Spanish Colonization

In 1769, Spain claimed ownership of present-day Mexico north to the San Francisco Bay region of California. The area was called New Spain and was held by the Spaniards until the Mexicans gained independence in 1821 (Rawls 2000). During that time the Spaniards proceeded to settle the territory using missions as frontier organizations. The missions were founded with the stated goal of converting Natives to Catholicism, but were also intended to advance and help consolidate the Spanish Empire. The missions were supported by the presence of presidios, military forts located along the coast that were in turn supported by the existence of pueblos, civilian towns founded to provide food for soldiers at the presidios.

Spanish explorers.

Image courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

The first Spanish expedition to reach the Bay Area was a group under the leadership of Captain Gaspar de Portola, the Governor of the Californias (Stanger 1963). They were traveling from San Diego trying to find Monterey Bay in 1769. The explorers had failed to recognize the bay of Monterey from land and had traveled north until they reached the San Francisco Bay. They first camped in what is now the City of Pacifica in Pedro Valley and explored further east and north, unsure whether they had passed Monterey. When they reached a huge bay (Suisun or San Pablo), the explorers turned back and declared the expedition a failure. The party returned to San Diego, again passing through Monterey and failing to recognize it. A subsequent expedition led by Portola found Monterey and at that point he resigned and returned to Mexico City (Hynding 1982).

The large bay found by Portola's party was not further investigated by the Spanish until 1773, when a new Viceroy in Spain, Antonio Bucareli, ordered further exploration of the huge estuary that had been sketchily described by Portola's expedition (Stanger 1963). His interest was prompted by English and Russian activities along the west coast of North American. In order to secure the land for Spain, it would be necessary to found a mission settlement in the area. Bucareli sent Captain Fernando Rivera in the company of the missionary Father Francisco Palou to find a site for the new mission. On their way, they encountered two tall redwood trees, "palo alto" which had been used as a landmark by the earlier explorers. These trees – one of which remains a landmark to this day – marked a trail that would become a part of the west's oldest road, El Camino Real (Hynding 1982).

The Mission of San Francisco.

Image courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

During the overland journey, Rivera mapped the bay accurately, but it was still necessary to test the depth and accessibility of the bay from the ocean. In August 1775, Lieutenant Juan Manuel Ayala anchored and made the first entrance through San Francisco's Golden Gate. Although there were better sites for a mission further south in what is now San Mateo County, the Spanish established a presidio to guard the Golden Gate and Father Palou settled on a nearby site for the northernmost Spanish mission. The mission became known as the Dolores Mission and in 1776, 193 Spanish colonists from Mexico were brought to make their homes in the area (Hyding 1982). By 1780, the Mission Village at Dolores Creek was overcrowded. Father Palou established a mission ranch in the San Pedro Valley to raise food for the Dolores Mission and to convert coastal Natives. Ohlone Natives who lived on the bayside of San Mateo came under the supervision of the Santa Clara Mission. By the 1790s, almost all Coastal Ohlone had relocated to Father Palou's San Pedro Mission Ranch or they had died or fled the area (Hynding 1982).

By 1786, a chapel and granary had been built at the San Pedro Ranch and crops and livestock flourished. By 1790, almost all food for the Dolores Mission and presidio was produced in the San Pedro Valley. In 1791, an epidemic – most likely measles (BGE 2004) – killed about half of the Ohlone and other Natives, who did not have immunity to western disease. Surviving Natives fled to outlying territory and many became bandits who plagued missions up and down the California coast (Stanger 1963). The ranch never recovered and three years later the settlement was all but abandoned (Hynding 1982). With the collapse of the San Pedro Ranch, the missionaries turned their attention to the bayside of San Mateo County. In 1793, they built an adobe at San Mateo Creek near El Camino Real on what had formerly been an Ohlone village. By 1800, the San Mateo Ranch produced corn, vegetables, wheat, sheep, and cattle far surpassing the yields of the San Pedro outpost. In 1810, an earthquake leveled the adobe, but it was rebuilt and several other farming outposts were built south of San Francisco during the early 1800s. These outposts were mostly on the bayside and all were loosely supervised by the San Francisco missionaries (Stanger 1963).

