 CHAPTER XIII. Sea approaches from New Spain to California, 1615 to 1697. While the Spaniards were slowly but surely advancing toward Alta California by the overland route, which led through Sonora, they did not give up their efforts to reach that much desired land by the sea. The recommendations of Montescaros against settlement there were not permanently influential, especially after Vizcaino's failure to find Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata as a substitute. Nevertheless, his stand in the matter had come at a crucial stage in imperial history, since Spain was not so well able for a hundred and fifty years to carry out the plans of Vizcaino and the Conde de Monterey as she had been at the time when Montescaros nipped their projects in the mud. Spain, in the seventeenth century, was a declining power without resources for extensive colonization, unless she would have been willing to sacrifice other apes which seemed to her much more important. She therefore endeavored to achieve her objects along the lines of the sea approach to California through reliance on private initiative. The failure of this policy to bring about any great result has led historians generally to say that Spain lost interest in the Californias in the seventeenth century and that the proposed occupation of Monterey was not revived for a century and a half. This attitude fails to take into account the almost overwhelming difficulties of the approach by sea and is in direct contradiction to a more than voluminous array of evidence, very little of which has ever been utilized. Some of these materials will be used here for the first time to show that the desire for an occupation of California was continuous. Not only were there memorials of friars, navigators, and traders, especially the pearl seekers, and plans of government officials, but there was also an unending flow of royal decrees on this matter. Furthermore, there were many voyages to Baja California and attempts to form settlements there, about which very little is known, though ample materials are available for study. With his return from Japan in 1613 to 1614, the Skyino disappears from view, though there is an unauthenticated reference to him as commander of Spanish troops which were stationed at Zalagua in 1615 to resist an expected landing of Dutch enemies. The ideas of the Skyino lived on, however, and especially his original idea about the occupation of Baja California. He was succeeded as the principal figure in relation to the Californias by a certain pearl fishing company at the head of which stood Tomas and later Nicolás Cardona, uncle and nephew. Footnote. Misled by the I or we in the Cardona documents, historians have heretofore believed that the Cardonas themselves commanded on some of the expeditions of their ships. In fact, it is doubtful if either of them ever crossed the Atlantic, and certainly neither one went on voyages to the Californias. They used the first person as one might for a great company of which he was the head. All documents by them thus far discovered emanate from Spain. In footnote. In 1611 Tomas de Cardona procured from the Royal Government a monopoly of the pearl fishing rights in the New World, in return for which he bound himself to make explorations of little-known lands and to let his ships serve for naval purposes when needed. In addition, the king was to get the usual royal fifth on all pearl secured. A certain Baselio was placed in command of the Cardona fleet, and in 1613-1614 he cruised among the islands of the West Indies. In search of new fields he and his men gave up their ships and crossed New Spain to the Pacific, where they arrived in 1614. There Baselio died. Juan de Eturbe succeeded to his position, and in 1615 had three ships ready at Acapulco for a voyage in Pacific waters. Ever since Jimenez reached Baja California in 1533 and 1534 the Californias had been famed for their pearls. It will be remembered too that the original object of the Viscayino Company had been to fish for them. To the Cardona Company under Eturbe, however, was reserved the first recorded opportunity to make an organized search for the pearls of the Gulf of California. On March 21st, 1615, Eturbe's fleet set sail from Acapulco, carrying many Negro divers and a number of soldiers. Crossing to the lower end of Baja California, the tourbie went up the coast of the Gulf, landing frequently. At the place where Viscayino was attacked in 1596, Eturbe's men were also set upon by the Indians, but the Spaniards introduced something new in California warfare to win the day. Two mastiffs were loosed upon the Indians, and the latter, who were unacquainted with a strange beast, took flight. Crossing to Florida, as they termed the mainland to the east, in what they reported as 30 degrees but more likely 28 degrees, they sailed to the head of the Gulf, which they reached, as they said, in 34 degrees, though the Gulf ends a little short of 32 degrees. Lack of precision in a memorial of 1617 by Nicolás de Cardona would make it appear, if there were not other documents from which to check up with the actual facts, that Eturbe visited Alta California. Cardona said that his fleet went por la costa de afuera by the outside coast of the California to 34 degrees, the latitude of Santa Monica near Los Angeles. What he meant was that his ships went up the outside coast of the Gulf, in footnote. Crossing back to Baja California, they encountered severe storms. They were now running short of food, wherefore they decided to put for a port to New Spain. Two of the boats got to Mazatlán, but the third was captured by the Dutch navigator Spilburg. In 1616 Eturbe made a voyage to the Gulf with two ships, getting to 30 degrees, he reported, but being obligated to return as a result of the northwest winds and lack of food. One of his ships was captured by a foreign vessel, but the flagship got back to New Spain. It was at once order to sea again to warn the Manila Galleon of the presence of enemies. This it did, returning safely again to port. Three important facts came out of the Eturbe voyages. First of these was the finding of wealth and pearls. The reports of the company tended to minimize that in dealing with the first voyage, with an eye no doubt to the size of the Royal Fifth and to magnifying their achievements as a basis for further favors. But Spilburg got a number of pearls from a boat he captured, and it is almost certain the flagship carried a much greater quantity. At any rate, it was admitted by the company that the second voyage had prospered well. A rich cargo of pearls was obtained, one of them was worth 4,500 pesos. The wealth of the California's in this respect was no longer a part of the northern mystery. The second noteworthy factor was that of the presence of foreign enemies. These deep voiced foreigners, when not called pirates by the Spaniards, were referred to as Pichilingues. Footnote. Doubtless from fecho, meaning chest, and lengua, meaning language or tongue, to a Spaniard whose words are formed more by the tongue in the front of the mouth than by the throat, the guttural voiced northerners, especially the Dutch, might well have seemed to be speaking from out of their chests. At least, this might have seemed a fitting way to express a certain disapproval of the speech of their enemies. In footnote. For something like half a century after Spielberg's arrival in 1615, they were a veritable pest to the Spaniards. Little is known of the Pichilingues