Alta California

Alta California Territorio de Alta California Nueva California
—  Territory  —
Flag
Country	Mexico
Capital	Monterey, California
Division of the Californias	1804
Mexican Independence	1821
Government
- First Spanish Governor	José Joaquín de Arrillaga (1804–1814)
- Last Spanish Governor	Pablo Vicente de Solá (1815–1822)
- First Mexican Governor	Luís Antonio Argüello (1822–1825)
- Last Mexican Governor	Pío de Jesus Pico IV (1845–1846)
Population (1847)
- Total	~85,000

Alta California (Upper California) was formed when Spain separated the Dominican Missions on the Baja California peninsula lower Las Californias from the Franciscan Missions on mainland upper Las Californias preceding the 1769 founding of their first Alta California mission in San Diego. Separate administrations were created in 1804 when Las Californias (the Province of the Californias), then a part of the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, was divided in two, along a line separating the Franciscan missions in the north from the Dominican missions in the south. The southern part became the territory of Baja California ("Lower California"), also referred to at times as Vieja California ("Old California"). The northern part became Alta California, also alternatively called Nueva California ("New California").

The new territory included land that today forms the modern American states of California and Nevada. Because the eastern boundaries of the province were not defined, many maps from the period show its borders including parts of today's Arizona, Utah, northern New Mexico, western Colorado, and southwestern Wyoming. The province would have bordered on the east with the Spanish, later Mexican, settlements in Arizona and the Province, later Territory, of Nuevo México.^[1]

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 upon conclusion of the decade-long Mexican War of Independence. This region was automatically included in the short-lived First Mexican Empire. With the establishment of a republican United Mexican States in 1823, Alta California, like many northern territories, was not recognized as one of the constituent states because of its small population. (The 1824 Constitution refers to Alta California as a "territory"). After Juan Bautista Alvarado's revolt in 1836, the territory was transformed into a department, which granted it more autonomy.

Mexico lost the territory two decades later as a result of the Mexican-American War. The last Mexican Governor of California was Pío Pico, who served until 1846. The capital of Alta California was Monterey.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, there was a San Francisco-based newspaper called The Daily Alta California (or The Alta Californian). Mark Twain's first widely successful book, The Innocents Abroad, was an edited collection of letters written for this publication.

Under Spanish rule

Map of Mexico. S. Augustus Mitchell, Philadelphia, 1847. New California is depicted with a north-eastern border at the meridian leading north of the Rio Grande headwaters.

Under Spanish rule, all lands in California were claimed by the king of Spain, who granted them to the Roman Catholic Church and to individuals. Specifically, the Spanish Crown funded the construction and subsidized the operation of the Franciscan missions to relocate, convert, and use the labor of the Native American people, the presidios to house Spanish soldiers who would enforce their rule, and Spanish settlements in pueblos and ranchos. The presidios and missions were the first sites chosen and developed.

By law, the mission land and property was to pass to the resident Native Americans of California after a period of about ten years, when the natives would become Spanish citizens. In the interim period, the Franciscans were to act as mission administrators who held the land in trust for the Native residents. The Franciscans, however, prolonged this power arrangement and ran the missions for more than 60 years, and it never happened.^[2][3]

When the Spanish began to send settlers to Alta California, a gray area began to grow over the future (and boundaries) of the mission properties. Property disputes arose over the missions' (and adjacent) lands, between the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church, and also between the Natives and the Spanish settlers: There were heated debates between the Spanish state and ecclesiastical bureaucracies over the government authority of the missions.^[4] Setting an interesting precedent, the Franciscan priests of Mission Santa Clara de Asís sent a petition to the governor in 1782, claiming the "Mission's Indians" owned both land and cattle, and represented the natives in a petition against the Spanish settlers of the nearby Pueblo of San José.^[5] The fathers mentioned the "Indians' crops" were being damaged by the San Jose settlers' livestock, and also mentioned settlers "getting mixed up with the livestock belonging to the Indians from the mission." They also stated the Mission Indians had property and the rights to defend it.^[6]

Under Spanish rule, southern California and the ranchos prospered and grew with the missions. Californio cattle ranchers and the local people evolved into a different society from the northern American immigrant settlers of the fur-trapping and mining economy that developed in the Sacramento River valley. This dichotomy of evolution was reflected during the Mexican-American War where the American immigrants of the north coveted the developed property, ranch lands, and personal riches of the more prosperous southern Alta California Californios and their vast ranchos.