In 1791, the Mission Santa Cruz – the twelfth mission in California – was founded in what is now the City of Santa Cruz. The Mission had vegetable gardens where the downtown City of Santa Cruz is today. In 1797, the Villa de Branciforte was founded nearby as California 's third pueblo (Koch 1973). A racetrack was included in the design plans for the pueblo and it became a popular spot for horse racing, fandangos, and bear and bull fights.

By 1800, 949 Natives had been baptized at the Mission Santa Cruz and 477 had been buried there (Koch 1973). The Mission was prosperous – its water supply came from three springs that were located on the hill above the Mission. The water was diverted to the plaza where it was accessible. The same water sources also furnished the town of Santa Cruz' first water supply in 1859 when a reservoir was dug at the end of School Street (Koch 1973).

In 1797 the Spanish Crown set aside a large land and cattle grant covering present-day Colma, South San Francisco, San Bruno, and Mill Valley from the bay to the San Andreas Valley (Hynding 1982). This land grant was called Rancho del Rey and was granted in the attempt to bring peace to a power issue between the San Francisco Mission and the Presidio over which would control the highly productive land. The Mission received control.

By 1810, Spanish California including the San Mateo Peninsula had become a huge cattle kingdom nearly the entire length of the territory from the Bay to San Diego (Hynding 1982). The cattle grazed on the extensive grasslands formerly maintained by Natives through the use of fire. The introduction of cattle caused significant change to the grasslands. Invasive annual plants that arrived with the cattle and their feed began to alter the community composition of California grasslands from one dominated by perennials to one dominated by annuals. Additionally, ranchers protected their cattle by decimating populations of top predators – grizzly bear and cougar. Cattle impacted the soil and were also a source of disease that impacted native fauna, such as bighorn sheep (Lee 2002).

In 1812, a smallpox, measles, influenza, and syphilis epidemic hit the San Mateo Peninsula. At the San Pedro outpost, dozens of the remaining Natives died and most of the rest fled, leaving cattle and crops untended. Missionaries brought other Natives in from other regions to perform the menial labor, but the Native population at the missions and outposts continued to decline. Between 1810 and 1821 when Spain lost California to Mexico, the California settlements gradually lost contact with Spain. Morale sank in the missions and herds and crops dwindled. The legacy that Spain left was tens of thousand of half-feral long horned cattle roaming throughout California. Under the Mexican regime, these cattle and the land would soon be equated with wealth and power (go to the section on Mexican California).

In what would later be Santa Cruz County, there was animosity between the Santa Cruz Mission residents and the Branciforte pueblo residents – who were mainly former soldiers and their families – due to their vastly different lifestyles. The missionaries followed an austere path while the pueblo residents regularly engaged in gambling, racing, and other forms of entertainment. During a coast-wide pirate invasion in 1818 that threatened the Mission, Branciforte residents looted when the priests fled to safety. This lent the Mission of Santa Cruz a "hard luck" label that persisted, in part due to continuous land disputes between the pueblo residents and the missionaries (Koch 1973).

References

BGE. 2004. California Missions [Web site] [cited 2004]. View on-line source.

Hynding, A. 1982. From Frontier to Suburb: The Story of the San Mateo Peninsula. Belmont, CA: Star Publishing Company.

Koch, M. 1973. Santa Cruz County Parade of the Past. Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books.

Lee, M.D. 2002. ENSC 2800 - SPRING 2002 - Overview of California Hisory and Environmental Changes [MS Word document] [cited 2004]. View on-line source .

Postel, M.P. 1988. Peninsula Portrait, A Pictorial History of San Mateo County. Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications, Inc.

Rawls, J.J. 2000. California History Online [Web site]. California Historical Society [cited October 22, 2003]. View on-line source.

Stanger, F.M. 1963. South from San Francisco,San Mateo County, California: Its History and Heritage. San Mateo, CA: San Mateo County Historical Association.