California History

History of California

           

1500s to 1870s

   The land of California has seen many changes due to Earthquakes and land developments, but the most common form of change comes from the different mix of people who have called it home for hundreds of years. How did differences of gender, religion, and ethnicity influence the national economy, and the world from the 1500s to the 1870s? How did discovering California change the world view? Who finally dominated and explored California? Kevin Starr, author of California: A History, tells his readers about the most fascinating side of California.

   The Pacific Ocean was discovered in 1513 by Vasco Nunez de Balboa a Spanish explorer, starting the vast exploration of California, it's bays, and its people. At the first sight of California in 1533, Spanish explorers landed on what they thought was an island, but soon realized their mistake. It wasn't until 1539 that they began to call the land California and realize that California was a peninsula, housing four major harbors in San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, and Humboldt Bay (Starr 6-7). Politics seem to start as early as the 1570s in the New World with the Law of the Indies, a series of regulations created but wasn't until 1680 that they were refined. Details of these laws included 'specifics of town planning, integration and interaction of ecclesiastical and secular societies. Church and state were to cooperate in settlement that would promote the well-being of the colonist' (Starr 28). Soon after this the Jesuits asserted their right to evangelize Baja California. Jesuits were a Society or Company of Jesus, who were highly educated and passionate in their quest to baptize as many people as possible into Catholics. The Jesuits were the first to construct missions in Baja California as early as 1697.

   This religious company seemed to become too powerful by 1760s because they were overseeing everything on their own conditions. Their dramatic exile from every Spanish dwelling occurred in 1759, despite the Indians fighting for their protectors to stay. Soon after a new religion came into the picture. The Franciscans, who were Roman Catholics, replaced all the Jesuits and preached their new goals, morals, and upheld propriety.

   On August 6, 1775, two hundred and thirty-six years after the Spanish discovered California, Jose Canizares found the Golden Gate (mouth of the bay) to the San Francisco Bay while aboard the San Carlos. Just one year later, under orders from Antonio Bucareli; who 'consolidated the northern settlement', a soldier named Juan Bautista de Anza arrived in San Francisco Bay with two hundred and forty soldiers and colonist (Starr 39). His goal was to create a suitable settlement and due his success the Native American's, who were already living in the area, didn't take well to invasion. The Spanish's arrival started up a war between the two races that lasted years. The race was looked at as children who could be beaten, raped, assaulted, torn away from their families, and were being forced to convert into Hispanics. Venereal diseases from the Spanish soldiers killed many Native men and women while shock and unhealthy treatment killed even more, reducing the population horribly. The Indians who converted to being Hispanic became farmers, singers, artists, and vaqueros (Starr 41).

   This shows how ruthless and racist the Spanish invaders were. They treated people who had different beliefs, rituals, and myths than them as strange and wanted to rectify this immediately while also taking the lands that they have cherished for generations longer than the Spanish. In retaliation of these brutal actions the Native Americans burned down missions and the Yuma people savagely attacked thirty soldiers who were protecting civilians traveling to California as well as the four Franciscans with them in July of 1781 (Starr 41-42). Due to this life-threatening action the trail wasn't a traveling route for the next forty years which Anza himself had made possible. This also created a border of the Natives, bringing expansion to a standstill for the Spanish who were coming up from the south. Before all this the Native Americans rose up in 1824 so they could gain control of three missions and again in 1829 when a full-scale revolt was organized by an Indian named Estanislao of the Miwok of the San Joaquin Valley (Starr 47).