Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
California Under Mexican Rule
Spain wasn't sorry to lose California to Mexico in the 1810-21 Mexican War of Independ-
ence. As long as missions had the best grazing land,
rancheros
(ranchers) couldn't com-
pete in the growing market for cowhides and tallow (for use in soap). Yet Spanish, Mexic-
an and American settlers who had intermarried with Native Californians were now a siz-
able constituency, and together these 'Californios' convinced Mexico to secularize the
missions beginning in 1834.
Californios quickly snapped up deeds to privatized mission property. Only a few dozen
Californios were literate in the entire state, so boundary disputes that arose were settled
with muscle, not paper. By law, half the lands were supposed to go to Native Californians
who worked at the missions, but few actually received their entitlements.
Through marriage and other mergers, most of the land and wealth in California was held
by just 46
ranchero
families by 1846. The average
rancho
(ranch) was now 16,000 acres,
having grown from cramped shanties to elegant haciendas where women were supposedly
confined to quarters at night. But
rancheras
(ranch women) weren't so easily bossed
around: women owned some Californian ranches, rode horses as hard as men and caused
romantic scandals worthy of
telenovelas
(soap operas).
Meanwhile, Americans were arriving in the trading post of Los Angeles via the Old
Spanish Trail. Northern passes through the Sierra Nevada were trickier, as the Donner
Party tragically discovered in 1846 - stranded by snow near Lake Tahoe, some survivors
resorted to cannibalism.
Still, the US saw potential in California. When US president Andrew Jackson offered
the financially strapped Mexican government $500,000 for the territory in 1835, the offer
was tersely rejected. After the US annexed the Mexican territory of Texas in 1845, Mexico
broke off diplomatic relations and ordered all foreigners without proper papers deported
from California. The Mexican-American War was declared in 1846, lasting two years with
very little fighting in California. Hostilities ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
in which Mexico ceded much of its northern territory (including Alta California) to the
US. The timing was fortuitous: a few weeks after the US took possession of California,
gold was discovered.