Ranchos

The Spanish, and later the Mexican governments, encouraged the establishment of large land grants, which were turned into ranchos, devoted to the raising of cattle and sheep. Hides (at roughly $1 each) and tallow (used to make candles as well as soaps) from the livestock were the primary exports of California until the mid-19th century. The owners of these ranchos styled themselves after the landed gentry in Spain. The construction, ranching, and domestic workers included many. They often learned to speak Spanish, ride horses, and unfortunately a large percentage of the population of Native Californians died from the Indian Reductions and European diseases.

Mexican-American War

Upon the declaration of war by the United States Congress—partly in response to events in Texas after its annexation by the United States, and partly in response to calls from northern Alta California's American residents who were striving for independence from Mexico—United States Army and Navy forces entered into the Mexican territory and overpowered their remaining military units.

In southern California, the Californios formed a defensive army and were victorious after the Siege of Los Angeles, the Battle of San Pasqual, and the Battle of Domínguez Rancho; but the subsequent encounters at the Battle of Río San Gabriel and the Battle of La Mesa were indecisive. They formally surrendered with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on 13 January 1847. California was ceded to the United States in 1848 by the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Spanish Governors

• 1804 - 25 July 1814 José Joaquín de Arrillaga
• 25 July 1814 – 15 August 1815 José Darío Argüello (acting)
• 15 August 1815 – 11 April 1822 Pablo Vicente de Solá
• For Mexican governors see List of pre-statehood governors of California

Flags

	Spanish Empire, first by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542, upon entering the bay of San Diego, then sailing north to the Russian River. Claim validated and area mapped in 1602 during the sea voyage of the San Agustín under Sebastián Vizcaíno.
	St. George Cross of England, June 1579, voyage of the Golden Hind under Captain Francis Drake at Bodega Bay, Tomales Bay, Drakes Bay or Bolinas Bay (exact location disputed).[7][8][9]
	October 1775, the Sonora at Bodega Bay, under Lt. Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra until 1821, when New Spain gained independence from the Spanish Empire.
	Russian-American Company, by Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, the founder of Fort Ross and, from 1812 to 1821, its colonial administrator. Note: There is an overlap of rule with the Mexican Empire (second item below), until the Russians sold Fort Ross in 1841 to John Sutter, and subsequently left the area in 1842.
	Argentina, by Hippolyte de Bouchard, a French corsair who occupied Monterey from November 24 to November 29, 1818, raising the Argentine flag there and claiming Alta California for that country.
	First Mexican Empire, August 24, 1821, Mexico under Emperor Agustín de Iturbide (October 1822, probable time new flag raised in California) until 1823.
	United Mexican States, 1823, until January 13, 1847 at Los Angeles.
	Bear Flag of the California Republic, June 14, 1846, at Sonoma until July 9, 1846.
	United States of America, 9 July 1846; see History of California.

In popular culture

• In the 1998 film, The Mask of Zorro, fictional former Governor Don Rafael Montero plans to purchase the area from Mexico to set up an independent republic, roughly corresponding to historical Alta California.
• The Carl Barks comic book Donald Duck in Old California! provided a glimpse into the lives of the Californios.

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Beebe, Rose Marie (2001). Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535–1846. Berkeley: Heyday Books. ISBN 1-890771-48-1.
• Fink, Augusta (1972). Monterey, The Presence of the Past. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0877010723.
• Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1910. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. ISBN 0-87919-132-5

External links

• Alta California grants in UC Library System Calisphere
• Mexican Land Grants of Santa Clara County at the UC Berkeley Library