otters on West Coast of America.
IV. Mexico
1. Controlled CA from 1821 until 1847
A. Declares slavery illegal but leaves Indians enslaved to Catholic Church at the missions.
a. 1833 broke up missions, free Indians. Gave mission land to Indians but didn't tell them
b. by 1842 only 4,500 of 53,000 Native Californians still alive at missions.
B. Governor Jose Maria Echeandia demands pairs of Indian ears daily to end "problem."
IV. United States
1. US acquires Alta California through invasion.
A. Pres. James Polk sets up invasion of Mexico in 1846 to get CA for coming Panama Canal.
a. Spanish American War ends and US claims Alta California from San Diego northward.
b. 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo specifies CA Indians can choose Mexican or American citizenship. Also gave mission lands to Indians.
i. America fails to honor treaty provisions. Indians swindled out of land in many ways.
ii. by 1851 all CA Indian people had become vagrants on land they once owned.
aa. 1851 - Federal CA Court of Claims awards all Indian land to American settlers.
c. CA becomes territory and imports slave laws from old South to control labor of Indian people.
i. slave market operates until 1858 in LA near modern day Olvera Street.
d. State of California puts bounty on scalps of Indian people, pays for bullets to kill them with. Indian people openly hunted in all parts of state until after 1906.
B. Indian responses to Americans
a. 1851 Juan Antonio Garra leads a tax revolt at Warner Springs.
b. 1896 - 1903 Cupeno Council fight eviction to Pala - last "Trail of Tears: in America.
b. 1905 Marie Alto files homestead claim on ancestral lands on Mt. Laguna.
c. 1919 Tribes join to create Mission Indian Federation. Brings + change til C. 1960