Juan Bautista Alvarado

American politician

• Born: February 14, 1809
• Birthplace: Monterey, Alta California (now in California)
• Died: July 13, 1882
• Place of death: Rancho San Pablo, California

Emerging as a political force in the contentious period when Mexico fought against expanding American interests to maintain control over Alta California, Alvarado staunchly advocated the short-lived dream of an independent California, serving twice as territorial governor before American annexation in 1848.

Early Life

Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo, better known as Juan Bautista Alvarado (wahn bah-TEES-tah ahl-vah-RAH-doh), was born in Monterey, the most important Pacific coast port in a vast tract of land known as Alta California, at the time a territory belonging to Spain that included parts of present-day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Both Alvarado’s father and grandfather had served with distinction in the Spanish military. His father died when Alvarado was only ten days old and left his family no financial security. His mother remarried three years later and Alvarado was raised by his grandparents, the Vallejos. Fitting to his station, Alvarado received the best education during a tense era marked by insurgencies from forces challenging Spain’s interests.

Mexico’s independence from Spanish control in 1821 significantly changed the political operations of Alta California. For Mexico, maintaining military and economic control over such a great expanse of open territory was especially taxing; the area consisted primarily of ranches and farms, with a relatively small population. Recognizing the necessity of granting limited autonomy, Mexico instructed Alta California to establish its own legislature and empowered this legislature to name a governor approved by the Mexican government. These decisions set off nearly three decades of contentious military and political maneuvering pitting the Mexican government against the rising tide of Californios, California-born residents of different ethnicities, among them Alvarado, who conceived of Alta California as independent.

Life’s Work

At age eighteen, Alvarado was elected secretary to the legislature, and then within a year was the territory’s treasurer, controlling the distribution of Alta California’s financial holdings. As part of the Mexican government’s strategy to disenfranchise the Catholic Church by seizing its missions throughout Alta California and parceling out these considerable landholdings to private owners, Alvarado was given the charge to secularize the mission at San Miguel, one of the oldest and largest of the Church’s outposts. Alvarado was subsequently appointed in 1834 to the powerful position of collector for the Custom House at Monterey, which, as the only seaport on the Pacific coast, was the gateway for all materials heading into the continent. He was only twenty-four years old.

Beginning in 1835, Alta California reeled under a succession of unpopular governors that only encouraged the movement toward an independent California. However, even as each governor alienated his office from the people and reduced his position to a puppet figure in the control of the Mexican government, whose presence was becoming more oppressive, Californios began to contend with the growing presence of American interests, military and economic. American interests sought to annex Alta California, part of a land grab conducted under the proclamation of Manifest Destiny. Indeed, Alvarado, who at the time served as the political head of the territory’s legislature, rejected the growing American presence and argued that Alta California should remain aligned with Mexico but should demand political, military, and economic autonomy.

The tension climaxed in 1835, when the governor threatened to arrest Alvarado on trumped-up charges of mismanagement at the Custom House. Alvarado departed Monterey but returned with a jerry-rigged army of fervent Californios, who lay siege to the governor’s fortress. A single cannon shot convinced the governor to surrender. Alvarado became the de facto governor of California. Facing the prospect of a bloody civil war or a protracted war against Mexico, Alvarado wisely followed the protocol of the territory’s constitution and placed his name, along with two others, in nomination for governor. Mexico agreed and approved Alvarado as governor in 1836, an office he would hold, save for a brief stint in 1838, until 1842, when southern Californios, unhappy with Alvarado, requested Mexican intervention. The Mexican president obliged. Confronted by an expeditionary force, