Author: Sealtiel Enciso Pérez
Much has been said about the great odyssey that represented the transfer, in the year 1769, of hundreds of soldiers, indigenous people and priests from the Baja California to the northern lands, which had been baptized almost 90 years ago with the name "Nueva Albion" by the corsair and explorer Francis Drake. The driving force behind these actions, long cherished by the Jesuits and the government of New Spain, was traced and planned by the visitor of the Spanish crown, José de Gálvez, in the town of Santa Ana during the year 1768.
José Bernardo de Gálvez y Gallardo, Marquis of Sonora, which was his full name, was a prominent Spanish jurist. He was sent by the King of Spain, Charles III, with the purpose of implementing a series of reforms in New Spain, which were ultimately known as the Bourbon reforms and which had as their main objective the administrative and fiscal reorganization of the Spanish colonies in America, as well as promoting the necessary actions to increase tax collection and thus permanently increase the flow of fresh money into the royal coffers.
The aforementioned Marquis of Sonora was a very cultured and extremely intelligent man. From his earliest childhood he was detected by people of great lineage and important positions within the Spanish Court, which on the one hand guaranteed his ascent in the court system and at the same time that he received the best education in one of the most prestigious universities in that country. From his youth, Gálvez demonstrated great cunning and planning in his life, so he entered into marriage several times with members of prominent families who offered him a benefit in terms of power and relationships in the Court. Such was the case of his second marriage to Lucía Romet y Richelin, of French ancestry and nationality, whose relationships allowed him to become a lawyer for the French embassy in Madrid. Needless to say, when the Bourbon house, of French ancestry, ascended to the Spanish throne, he was widely benefited with positions of great responsibility and power, being the man of the greatest trust of King Carlos III, to whom he entrusted his reform project that he would be in charge of implementing in New Spain.
When in the year 1765 he arrived at the port of Veracruz, a series of journeys began throughout the viceroyalty with the objective of learning about the political, social, and economic situation of these Spanish possessions. At the same time, he began a systematic and ruthless program of reorganization of the Spanish treasury in order to establish the program that the king and he had set. One of the actions he carried out in 1767 was the expulsion of the Jesuits from all Spanish territories, motivated by the constant complaints about the priests of this Order refusing to comply with the Reforms being promoted and their obstinacy in not trading with non-Catholic countries or corporations. Needless to say, the implementation of this drastic measure led to bloody confrontations in which nearly a hundred Spaniards who opposed the expulsion of the religious were hanged, many more were flogged, and many others were imprisoned.
It was at the end of that year and the first half of the next that he initiated a series of military actions against the indigenous groups inhabiting the regions of northwest New Spain with the purpose of dismantling their capacity for action and subjecting them to the demands of the Crown. The actions taken had few real results because the Spanish troops were unfamiliar with the intricacies of the mountains where the natives hid, as well as the difficulty of obtaining sufficient food to sustain troops engaged in prolonged fighting in those areas. Thus, he left this matter for peace and decided to direct his energies towards achieving a dream long cherished by the viceregal power: the colonization of the lands north of California.
On July 12, 1768, the visitador José de Gálvez arrived at the port of La Paz from San Blas, and immediately headed to one of the first non-missionary settlements in California, the Real de Santa Ana. At this site, he contacted the wealthy miner Manuel de Ocio and Gaspar Pisón, to whom he expressed his desire to begin colonizing the lands of northern California in order to establish permanent missions in those places to offer defense against Russian and English detachments that were already daring to invade these lands that until then remained outside the presence of Spanish forces. However, Gálvez's measures to implement his plan were not positive for this pair of chiefs. First, he ordered de Ocio to sell his warehouse in which he traded goods to the inhabitants of those regions, in order to undermine the absolute power of this rich landowner with the monopoly in the sale of his items. He also promulgated a series of measures aimed at favoring the entry of more people and capital for the exploitation of mining, livestock, and agriculture, with the aim that by acquiring the lands and starting these productive activities, they would pay the respective taxes to the Spanish crown, something that the Jesuit priests who inhabited this peninsula for 70 years never did.
In addition to the above, he imposed forced loans on both landowners, de Ocio and Pisón, to finance the expedition northward. He forced them to hand over hundreds of heads of cattle, pigs, goats, horses, and mules to transport them to the new missions and thus be able to feed the colonizers during their journey and start the reproduction of these species upon reaching their destination. In addition to this, he obliged all the Franciscan priests, who had taken over the missions by relieving their Jesuit predecessors, to hand over many of the liturgical artifacts that had been acquired for these temples with such difficulty: chalices, tabernacles, candelabras, reliquaries, paintings, engravings, etc. It was one of the most ignominious looting that the old Californian temples suffered. Many of these artifacts can still be admired in the former missions that were founded in Alta California.
As mentioned before, "Upon his arrival at La Paz Bay, Gálvez summoned the governor of California, Gaspar de Portolá, the commander of the Loreto presidio, Don Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, and the president of the Californian missions, Friar Junípero Serra. They all gathered at the house of Don Manuel de Ocio in the Real de Santa Ana to plan and organize the strategy for occupying Alta California. The plan was to carry out four expeditions: two by sea and two by land, which would depart from Old California and meet at San Diego Bay to found the first mission of New California, that of San Diego de Alcalá, which is currently the city of San Diego (California). Immediately after this foundation, a land expedition would depart to seek the Bay of Monterey to found a second mission, that of San Carlos Borromeo. We are talking about a great expedition that would travel more than 2,000 kilometers.
As we know, these expeditions took place in the course of 1769, 250 years ago, and were a great success. They not only managed to found the two planned missions and thus initiate the New or Alta California, but they also discovered the San Francisco Bay, which none of the hundreds of navigators who had explored and passed by the coasts of Alta California had ever seen before, and the reason was its narrow mouth and constant fog. It was only discovered by land at the end of 1769. In this way, Alta California, now California, United States, was founded." (1)
Once this colonization was planned, the Marquis of Gálvez left our peninsula and never returned, leaving in the hands of the first governor of our land, Gaspar de Portolá, the command of this mission, and he was aided in the religious aspect by one of the men whose legacy still persists to this day, Friar Junípero Serra.
The colonization of Alta California was sustained by the seizure of liturgical ornaments from churches, as well as the arbitrary treatment of men who, while it is true they had amassed great fortunes sustained by not very beneficial practices in labor relations with their workers, were always at risk of ruin, and each of those pesos was obtained through tears and great deprivation. The ambition of the Marquis de Gálvez to carry out this commission of making money for the royal coffers and establishing permanent enclaves in Alta California was a success, but at the cost of the future of our peninsular California for many years.
Bibliography:
(1) “Santa Ana: pueblo olvidado donde se planeó la fundación de la Alta California.” Carlos Lazcano Sahagún
TESIS DOCTORAL “Bernardo de Gálvez y América a finales del siglo XVIII” MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia.
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