in the Pacific, aside from the meager accounts which have thus far emanated from Spanish sources. There seems to be no definite record, for example, of the pirate who took one of the Turbyships in 1616. Most, if not all, of these enemy sailors were probably Dutch. One inevitable result to their activities was that the Spanish government should wish to bring about an occupation at the California's if only for the greater security of the galleon. A third result of these voyages of great importance as affecting the projects concerning the Californias during more than a century was a resumption of the belief that the Californias were an island and not a peninsula. When the Turbie got to the head of the Gulf in 1615, he at first thought, indeed, that this was a Gulf, but on crossing to Baja California he believed he saw a straight and so reported. One wonders if the floods of the Colorado had anything to do with his opinion. Accounts of this voyage were brought to the attention of the authorities in Spain and Mexico, and the idea was accepted. The contributing influence, no doubt, were the century-old rumors of a great and mysterious island. Despite the discoveries of Ulloa and Alacorn in the Gulf, such reports had persistently appeared. Until recently it was believed that the revival of the island theory was an offshoot of Oñate's expedition in 1604-1605 from New Mexico to the mouth of the Colorado. In a memorial of 1620 Father Ascension said, with reference to the Gulf of California, up to the present time people have understood that it was an inlet or great bay of the sea there and not running continuous sea as in fact it is. This was supplemented in 1626 by a statement of Zarate San Marón, the historian of New Mexico, who in dealing with Oñate's expedition had this to say, as the Indians stated, that the Gulf of California is not closed, but is an arm of the sea. It now appears that there was no such statement in the manuscript of Father Francisco de Escobar on which Zarate drew. The stories Escobar heard did indeed relate to an island, possibly Catalina Island, five days' journey to the west, but there was no intimation that the Californias were meant. Furthermore, Oñate's party descended the Colorado to the Gulf and there is no inkling in the record that they believed it to be anything other than the Gulf. For a translation of Escobar's report, see Father Escobar's relation of the Oñate expedition to California, translated and edited by Herbert E. Bolton in Catholic Historical Review, Volume 5, Washington, April 1919. There can be no doubt that a sensión was referring to the recent Iturbi voyages and not to Oñate. Historians have been confused because they knew little or nothing about Iturbi. In consequence, it was more logical for the government to give its attention to sea approaches to the Californias, rather than seek to get to Monterey by land. Not until 1746 was the island idea definitively dispelled. The subsequent operations of the Cardona Company are not yet clearly known, though the memorials of Nicolás de Cardona and its protests against infringement on the monopoly of pearl fishing that he claimed to reach as late as 1643. In certain of his memorials of 1634, he referred to the services rendered by his company during twenty years, and sought not only a renewal of the pearl fishing monopoly, but also a right to make settlements in the Californias. A royal decree of the same year ordered that all possible attention be given to the propagation of the faith in the Californias, especially where it did not involve the government in any expense, but through the willingness of private individuals to take it upon themselves. Early in the next year another royal decree forwarded some of the Cardona memorials to Mexico and urged the viceroy to seek for more information about the Californias. Precisely what happened, however, either before this date or after it, has yet to be made known, although there are abundant materials awaiting the investigator. Indeed, the period from 1616 to 1627 is at present almost a blank as concerns the activities in the Californias, though there are occasional indications that voyages were made, possibly in secret so as to avoid payment to the royal duties on pearls, or else in the case of unauthorized voyages to keep the matter from coming to the attention of the pearl fisheries monopolists. In 1627, Martin de Lasama, a son-in-law of Hiscaina, procured a license for a voyage to the Californias with pearl fishing rights attached. Lasama went to Samblas to build a ship, but it would appear that the mosquitoes of that unhealthful port were too much for him, and he gave up the enterprise. Meanwhile, a certain Captain Antonio Bastaan had gone from Mexico to Spain to apply for a license to make conquests in the Californias at his own cost. This occasioned a royal decree of 1628 directed to the viceroy, asking reports about the best way of making further discoveries in the Californias, and if it were advisable to make them. In the course of the years 1629 to 1632, 15 memorials were accumulated, including three from Ascension, and one each from Juan de Aturbe, Martin de Lasama, Esteban Carbonell de Valenzuela, and others who are at present less well known. With one exception, all were in favor of an expedition. The only exception was the cosmographer Enrique Martinez, who said that the Californias were of no value except for pearls, and he doubted their wealth in that particular. The government favored the prevailing view for a license was granted to Francisco de Otega. He obtained the typical 17th century contract, authorizing him to make voyage and giving him permission to seek for pearls, in return for which he was to bear all the expense and was to procure information about the Californias, besides paying the customary duties on the pearls he should find. On March 20, 1632, several months earlier than some of the memorials growing out of the royal decrees of 1628, Otega set sail for the Californias, with the pilot Esteban Carbonell as his second-in-command. The lower end of the peninsula was reached on May 4, and the expedition proceeded up the gulf on the western side to 27 degrees. In July the return voyage was made. Many pearls had been found. Carbonell was sent to sea again forthwith, for the pitcholinguists were along the coast and it was necessary to warn the galleon. The galleon was warned and Carbonell returned. In 1633, 1634 a more ambitious expedition was made and the founding of a colony was attempted. Sailing from New Spain on September 8, 1633, Otega reached La Paz on October 7. A colony was founded there which was temporarily successful. The Indians proved docile and many conversions were made largely as a result of gifts of food, always one of the most persuasive spiritual arguments with the natives. In course of time it appears that supplies got low and it was necessary to abandon the colony. Meanwhile, many pearls had been found and some information acquired about the country. In 1636 Otega made his third voyage to the Californias, leaving a port in Sinaloa on January 11. He and his men were wrecked near the southern end of the peninsula, but escaped on a fragment to the vessel. They made a boat and got to La Paz where they were well received by the Indians who wanted them to stay. The little party of Spaniards went on to the mainland, however, coming to port on May 15. Despite their misfortunes they were able to report that they had found many pearl beds. In the years 1636 to 1637 Otega's pilot, Carbonell, became the central figure in a sensational case that aroused interest in both Mexico and Spain. An individual named Vergara had procured a license for a voyage but transferred his rights to Carbonell. Carbonell had been in New Spain for many years and had long been prominent in connections with activities in the Pacific. In a document dated July 9, 1620, Nicolás de Cardona promised Carbonell 500 pesos if he would go to Tejuanpec and refit a ship, which the former proposed to use for discoveries in the Californias. It developed however that he was a Frenchman and that he had secretly built a ship on the river Santiago near San Blas. Some of his crew were said to be French Canadians who had reported that a transcontinental strait surely existed. It was believed that Carbonell planned to seek the strait and sail through it to France, opening away for the French to threaten the Spanish possessions in the Pacific. Hundreds of memorials or depositions were gathered in the trial in this case but it is not yet possible to tell how it came out. Very likely Carbonell had nothing more in mind when he built a ship than the making of an unlicensed pearl voyage. The profound interest, not to say excitement, which the case caused is one of the almost innumerable evidences that Spain could always be stirred up by threatened foreign incursions in the Californias. These were recognized as an entering wedge into her rich dominions of New Spain. The fact that no great expedition followed the Carbonell case may for the present be regarded as some evidence that the French pilot was acquitted of the principal charges against him. The above information is based on the charges against Carbonell, one document out of hundreds in the file. Yet as an example of the present inadequacy of our information about this period, it is worth pointing out how this clears up and supplants the statement made in Bancroft. According to Bancroft, Carbonell got a license in an underhanded way, unspecified, and made of a age in 1636 returning to Mexico in disgrace. His partner, Vergara, also got a license and transferred it to a French company. That is all. The information provided in the charges against Carbonell was supplied by the writer to Mr. Rudolph J. Taussig, who used it in his The American Interoceanic Canal, an historical sketch of the canal idea in the Pacific Ocean in History, New York, 1917, in footnote. Meanwhile, another individual had gradually been coming to the fore. In 1635 Pedro Porter Casanate, in association with Juan Botelo, asked for a license to make a voyage to the Californias at his own expense, offering also to provide accurate charts of that land. The license was given in 1636, whereupon Ortega complained that it infringed rights previously granted to him. As a result, both licenses were revoked. Porter had already spent a vast sum of money on the enterprise and took himself to Spain for redress. His case received favorable attention, and at length, in 1640 he procured the desired royal license, which also gave him a monopoly of the right to sail the Gulf of California. He was detained in Spain on other service, however, and it was not until 1643 that he started upon his return. With him went a number of families of prospective settlers, while others were picked up in Veracruz. A boat on the Pacific was chartered, and Porter commenced building two others. Just then came the familiar news about the Pichilingles. At any rate, they had made their appearance in Chile, and it was expected that they would sail north, with a view to capture of the galleon. Porter's vessel was the only one at hand, so it was sent out to give the usual warning. On January 1644, this ship, under Alonzo Gonzales Bariga, put to sea. Eighteen days were required before Gonzales could cover the narrow but difficult stretch between the mainland and the peninsula. Meanwhile, he had missed the galleon, which however got safely to Acapulco, but he went on for five days up the west coast of Baja California. The storms soon proved to be too much for his vessel, and he turned back for New Spain, making port in a four-day run. He had seen a number of Indians who had received him with demonstrations of friendship, and he had also not neglected the opportunity to procure some pearls. Shortly afterward, in April 1644, Porter received a setback from which he never recovered. A fire broke out, and his ships and warehouses were burned. He had by this time wasted a fortune in the enterprise, but the royal government came to his assistance. He was placed in command of a post in Sinaloa just across from the California's, and the viceroy was ordered to help him. The order had to be repeated, however, before the viceroy would take action, and it was not until 1648 that Porter was ready for another voyage. In that year two ships were sent out to explore sites for a colony, but they returned without having found any that were suitable. They went to sea again to warn the galleon, for the pitch of linguists were reported in the vicinity. In 1650 Porter disappears from the record. A royal order of that year requires the viceroy to assist him, unless there were serious objections. But the authorities wanted an explanation of Porter's delays, making the observation that his license was not unlimited in time. It seems likely that the viceroy recommended against any further dealings with Porter. One wonders whether the latter had sincerely endeavored to fulfill his contract. For fifteen years he had devoted himself to this project, and, so far as the evidence goes, had made but two rather unsatisfactory voyages. It is at least probable that his ships crossed the gulf on other occasions without reporting the fact, thus avoiding the obligations imposed in the contract. Graff was a prevalent vice in New Spain, and it would have been easier and cheaper to bribe royal officers than to live up to the terms of the license and pay the royal fees. After Porter's voyage of 1648 there is, at present, a hiatus in the records until Bernardo Bernal de Pinedero steps forward in 1664 as the principal figure in California exploration. Pinedero had procured the usual type of contract, with emphasis on the importance of making a settlement in California. In 1664 he sent out two ships. Completely disregarding his contract obligations, Pinedero confined his efforts to a search for pearls and procured a rich cargo. Precise information of this voyage got out for the Spaniards quarreled over the division of the spoil. Furthermore, Pinedero had treated the natives cruelly, compelling them to serve as divers, whereby many of them were drowned for lack of breath, and, of course, he had made no settlement. The viceroy authorized him to make another voyage, but the audencia of Guadalajara temporarily prevented him from doing so. Pinedero was therefore delayed until 1667 when he seems to have sent out two ships. Nothing definite is yet known of this voyage, and it may have been the same as reputed two ship voyage of 1668 under the command of one Lucenia. Lucenia stated that the Californias were barren and returned without making a settlement. It was asserted that his real object was to find pearls. Pinedero continued to have rights of discovery, or to seek them, until 1678. In 1672 the Council of the Indies ordered the viceroy to investigate and report fully on one of his petitions, insisting that the project of settling the Californias should be carried out. If Pinedero was not the proper person, then another was to be found, or if necessary, it was to be undertaken at royal expense. This shows that the government was beginning to realize that conquest and settlement by private initiative could no longer be counted upon. The day of the conquistador, or adelanto, was gone, and henceforth it was the state which would have to pay the bills. Considerable file of papers accumulated growing out of the order of 1672. The authorities in New Spain decided against Pinedero on various grounds, including that of his past irregularities, but the Council of the Indies in 1674 sustained him. The decree added that the viceroy should regard discoveries in the Californias as important, even if they offered no advantages other than as a field for spiritual conquest, doubtless with the strategic importance of the peninsula in mind. Whether Pinedero made another voyage, however, is at present unknown. Discoveries and settlements in the Californias on private initiative had failed. The contracts had been mere shields behind which the individuals engaged, whether openly or secretly, in the pearl fisheries, without making serious efforts to achieve what was uppermost in the royal mind. Convinced to this fact, the government, which all along had desired the occupation as a defensive measure, resolved to provide the funds itself. A new type of contract was drawn up, therefore, in 1678 and approved in 1679, whereby Isidrio Atondo y Anteón was to found a colony and the government was to bear most of the expense. It was not until 1683 that everything was ready. The expedition was to consist of three ships and about a hundred men, including three Jesuits. One of the Jesuits was Eusebio Francisco Quino, whose lifelong interest in the Californias was aroused as a result of this expedition. Starting in January 1683, Atondo spent two months without being able to cross the Gulf to the peninsula. Making a fresh attempt, he got over in four days and reached La Paz on the 1st of April. The natives were not as well-disposed as in other years. The selfishness and cruelty of the pearl fishers that alienated them. At length some of them were won over through liberal gifts of food, though certain tribes, notably the Guayacuri, remained hostile and it proved necessary to kill a number of them in battle. But the experience of Cortes, Viscayino, and Ortego was soon repeated. Supplies got scarce, and on July 14th La Paz was abandoned. The expedition returned to Sinaloa. Atondo was soon back in the peninsula, however. In October 1683 he founded another colony at a site which he named Sombruno, about 50 miles north of La Paz on the Bay of San Juan. The attempt was indeed an earnest one. No such careful preparations to ensure permanence had ever been made, at least not since the time of Cortes, and the greatest success thus far experienced was attained. Not only were there settlers and a stock of provisions, but also certain other elements, without which a colony that would endure was impossible. Atondo had brought over some domestic animals, goats, horses, and mules, and a beginning was made in the cultivation of the soil. The natives were friendly, and the religious proceeded to ply them with Christian doctrine to the accompaniment of Pozoli, or Forage, a mission was established to which the Indians submitted. Occasionally they would desert, following punishments inflicted upon some of their number, but as bankrupt puts it, they always returned to prayers and Pozoli. Typical of frontier settlements, too, were the quarrels of the Jesuits and Atondo over their relative authority. For two years the little colony held up its head. During this time Atondo made explorations into the interior and found the land rough and sterile. He reported that there were no mines, the water was poor, the climate was unhelpful, and the natives wretched, though peaceful. Once he sent a ship north to look for a better site, while he himself took another vessel and went to look for pearls, but neither voyage was a success. The matter was now put before the viceroy whether the colony should not be abandoned. He replied that the San Bruno settlement should be retained, if possible, until a better site was found. Provisions failed, however, and late in 1685 the whole force crossed over to Sinaloa. A familiar turn was given to this unfortunate ending at the expedition when news came that the Pichelengües were once more threatening. Atondo went to sea and warned the galleon, returning to Acapulco in December 1685. The government had expended 225,400 pesos on the Atondo expedition, which was looked upon in that day as an enormous sum, especially in view of the depleted state of the Royal Treasury. It was resolved to go ahead with the project, however. At about this time, in 1685 or 1686, probably the latter, Lucenia asked for a right to renew the attempt which he had made nearly twenty years before, but the government supported Atondo, who wished to try it again. An order for the payment of 30,000 pesos to Atondo was given, but an Indian revolt in Nueva Vizcaya caused a diversion of the funds and Atondo did not get another opportunity. The closing years of the century were not a propitious time for further governmental expenditures. Spain and Europe was then engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a powerful Louis XIV to France and could not afford such an expensive luxury as an attempt to settle the Californias. It was perhaps on this account that she consented to one more experiment of the now discredited private initiative method of occupation. In 1694, a certain Francisco de Itamarra, a former companion of Atondo, made a voyage at his own expense and paid a visit to San Bruno. The natives had not forgotten the taste of Pazole and were clamorous for conversion. It can hardly have occasioned surprise that Itamarra accomplished nothing, for it was now recognized that the founding of settlements would require such a heavy and financially improfitable outlay that it would inevitably be a state undertaking unless some hitherto untried method should be employed. Meanwhile, it is probable that, as indeed throughout the seventeenth century, the unrecorded, or at least as yet unknown, voyages of unlicensed pearl-fishers went on. Private gain and effective conquest of the Californias were, in the face of the extraordinary difficulties, altogether incompatible. The activities of Spain with respect to the Californias in the seventeenth century ought to be made the subject of a number of doctoral theses, for unpublished materials and great quantity are available and the theme is worthy of treatment. Among the more obvious topics are the Iturbi, Ortega, Porter, and Pinadero voyages, the Carbonell case, and the Atondo expedition to say nothing of pichilinguis, unlicensed pearl-fishers, and institutional subjects. The writer's catalogue, though it does not pretend to be exhaustive for the seventeenth century, contains indications, nevertheless, of an enormous quantity of hitherto unused materials. Particularly is this true of the great bound files of papers known as testimonials, which are so closely written that each of their pages is at least the equivalent of an average size page of print. The file of papers mentioned in this chapter, headed by the decree of 1628, and containing fifteen memorials, is one such testimonial. This, however, though it is 157 pages long, is one of the smaller testimonials. Among the others are the following, 1617, about the operations of the Cardona Company, sixty-one pages, 1633 and 1636, concerning Ortega's discoveries, 271 and 310 pages respectively. 1636 and 1637, three testimonials about the Carbonell case of 454 and 735 pages. 1665, 1666, and 1674 to 1676, with reference to Pinadero of 1320 and 79 pages. In other legajos of the Arquío General de Indias, there are vast quantities of materials on autondo, though not indicated in the catalogue. In addition, there are a number of separate memorials and royal decrees manifesting the Spanish interest in the Californias in the seventeenth century, many of which are listed in the catalogue. Chapter 14. The Jesuits in Baja California, 1697 to 1768. The occupation of either of the Californias by the sea-root, rather than by following the line of overland progress to the junction of the hills, is one of the most important of the Californias by the sea-root, rather than by following the line of overland progress to the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, thence branching out southward to the peninsula and northwestward to Monterey, represented a departure from the normal course, necessitating extraordinary efforts for a successful achievement. Yet both regions were settled and maintained as an overseas venture, and one of them, Baja California, served in some degree as a preliminary base for the acquisition of the other. Credit for the occupation of Baja California belongs jointly to the Jesuits and the Spanish government, which cooperated to bring it about and especially to maintain the initial gains made at their own expanse by the Jesuits. The Jesuits, however, are entitled to principal recognition as the active agents of the Crown, who succeeded in an enterprise which for nearly two centuries had had an almost unbroken record of failure. The disappointment of the government over the outcome of the Autondo Colony in 1685 disposed it for the moment against incurring further expanse in the Californias, but it was almost immediately reminded of the desirability of Spanish occupation by the appearance of the Pichalingues. In this case, the deep-voiced foreigners were English Rebooters under Swan and Townley, who came up the coast in 1685 to 1686 in search of the Manila Galleon. Swan tried to reach Cape San Lucas, but failed on account of the age-long difficulty of the contrary winds. He therefore turned out and made for the East Indies. The Galleon was not taken, but the government was again roused to action. It was believed, however, that a new method of conquest should be tried, and therefore in 1686 an offer of 40,000 pesos a year was made to the Jesuits to undertake it. Since the conversion of the Indians, rather than wealth and pearls or the development of rich lands was their primary aim, it was hoped that they might succeed where others had not been able to do so. The royal government might indeed have commanded the Jesuits to do this work, but in the nature of things it was essential to have their free consent. Thus, when the Jesuits declined on grounds of their wretchedness of the land and the small number of Indians, the government did not press the matter. The suggestion was soon to bear fruit, however. It was after the Jesuit refusal that the government made the already mentioned plan to finance Atondo again, a project which came to not. The revival of the idea of a Jesuit conquest was due to two religious of that order, Fathers Eusebio Francisco Quino and Juan Maria Salvatiera. As a member of the Atondo expedition, Father Quino had developed an enthusiasm for Jesuit penetration into the California's. This became one of the abiding aims of his life. Upon his return from the San Bruno colony, he had been sent to Sonora, where, in 1687, he had crossed the Altar River to found the mission at Dolores in Primaria, Alta. It was there that he met Salvatiera, who had been sent out by the Jesuit order as a visetator or inspector of the missions in that region. Quino imbued Salvatiera with his own enthusiasm, and the latter put himself at the head of a movement for a Jesuit occupation of Baja California. The time was unusually unpropitious, for Spain was then prostrate before France in a great war which was not yet finished but was virtually decided. Not only the government, but also the higher Jesuit officials opposed the plan, but in 1696 help came from the fountainhead of Jesuit power. In that year, Father Santaela, general of the order, was in Mexico City. He favored the project. It was therefore not hard to procure a license from the government, which had so long desired the achievement of this very aim, but the proviso was attached to its consent that the Jesuits must find the funds. Early in 1697, Salvatiera was empowered to raise them, if he could, by private subscription. Salvatiera was assisted in his project by Father Juan de Ugarte, a member of the Jesuit College of Mexico City, and it was this individual who now began his important services on behalf of the Californians by suggesting the establishment of the pious fund for the Californians. This institution, described hereafter in this chapter, provided for the collection of funds from pious individuals and for their employment in the founding and maintenance of missions. The royal license to the Jesuits dated February 5, 1697, called for the occupation of the Californians by the Jesuits at their own expense, assisted by the pious fund. The most striking feature of the contract was the provision that the entire enterprise was to be under Jesuit control. Not only were they to have charge of spiritual interests, but they were also to hire and command the soldiers and such other officials or helpers as they might need. This was something new in California history, though it had been tried elsewhere in Spanish dominions, notably in Paraguay, with success. The one check on Jesuit authority was the requirement that the conquest should be made in the name of the king and subject to the orders of the viceroy or other higher representatives of the crown. Salvatierra met with many discouragements in getting his expedition underway. He found that insufficient provisions had been supplied. Then, Fathers Quino and Piccolo, whom he had intended to take with him, did not appear at the rendezvous. Quino was detained permanently in Primeria Alta, but Piccolo eventually joined Salvatierra, though not until after the latter had reached Baja California. Though Fathers were not in such a state as he could have wished, Salvatierra resolved to go anyway, so he gathered together his army of six men and started. The voyage was made in too small a craft which endeavored to cross from the Sinaloa coast to the peninsula. Salvatierra's boat got across the gulf in a single day, sailing on October 10, 1697 and arriving on the 11th. The other boat was caught in a storm and did not reach its destination until November 15, over a month later. On October 18, after a week's search, Salvatierra picked out a sight about a third of the way up the peninsula which Captain Romero had said he had visited two years before, on a voyage of which otherwise there is no record, unless Romero was in fact referring to the Itamara voyage of 1694. At this place, to which the name Loretto was given, was now established the first permanent European settlement of the Californias. A fort was constructed with the provisions as all works and a tiny swivel gun was mounted. There were many natives in the vicinity and they helped in the work of preparing the camp, receiving gifts of porridge and maize. Salvatierra was a very busy man in the early days of the colony. He was priest, officer, sentry, governor of the province and cook for the army rolled into one. Yet he found time to study the native tongue and to conduct religious services from the first. The Indians were invited to attend and they were given an extra allotment of porridge when they did. Trouble soon developed however on the part of the unconverted. They wanted as much porridge as the converts received and furthermore began to steal things about the camp. Their dissatisfaction at length reached such proportions that on the 1st of November they issued demands for porridge. For days the Spaniards thought it best to accede to them as the 2nd ship had not arrived and their forces were hopelessly insufficient. Meanwhile they became exhausted with watching for it was evident that the Indians, emboldened by their success, planned to rush the camp. At last on November 12th the attack came. The Spaniards felt that it was time to use the swivel gun. They did so and one famous shot was fired but the result was very different from what they could have hoped. The gun burst and killed two Spaniards while the Indians received no harm. Seeing what had taken place the Indians charged. All seemed over now but the Spaniards prepared to sell their lives dearly. They fired their muskets point blank at the Indians, several of whom were killed. Thereupon a new light dawned on the Indians and they came to a sudden simultaneous decision to run the other way. The battle was over. The next day the Indians sued for peace. Two days later on the 15th, the 2nd boat, the one which had left Sinaloa at the same time as Salvatieres, reached Loretto and on the 23rd the 1st boat, which had been sent back to New Spain, came in bringing Father Pecolon. Success now seemed likely. All the Indians appeared to want conversion and manifestly desired porridge, but Salvatieres insisted upon more instruction and greater proofs of their sincerity. The conquerors were now 18 in number, two religious, seven soldiers, five sailors, and four Christian Indians from the mainland, a force that was large enough to cope with the Indians of the neighborhood numerous as they were. Salvatieres' directorship, or presidency of the Baja California missions, carrying with it the government of the province, lasted until his death in 1717. The events of these 20 years are typical of frontier life and are representative also of the course of affairs in the later period of Jesuit rule. The first five years were a particularly crucial period for the entire weight of responsibility fell upon Salvatieres and co-workers without more aid from the king than the royal good will. The pious fund did especially effective service in these years, with the result that the number of soldiers was increased, supplies made adequate and regular in shipment, and more buildings erected. In 1699 the mission of San Javier was founded south of Loretto at a fertile site and Father Pecolon went there as missionary. In the early years the Indians were occasionally hostile, being stirred to resistance by their native priests or medicine men whose profession was of course frowned on by the Jesuits. But the fiery captain Tortolaro proved himself to be a Californian miles stannish and was able to keep the Indians in hand. They displayed no enthusiasm for conversion however. On Palm Sunday of 1698 Salvatieres planned to represent a dinner of twelve apostles, with Indians filling in the role of the apostles, but only two Indians put in an appearance. There were also the inevitable quarrels of religious military especially between Salvatieres and Tortolaro's successor Mendoza, though in this case the Jesuits clearly had the authority. Mendoza wanted to employ more summary methods against the Indians and also to use the soldiers in fishing for pearls. Despite the risk involved, Salvatieres did not hesitate to settle the matter by discharging eighteen of his thirty soldiers. The most serious difficulty arose over the inadequacy of the pious fund for the needs of the colony, and furthermore the amount of the gifts to the funds fell away due to the inimical reports of the disappointed soldiery and the pearlfishers. It is to be noted that obscure seekers of pearls were a constant factor in the history of the province. The Jesuits complained against them because they forced the Indians to die for pearls and consequently the religious would not sell them provisions. The government however encouraged the pearlfishers and by a degree of 1703 waived the old idea of the monopoly. The effective occupation of the California's by whatever means that might have been brought about was what the government wanted. When it became evident that the Jesuits could not sustain themselves without royal aid, the king and his counselors came to the rescue. Philip V himself attended a session of the Council of the Indies in 1702 at which it was decided to grant a subsidy of six thousand pesos a year and two additional missionaries naturally at royal expense. He ordered an additional seven thousand pesos, thirty soldiers and religious paraphernalia were added by the king and in later years the annual royal subsidy reached as high as thirty thousand pesos thus providing for the soldiers sailors and missionaries. With this aid the Pius Fund was able to furnish the rest. It is to be noted that there was almost no financial return on the royal investment and that expensive wars in Europe were all along taxing the treasury to its uttermost. Yet the Spanish government though occasionally behind hand in its payments made what was for the times a generous allowance to maintain and extend the conquests in the California's primarily because of their strategic importance with reference to the rich kingdom of New Spain. Another important factor of a permanent variety was the difficulty of communications with the mainland. Many instances of delays and wreck occasioned by the storms of the Gulf of California have already been noted. In Salvatiera's time about one ship a year was lost by wreck. Salvatiera became convinced that it would be much better to develop a supply route by way of Sonora and in 1701 visited Quino in Primaria Alta to discuss the matter. As a result plans were made for joint expeditions from Sonora, Baja California to see whether there were a practicable trail. It was impossible to do this by boat as the number of wrecks left the Jesuits with an insufficient fleet of vessels and the contrary winds were too difficult a factor to overcome readily. Explorations were made by land to the end of Jesuit rule but never quite reached the Colorado from the side of Baja California or the settled part of the peninsula from the side of Sonora. It is important however that the need for such a route was recognized. Baja California was in fact at the extremity of an overland advance occupied as a result of special circumstances before the intervening spaces. The greatest of the Baja California Jesuits undoubtedly was Father Salvatiera but second only to him stood Father Juan de Ugarte. It was Ugarte who organized the work of the Pius Fund but he was not content with the task of administering that institution. He wanted to be an active toiler in the field so in 1701 he came to Loretto. Father Piccolo had just been driven away from San Javier by the Indians but Ugarte went there to restore the mission. Moreover relying on his great strength for he was a giant and stature he sent back the soldiers who had gone there with him. He reestablished the mission and as the site was fertile put the Indians to work at agriculture. The experiment which had not previously been tried was a success and in course of time San Javier was able to produce a surplus for use at the other missions. Ugarte was a man who radiated enthusiasm and he was able to succeed where others would have failed. Patient as a rule he could also exhibit a picturesque wrath. On one occasion he took an Indian by the hair and swung him around his head and on another seized by the hair two Indians who were fighting and dashed them to the ground. His bountiful courage was particularly useful in 1701 the year of his arrival. Provisions got solo that even Salvatierra was ready to abandon the province. Ugarte opposed and said that he would stay whatever the others might do. All stayed therefore. Very soon they were reduced to eating roots but a ship came in time to save them. Naturally upon the death of Salvatierra Ugarte was appointed to succeed him and he ruled until 1730 when he died at the age of seventy years. His term of office was one of great munificence to the Pius Fund with the result that more missions were founded and the establishments generally placed on a secure basis. Ugarte resolved to solve the riddle of the gulf if gulf it were. First it was necessary to build a ship for those which applied between the mainland and Loreto had proved unequal to the northward voyage. Scouring the land he found a grove of timber in an almost inaccessible ravine. The builder said that it was not suitable for a ship but Ugarte cut it anyway and hauled it for a hundred miles over mountain ranges to a mission on the coast. The ship was built and named appropriately the Triunfo de la Cruz or Triumph of the Cross. In this boat the venerable rector then sixty-one years of age made a voyage up the gulf in 1721 taking an Englishman a certain William Stafford called Guillermo Esterfort in the Spanish as a pilot. Ugarte proved that the sheet of water upon which he sailed was a gulf. Yet so persistent were the old ideas that the voyage had to be repeated by Father Consag in 1746. Then at length the legend of California's insularity was overthrown forever. A serious Indian revolt broke out in 1734. The Indians of the Cape San Lucas region had always been unruly and particularly objected to the Jesuit efforts to deprive them of their institution of polygamy. There were only three Jesuits and six soldiers in the south when the rebellion began and two of the former and four of the latter together with many Indian converts were killed. In 1735 when a boat from the Manila Gallean put in at Cape San Lucas 13 Spaniards were massacred. The news of these events spread through the peninsula and the Indians of the north seemed on the point of arising where for all missions save that of Loretto were temporarily abandoned in 1735. Sixty hard-fighting Yak Indians were brought over from Sonora and they saved the situation for a time. Later in the year Governor Huidobro of Sonora came to the peninsula and decisively defeated the Indians of the south. As a result the revolt in the north died before it had fairly broken out and that of the south lost force. Though the Indians of that quarter continued to drive off cattle and to commit other depredations for some ten years more abandonment of the province had been averted however. In 1768 the Jesuits were deprived of their position in the peninsula. Before relating how this came about it is well at this point to summarize their achievements in Baja California. As a recent work puts it quote, during their seventy years sojourn in the lower Baja California the Jesuits had charted the east coast and explored the east and west coasts of the peninsula and the islands adjacent there too. They had explored the interior to the thirty-first parallel of north latitude about a hundred miles south of the present international boundary in a manner that has never been excelled. They had brought about the institution of the Pius fund. They had founded twenty-three including the chapel of Jesus de Monte, mission establishments of which fourteen had proven successful. Footnote. Two of the fourteen were abandoned by the successors of the Jesuits in footnote. They had erected structures of stone and beautified them. They had formulated a system of mission life never thereafter surpassed. They had not only instructed the Indians in religious matters but had taught them many useful arts. They had made a network of open trails connecting the missions with each other and with Loretto. They had taken scientific and geographical notes concerning the country and prepared ethnological reports on the native races. They had cultivated and planted the arable lands and inaugurated a system of irrigation. Considering the abundance of level land, the water, and tens of thousands of Indians about them, the establishment by the Franciscans at a later time of twenty-one missions in Upper or Alca California during the fifty-four years preceding the passage of the Secularization Act is no circumstance to the peninsular work of the Jesuits. Finally, the Jesuits of California were men of high education, many of them of gentle birth, of their labors in the peninsula. It has been said with truth that, remote as was the land and small the nation, there are few chapters in the history of the world on which the mind can turn with so sincere an admiration. End quote. Footnote. North. Arthur Walbridge, the mother of California, San Francisco in New York, 1908. End footnote. Aside from the mission Presidio at Loretto and the other missions, there were a few settlements in Baja California where Spaniards lived. The Jesuits always resisted the entry of any whites other than themselves and their mission guards. They even opposed, with success, several royal projects for the founding of Presidios on the west coast. Their idea here, as in Paraguay, was that the diversion and civilization of the native was the prime reason for their presence and that these aims would best be attained if the selfish interests of white settlers were not allowed to complicate the situation. There was a sprinkling of miners, however, in the south and, as already noted, the pearl fishers continued to visit the coasts. It remains to deal in somewhat more detail with the Pius Fund. The Pius Fund of the Californias, founded by Salvatiera Anugarte in 1697, came to be, eventually, one of the principal supports of the missions of both Baja and Alta California. The royal treasury never provided enough for the needs of the missions, which could not have been sustained without a much larger governmental grant if it had not been for the assistance of the Pius Fund. For the first few years, indeed, the Pius Fund was the sole reliance of the Jesuits. At the outset, the method of handling was for the donors to pay over the interest merely on sums that they had given but retained in their possession. Thus, a grant of 10,000 pesos, which was usually regarded as the capital required for the support of one mission, entailed payment of 500 pesos per year as interest to the Jesuit administrator in Mexico City. One donor went bankrupt, however, and from the year 1716, the funds were paid over in entirety and reinvested, usually in ranches. The greatest benefactor was the Marqués de Villapuente. In addition to providing sums for the founding of a number of missions, he gave several hundred