Californios

Californios were Spanish settlers in the region that in modern times includes the state of California. They were colonizers and descendants of colonists from Mexico under Spanish rule. Many received land grants from Spain and Mexico that allowed them to become wealthy and influential rancheros through agriculture and cattle ranching. When the area became part of the United States, the US government promised to honor previously made land grants. However, under pressure to open the territory to settlers from the East, Congress established a body to evaluate and adjudicate these claims. The wealth of many of the elite Californio families dissolved during the legal fight to hold on to the land, and the rapid influx of Anglo Americans and others seeking their fortunes in the gold fields altered the cultural landscape.

Background

The earliest inhabitants of the West Coast of North America that includes modern-day California were Native American tribes including the Cahuilleno, Karok, Maidu, Modoc, Mojave, Paiute, Pomo, and Yokuts. Mountainous terrain separated the peoples of the coastal region from tribes further inland, so the cultures developed mostly independently of other inhabitants of the continent. The people were largely peaceful hunter-gatherers who relied on berries, nuts, and fish. When Europeans arrived, the Indigenous population of the area was likely about three hundred thousand.

The earliest Europeans in the California area were Hernán Cortés’s troops, who traveled from colonized Mexico to Baja in the 1530s. In 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed to Alta California or upper California and made several landings, going as far north as modern Santa Barbara, and claimed the territory for Spain. However, for two centuries Spain did not focus on colonizing the region because the coastal winds, currents, and lack of safe harbors posed significant obstacles.

In the late eighteenth century, Spanish explorers increased their efforts in Nueva España, a territory that included all or parts of modern-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Alta California was divided into four military districts in which three types of settlements were established. Each district had one military fortification called a presidio: San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara. These were established from 1769 to 1782.

Under Spanish rule the Franciscans established twenty religious settlements called missions. Spain also established three civilian settlements known as pueblos between 1777 and 1797. As happened in other New World territories, the arrival of Europeans altered Indigenous cultures. Lacking natural immunity to European diseases such as measles, chickenpox, and smallpox, waves of illness badly hurt populations. In addition, many people were enslaved to farm the mission lands.

Although the Spanish Crown claimed official ownership of the land, it issued some land grants to individuals, often as a reward for military service or an incentive to increase the Spanish population in the colony. This gave people the right to use the land, sometimes hundreds of acres, for settlements, livestock, and various agricultural pursuits. The ancestors of these Spanish-speaking colonizers were ethnically Mexican Indian, African, and European, but few or none were born in Europe.

Since the early 1600s, people of the Spanish colonies had been categorized according to social identities imposed by those of European ancestry. This social order considered race, nobility, skin color, marriage, and other concerns in determining hierarchy. However, by the early 1800s, the people living in Alta California did not define themselves according to the old system, especially in terms of race. The began to call themselves gente de razón (“people of reason”), hijas del país (“sons and daughters of the land”), and Californios. Instead of the old standards, Californios increasingly defined their cultural identity according to political power and land ownership.

After Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821, the government issued more than five hundred land grants, often to prominent families. Families with political clout secured adjoining grants for each family member and were able to control hundreds of thousands of acres of the most desirable and productive land.

The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty defined the shared border of the United States and Mexico. Mexicans then living in the American areas of Alta California were permitted to remain and be counted as American citizens.

Two years before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, the majority of California’s non-Indigenous population—11,500 of 14,000—had been of Spanish or Mexican descent. Two years after it was signed, Spanish-speaking people made up just 15 percent of the non-Indigenous population of northern California. Californio culture was more entrenched in the southern region, where many newly arrived Americans had assimilated into the Spanish-speaking community, and change occurred more slowly there. Particularly during the 1850s, when the California population increased 310 percent due to the gold rush, newcomers expected the local population to become what they considered “American.”

Overview

Californios were wealthy, Spanish-speaking property owners who held the political and social power of the region. Much of their wealth came from raising cattle and selling hides and tallow. They employed Native Americans and working-class, non-landowning Mexicans to work their rancheros. The rancho period of California history began in the 1780s and lasted about a century; the so-called “golden era” was from 1833 to 1846.

Although they received ownership of the land from Mexico, most Californios felt more closely aligned with Spanish culture than with Mexico. They maintained an insular society, associating with other ranchero families and the Americans and Europeans who began settling in California during the 1830s.

The Californio culture, tied as it was to cattle ranching, valued and relied on horsemanship. From an early age, children were taught to ride. Other cultural hallmarks were hospitality, independence and self-reliance, and respect for family ties.

During the 1830s and 1840s many Californios opposed Mexico’s interference. They felt disconnected to the capital and, due to the great distance between Alta California and the Mexican government, did not have much contact with Mexico except when a new governor or other administrator arrived. The cattle economy increased Californios’ reliance on trade by sea for goods they did not produce themselves, so they were more closely tied to Boston, Massachusetts, which purchased the hides, and South American countries that bought their tallow for candle and soap manufacturing. Some Californios participated in revolts against Mexican authority. For example, Californio Pío Pico became governor of Alta California in 1845 after he and others staged an uprising that drove General Manuel Micheltorena, the Mexican governor, out of the territory.

When war broke out between Mexico and the United States in 1846, loyalties were divided. Many Californio were indifferent to which country ruled Alta California, while others opposed American control. After Alta California became part of the United States, disputes arose over ownership of the land. The US government was under pressure to make land available for settlers from the East. As news of the discovery of gold emerged, people flooded in from the East. In 1851 the US Congress passed the California Land Act to evaluate past claims and make determinations, despite prior promises that land claims from the Mexican government would be honored. Owners of ranchos often had proof of ownership that the US government did not recognize, such as sketches or informal surveys. While wealthy in terms of land and goods, many did not have cash. Nor did they understand the American legal system, and some were cheated by unscrupulous lawyers.

Rancho owners had to pay legal fees and other expenses to make their claims and appeal decisions that went against them. They often sold parts of their land, paid lawyers in land, were unable to pay property taxes, or ran out of funds and were unable to continue the legal battles. Some lost land to squatters and miners. Within two decades of the treaty, most of the ranchos were no longer possessed by Californios.

Under the first few decades of US rule, some prominent Californios held political office. Some were officials of county and local governments, and several were members of the State Constitutional Convention in 1849. Many Californios tried to adapt to the large influx of newcomers, though the language barrier presented a problem many were unable to overcome. Many of their children learned to speak English and married Anglo Americans. Some sons of Californio families became bandits.

Decades after the Californio culture’s decline, some Anglo Americans romanticized life on the ranchos with inaccurate history books and novels, portraying the natural world and rancho lifestyle as blissful and beautiful. Such recollections ignored the working-class labor that enabled the elite Californios to enjoy rancho life.

Bibliography

Bacich, Damian. “Settlers on the California Frontier (Part 2): The Californios.” The California Frontier Project, www.californiafrontier.net/settlers-part-2/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Californio Society.” Calisphere/University of California, 2009, calisphere.org/exhibitions/6/californio-society/#overview. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Californio to American: A Study in Cultural Change.” National Park Service, 4 Mar. 2020, www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/8californio.htm. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Early History of the California Coast.” National Park Service, www.nps.gov/nr/travel/ca/intro.htm. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.

“Fast Facts on Alta California.” Los Californianos, loscalifornianos.org/alta-california/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.

Monroy, Douglas. “The Creation and Re-Creation of Californio Society.” California History, vol. 76, no. 2, 1997, pp. 173 – 195, DOI: 10.2307/25161666. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.

Surls, Rachel. “How Rancho Owners Lost Their Land and Why That Matters Today.” KCET, 16 Apr. 2012, www.kcet.org/history-society/how-rancho-owners-lost-their-land-and-why-that-matters-today. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.

Voss, Barbara L. “From Casta to Californio: Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture Contact.” American Anthropologist, vol. 107, no. 3, 2005, pp. 461–474, www.jstor.org/stable/3567030. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.