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Gaspar de Portolà i Rovira (1716 – 1784) was a soldier, governor of Baja and Alta California (1767–1770), explorer and founder of San Diego and Monterey. He was born in Os de Balaguer, province of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, of Catalan nobility. Don Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal. He was commissioned ensign in 1734, and lieutenant in 1743, and died in Spain in 1784.
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By 1767, Jesuit missionaries on the peninsula of Baja California had established approximately twenty-three missions over a period of seventy-two years. Rumors were circulating that the Jesuits had amassed a fortune and were becoming very powerful. As part of the nearly global suppression of the Jesuits, King Carlos III ordered the Jesuits expelled at gunpoint and deported back to Spain. Following the command of the king, the viceroy of New Spain ordered the arrest and deportation of all Jesuits in missions and Don Gaspar de Portolà was charged with the expulsion of the Jesuits from Baja. The missions were turned over to the Franciscans, and later to the Dominicans.
Spain was driven to establish missions and other outposts in Alta California out of fear that the territory would be claimed by either the English, who not only had colonies on the East Coast of the continent, but had recently conquered Canada, or the Russians whose fur hunters were pressing down from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest's lower reaches. Dispatches of January 23, 1768, exchanged between King Carlos and the viceroy, set the wheels in motion to extend Spain's control up the Pacific Coast and establish colonies and missions at San Diego Bay and Monterey Bay, which had been discovered and described in reports by earlier explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, who had mapped the California coastline as far north as Monterey in 1602. In May, the Spanish Visitor General, José de Gálvez, organized a four part expedition, two by sea and two by land, and Portolà volunteered to command the expedition.
All four detachments were to meet at the site of San Diego Bay. The first ship, the San Carlos, sailed from La Paz on January 10, 1769, and the San Antonio sailed on February 15. The first land party, led by Fernando Rivera y Moncada, left from the Mission San Fernando Velicata on March 24. With Rivera was Father Juan Crespi, famed diarist of the entire expedition. The expedition led by Portolà, which included Father Junípero Serra, the President of the Missions, along with a combination of missionaries, settlers, and leather-jacket soldiers, including José Raimundo Carrillo, left Velicata on May 15.
Rivera reached the site of present day San Diego in May, established a camp in the area that is now Old Town and awaited the arrival of the others. Because of an error by Vizcaíno in determining the latitude of the San Diego Harbor one hundred and sixty-seven years earlier, the ships passed by it and landed first near present day Los Angeles before finding their way back. The San Antonio arrived on April 11 and the San Carlos, the first ship to leave La Paz, having met with fierce winds and storms on the journey, arrived on April 29. A third vessel was to follow with supplies, but it was probably lost at sea. The land expedition of Portolà arrived on June 29. After their arduous journeys, most of the men aboard ship were ill, chiefly from scurvy, and many had died. Out of a total of two hundred and nineteen men who left Baja California, little more than a hundred now survived.
Eager to press on to Monterey Bay, Portolà and his expedition, consisting of Father Juan Crespi, sixty-three leather-jacket soldiers and a hundred mules loaded down with provisions, headed north on July 14, 1769. Marching two to four leagues a day, they reached the site of present day Los Angeles on August 2. The following day, they marched out the Indian trail that would one day become Wilshire Boulevard to the present site of Santa Monica. Winding around to the area of later Saugus, now part of Santa Clarita, they reached the area to become Santa Barbara on August 19, and the present day San Simeon area on September 13. On October 1, Portolà's party emerged from the Santa Lucia Mountains and reached the mouth of the Salinas River.
After a march of some four hundred miles from San Diego and about one thousand miles from Velicata, they had reached the bay they were seeking. But fog obscured the shoreline, making the waters of the large, open Monterey Bay look like open ocean, and they failed to discern the coastline's semi-circular shape, described by Vizcaíno as round like an "O", even though members of the party had twice marched along its beach. The difficult journey had taken six months and they believed they had missed the harbor of Monterey. Having failed to find their goal, they marched on north to further explore the region and reached the area at the north end of the bay, which Portolà named Santa Cruz on October 18. Pushing on, they reached the San Francisco Bay area on October 31, and explored and named many localities in the region south of what would eventually become known as the Golden Gate. They then marched back to San Diego, again failing to find Vizcaino's harbor on their way south. Surviving on mule meat for most of the journey, they arrived on January 24, 1770.
One of Portolà's officers, Captain Vicente Vila, convinced him that he had actually been exactly on the Bay of Monterey when he placed his second cross at what later became Pacific Grove. After replenishing supplies at San Diego, Portolà and Father Serra decided on a joint expedition by land and sea to again search for the bay and establish a colony if they were successful. The San Antonio sailed on April 16, 1770. On board were Father Serra, Miguel Costanso, military engineer and cartographer, and Don Pedro Prat, army surgeon, along with a cargo of supplies for the new mission at Monterey. On April 17, after mustering what forces he could, Portolà's land expedition, which included Lt. Pedro Fages, twelve Catalonian volunteers, seven leather-jacket soldiers, five Baja California Indians, two muleteers, and Father Crespi serving as the expedition's chaplain, again marched north.
The expedition followed the same route they had the previous winter while returning to San Diego. After thirty-six days on the road, with only two days of rest, Portolà arrived at his second cross on May 24, 1770. He then saw that on a clear day and from a certain point of view the round harbor assumed the proportions described by the earlier enthusiastic explorers. Having recognized the bay, a Mass was conducted near the oak tree that the Franciscan missionaries with Vizcaíno had worshiped under in 1603, and possession was officially taken. On June 3, 1770, they laid the beginnings of the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo and founded the Presidio of Monterey.
Governor Portolà's task was finished. He then left Captain Pedro Fages in charge, and on June 9 he sailed for San Blas, never to return to Upper California. In 1776, Portolà was appointed the governor of Puebla. After the appointment of his successor in 1784, he was advanced money for expenses and returned to Spain, were he served as commander of the Numancia cavalry dragoon regiment. The 7th February 1786 he was appointed King's Lieutenant for the strongholds and castles of Lérida. He died that same year, in October.
A 9 ft (2.7 m) statue in Pacifica, California was sculpted by the Catalan sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs and his associate, Francesc Carulla. It was given to the State of California by the Catalan government in 1988. Portola (Plumas County), Portola Valley (San Mateo County), Portola Hills Elementary School (in Portola Hills), and the Portola Neighborhood of San Francisco were named for him, as was a middle school in El Cerrito (Contra Costa County), and a middle school in Tierrasanta (San Diego County). Portola Elementary School in San Bruno, California. Whose tradition is to hike up Sweeney Ridge, where the view of the bay will be seen. Portola Middle School in Orange, California is named after Gaspar de Portola as it is close to the spot where the expedition crossed the Santa Ana River. Portola Middle School in Orange has a large 60 foot mural depicting the Portola Expedition. Portola Parkway running through Irvine and Lake Forest (though not connected as of 2008), is also named after Gaspar de Portolà. It is said Portola used the route Portola Parkway now runs on. Portola Drive, which runs parallel to and near the Monterey Bay shoreline, is the main street of the Pleasure Point area of Santa Cruz County.
In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Gaspar de Portola was named in his honor.