thousand acres of land in Tamulipas with all the flocks and buildings upon them. A certain Paola de Arguellis gave nearly 200,000 pesos and a member of the great Borja, or Borja family, Maria de Borja Duquesa de Gandia gave 62,000. The fund reached a total of from 500,000 to 1 million pesos and produced at a rate of about 5%. A Jesuit procurator managed the estates and bought and shipped goods to the missionaries in the peninsula. After the expulsion of the Jesuits had been decided upon in 1767, the Pius Fund was taken over by the government, but was managed as a separate financial institution with a view to carrying out the objects of the original donors. It was, henceforth, applied to both California's. Occasionally, too, funds were devoted to other than purely religious objects, as in the case of the expeditions of 1769 and 1775-76 to Altacalifornia, both of which were provided for, in part, out of the Pius Fund. In 1836, the Mexican government, which had succeeded Spain in exercise of sovereignty over the California's, passed a law that the fund should be applied toward the expenses of a bishopric of the California's, with papal assent it was proposed to establish. Thus, the religious were deprived of any further utilization of the fund. In 1842, the Mexican government re-assumed control, but announced that it would employ the proceeds to promote the civilization and conversion of the savages. Later in the same year, the separate estates of the Pius Fund were sold and the monies obtained were incorporated in the Mexican treasury, but the government made formal acknowledgement of an indebtedness for religious objects in the California's to the extent of 6% a year on the amount it had received. When the United States took over Altacalifornia in 1848, Mexico ceased to make further payments on behalf of that territory and for many years they lapsed. In 1868 a commission met to adjust claims between the United States and Mexico, and while it was still in session the Catholic authorities of California put in a claim in 1870 for a portion of the income of the Pius Fund, so much as would normally have been Altacalifornia share. The United States entered the claim, but as no agreement with Mexico could be reached the matter was submitted to an umpire in the person of Sir Edward Thornton. This gentleman rendered a decision in 1875 calling for payment by Mexico of 6% annually on one half the value of the fund on the theory that Alca and Baja California were equally entitled. His decision covered the 21 year period from 1848 to 1869 and required payment by Mexico of 904,070.99 or 43,050.99 a year. Mexico paid but announced that any future claim for arrears would be inadmissible, a contention with which the United States did not agree. In 1891 the United States put in a claim for the arrears since 1869 but Mexico declined to honor the claim. In 1902 however the two countries consented to a submission of the case to the arbitral Tribunal of the Hague the first case ever acted upon by that body. The court gave a unanimous decision that Mexico should pay the accrued interest which by that time amounted to $1,420,682.67 and also that Mexico should forever pay over the sum of $43,050.99 each year on the 2nd of February. The money is payable to the United States which of course recognizes its obligations to give the full amount to the Catholic Church in California. Mexico has again fallen in arrears and the matter of the Pius Fund has taken its place as one of the perennial unpaid claims of this country against Mexico. As for the share due Baja California Mexico has long since ceased to make payments. Thus strangely does the course of history take its way. Who could have foreseen such a varied career for that heritage from the missionary zeal of Salvatiera and Ugarte the Pius Fund of the California's. In 1767 the Spanish government issued a decree expelling the Jesuits from all their dominions. The causes for this action had scarcely anything to do with the Jesuits in Baja California though there as elsewhere charges were filed against them. It was merely part of a worldwide movement in Catholic countries against the Jesuits growing largely out of the fear that the Jesuits were planning a great revolution against the absolute monarchs of Europe. Portugal and France had already expelled the Jesuits and Naples followed the lead of these countries in Spain in 1767. Indeed the Pope was induced to suppress the Jesuit order in 1773 though it was later restored. It is therefore futile to go into the question of the justice of this decision as affecting the Jesuits of Baja California as the complaints of their detractors which were in great part faults or very greatly exaggerated had no real bearing on the case. In Baja California as in all other Spanish domains great secrecy was observed in carrying out the decree and no hint of what was coming was given. In September 1767 Captain Gaspar de Portola a native of Catalonia arrived in the province with the commission as governor. He called the Jesuits together and on February 3rd 1768 they were sent out of the peninsula. The Jesuits seemed to have made great manifestations of grief and will they might for their future in other hands was to be less happy than it had been under Salvatierra and his successors. The Franciscans of the College of San Fernando in Mexico City had been offered the California field in June 1767 and had accepted but it was not until April 1768 that they finally arrived in the peninsula. Footnote the College of San Fernando was not a college as that word is ordinarily understood in this country. It was one of several Franciscan institutions such as the colleges of Kateretaro, Jalisco and Zacatecas which served primarily as an administrative center for missionary work and as a home for missionaries without employment the College of San Fernando which was destined to supply all missionaries of Alta California in the Spanish era and most of those in the Mexican was founded in 1734 in footnote. Meanwhile the missions had been turned over to military commissioners who gave very little thought to the Indians and very much to a search for the vast treasure that the Jesuits were reputed to have accumulated. As a result the missions were nearly ruined and the Indians were left in sad straits while little or no treasure was found. At the head of the Franciscans who arrived in the spring of 1768 was Juniper O'Sara the appointee of the college as president of the missions then in his 55th year. The conditions under which he took up his presidency were very different from those of the Jesuit era. Not only was the government of the province forever removed from mission control but also the temporalities of the missions that is the flocks, crops and economic resources in general were left in the hands of the military commissioners. Only the church properties and spiritual authority were to be in charge of the Franciscans. The military man had proved to be self-seeking or else incompetent so that the missions seemed doomed to fail. Not having food or clothing to give the Indians the missionaries could not attract the unconverted or even hold the former protégés of the Jesuits. Later in 1768 José de Galvez the citador or royal inspector of all new Spain arrived in the peninsula and one of his first reforms was to give back the temporalities to missionary control. With this the new regime in the Californians, that of the typical frontier province, may fairly be said to have been installed.