BECAUSE proposed occupation of the northern country was to be
spiritual as well as military—with the founding of missions and conversion of
Indians equally as important as establishment of presidios—the attempt to settle
Upper California became known as the "Sacred Expedition." Visitador general
José de Gálvez left nothing to chance in planning the details of the
enterprise. Fortunately he had sufficient control of means and methods to outfit
four divisions—two by sea and two by land—to start independently but to unite in
San Diego. The risks of total failure were thereby greatly lessened. Gálvez,
with uncanny insight, chose capable and experienced leaders destined to
contribute significantly toward the success and permanence of Upper California
settlement. All participants received individual instructions about their
projected roles.
The San Carlos and San Antonio, two small
packetboats commanded by Captains Vicente Vila and Juan Pérez of the royal navy,
were fitted out at San Blas, Mexico, for the sea-going division. These vessels,
plus a special military force of twenty-five Catalonian volunteers (Companía
Franca de Cataluña) then serving in Sonora under Lieutenant Pedro Fages, were
ordered to La Paz. The hastily constructed and still uncompleted San Carlos,
the first to set sail, reached Lower California early in December, 1768.
Partially provisioned at San Blas, she had to be unloaded, careened, finished,
and reloaded again at La Paz. Gálvez personally supervised and even lent a hand
to all operations. The ship was ready to depart on the morning of January
9,1769; Father Serra said mass and prayed for those on board—Captain Vila; first
mate Jorge Estorace; Lieutenant Fages and his Catalonian soldiers; Ensign Miguel
Costansó, cosmographer and engineer; Pedro Prat, royal surgeon; the Franciscan
Father Fernando Parrón; and a crew of thirty-one.
Gálvez saw his first California division sail from La Paz
amidst joyous blessings, and even accompanied Vila as far as Cabo San Lucas in
the supply ship La Concepción. Despite its favorable send-off, the San
Carlos ran into serious difficulties. Severe storms hampered progress, the
water casks leaked, and many of the sailors became afflicted with
scurvy. Vila's instructions were to keep out to sea until 34° and then head in
for San Diego (thought to be at 33°30' according to Vizcaíno's 1602 narrative
instead of its actual 32°40'). This added more than two hundred miles to the
distance and increased their exposure to cold weather. When the San Carlos
reached San Diego Bay on April 29, 1769, after almost four months at sea,
the stricken men had not the strength to lower a boat. They were rescued by crew
members of the San Antonio who had preceded them into port eighteen days before.
The San Antonio, under command of the Mallorcan Juan
Pérez, a former navigator on the Manila galleon route, departed from La Paz on
February 15 with Franciscan Fathers Juan Vizcaíno and Francisco Gómez, and a
crew of about thirty men. Pérez, favored by good winds, also sailed to 34° and
landed on an island in the Santa Barbara Channel to replenish his supplies. The
Spaniards obtained fresh fish and water from the friendly natives in exchange
for beads. Naming the island Santa Cruz, Pérez turned southward and anchored the
San Antonio safely in the harbor of San Diego after a voyage of
fifty-five days. The Indians of the region at first mistook the vessel for a
great whale, but soon discovering their error, regarded it as a forerunner of
wonderful things—its arrival had coincided with an eclipse of the sun and an
earthquake. Pérez was dismayed not to find the San Carlos already in port
and called for a stay of twenty days before proceeding to Monterey. The tardy
vessel arrived two days under the deadline.
Map of the Port of San Diego from the expedition
of Juan Francisco de la
Bodega y Quadra (1792) |
The men of the San Antonio built a tent on shore to
shelter the sick and dying crew of Vila's ship. Dr. Prat and the three friars
attended the scurvy-ridden soldiers and sailors as well as circumstances
permitted, but the sickness spread throughout the camp until about one-half of
the combined crews had succumbed. Neither Costansó nor Fages could carry out
their instructions for a preliminary exploration of the territory; indeed, for
two weeks they did little more than help care for the sick and bury the dead.
One other ship, the San José, sailed for San Diego on June 16, 1769, but
returned to San Blas for repairs. Departing again in May, 1770, the vessel
disappeared with all on board and no trace of its remains were ever found.
Gálvez appointed Captain Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, commandant of the
Loreto presidio, head of the first overland detachment scheduled to depart from
Santa María, the northernmost former Jesuit mission. With
twenty-five soldados de cuera (leather-jacket
soldiers) from his Loreto garrison, Rivera started from La Paz in September,
1768, on a northward mission-by-mission tour to recruit Indian auxiliaries and
gather all available livestock and provisions. Nearly four hundred animals were
assembled at Mission Santa María, but pasturage was so scarce that Rivera
transferred his camp to Velicatá, about thirty miles to the north and inland
from present-day El Rosario. The energetic captain informed Gálvez that his
departure for San Diego would be in March, 1769; the
visitador immediately ordered Franciscan Father Juan Crespi, a native of
Mallorca, to join Rivera. The expedition, which included forty-two Christian
Indians, left for Upper California on March 29, and reached San Diego after
fifty-one days and some four hundred miles of marching. Several Indians had died
and the animals were weakened by lack of water and feed; but in all, the journey
was successful. Rivera, aghast at seeing the hospital camp so near the ocean's
edge, moved the patients to a nearby hill where the presidio was later built.
Catalonian-born Gaspar de Portolá, governor of Lower
California and overall commander of the expedition, led the second overland
party. Its members also assembled at Mission Santa María while supplies were
transported inland from the Bay of San Luis Gonzaga. Portolá awaited Father
Junípero Serra, religious head of the company, who was delayed by the gathering
of church utensils and ornaments. A lame foot, injured on the road from Vera
Cruz to Mexico, also hindered the Franciscan priest's travel until, at times,
his departure with the expedition seemed doubtful to everyone but himself. Serra
finally started from La Paz at the end of March, stopping at Mission San Javier
to appoint Father Francisco Palóu president of the Lower California missions.
Despite his painful incapacity, Serra then proceeded slowly to Santa María where
he joined the worried Portolá on May 5. The entire company departed for San
Diego six days later. Upon reaching Velicatá on May 14, they remained long
enough for Serra to found Mission San Fernando on that site.
Portolá's march essentially duplicated Rivera's, but without
the burden of transporting so many domestic animals. After passing through the
broad Tia Juana River Valley, they entered San Diego on July 1,1769. Portolá and
Serra, pleased to join the others, were distressed to find the port a veritable
harbor of sickness. Upon meeting with the sea and land commanders, the governor
decided to send the San Antonio, with Juan Pérez and the remaining eight
of his original twenty-eight man crew, back to La Paz to report on the condition
of San Diego and obtain additional supplies. The San Carlos prepared to
leave for Monterey as soon as there were enough healthy sailors to handle it.
Portolá then planned his overland march to Monterey.
The governor had instructions to proceed to Monterey without
delay, take formal possession of the land, and establish a mission and presidio
at the port. Portolá organized a company of 63 men including Fages, Rivera and
Father Crespi. They did not recognize Monterey but discovered an incredible bay
to be known as San Francisco which Father Crespi described as "a very large and
fine harbor, such that not only all the navy of our most Catholic Majesty but
those of all Europe could take shelter in it."
Portolá, the dedicated soldier, was discouraged by his failure to find
Monterey as his orders instructed, and was dismayed by the obstacle San
Francisco Bay presented to further travel. He wrote in his diary that "they
had found nothing," and ordered his sick and hungry men homeward. When the
expedition reached Carmel Bay on the return trip, Portolá crossed Cypress Point
peninsula and planted a cross on the still unrecognized shore of Monterey Bay.
Beneath it was buried a letter reporting that "for lack of provisions"
they were returning to San Diego on that day, December 9, 1769.
Meanwhile two days after Portolá's expedition had departed to
Monterey, Father Serra had convened his little band of half-starving Spaniards
and Indians on the slopes of present-day Presidio Hill just behind San Diego's
Old Town. A crude cross marked the site thus chosen for Alta California's first
mission, and the new outpost was officially dedicated on July 16, 1769, to the
glory of San Diego de Alcalá. Problems for the settlement began at once. The
originally friendly Indians became defiant, pestered the sick at night, and
stole anything they could find, especially cloth. They were ". . . of an
overbearing disposition, insolent, covetous, tricky and boastful . . . although
they have little courage, they boast much of their strength....." They used
their rafts, which were skillfully managed by means of a double-bladed oar, to
board the San Carlos in an attempt to steal the sails. They carried long
harpoons with a sharp bone inserted at the point and were "so adroit in throwing
this weapon that they seldom missed their mark."
As the Indians watched the continual deaths from scurvy diminish the strength
of the Spanish garrison, they planned an attack. During the first encounter,
three natives and one of Serra's Indians were killed and several others,
including Father Vizcaíno, were wounded. After the battle, Spanish soldiers
built a stockade around the mission building and the Indians were forbidden to
enter. Things quieted down although the priests had no success in gaining
converts. They were mostly occupied with caring for the sick and the problems of
survival. The first six months at California's original settlement were ones of constant struggle.
Portolá's expedition, "smelling frightfully of mules," at last
returned to Mission San Diego on January 24, 1770. When the governor told Serra
of his failure to find Monterey, the father-president remarked wryly, "You
come from Rome without having seen the Pope?" Serra and Vicente Vila were
readily convinced by Portolá's descriptions that he had indeed found Monterey,
but did not recognize it. Since provisions were low, the commanders decided to
await the arrival of the ill-fated San José or the return of the San
Antonio before making a return trip to the north.
The shortage of food at San Diego became extremely critical during the next
few months. The Spaniards subsisted on wild geese, fish, and other food
exchanged with the Indians for clothing, but the ravages of scurvy continued for
lack of understanding of its cause. A small quantity of corn they had planted
grew well—only to be eaten by birds. Portolá sent Captain Rivera and a small
detachment of men to the Baja California missions in February to obtain cattle
and a pack-train of supplies. This temporarily eased the drain on San Diego's
scant provisions, but within weeks, acute hunger and increased sickness
threatened to force abandonment of the port. Both Serra and Portolá, Spaniards
of the most tenacious, unwavering faith in God and themselves, remained
steadfast in their desire to fulfill the orders of their superiors. Yet, the
lives of their few remaining soldiers were at stake. Reluctantly, Portolá
resolved that if no relief ship arrived by March 19, the birthday of the
expedition's patron saint San José, they would leave the next morning
"because there were not enough provisions to wait longer and the men had
not come to perish from hunger."
Father Serra immediately proposed a novena, a nine-day period
of prayer for the intercession of divine aid, which would end on the crucial day
of San José. No ship came into sight by the morning of March 19, but at three
o'clock in the afternoon, as if by a miracle, the sails of the San Antonio
were discernible on the horizon. Joy filled the hearts of all in camp even
though the ship sailed past the entrance of San Diego Bay on its way to
Monterey, where Juan Pérez assumed Portolá was waiting. Perhaps guided by
Providence, the San Antonio lost an anchor in the Santa Barbara channel
near Point Conception. Several crewmen, upon going ashore, learned from friendly
Indians that Portolá's expedition to Monterey had long since retraced its route
southward. Pérez headed toward San Diego Bay and four days later joined the
thankful survivors at the mission. The San Antonio brought corn, flour,
and rice to the starving men.
The establishment of California's first permanent settlement was truly an
epic of faith and courage. The dream of José de Gálvez and others—the
extension of Spanish civilization to both Lower and Upper California—was
realized by men who stood fast in their devotion to church and state, and who
believed in the future of the city to be named San Diego de Alcalá.
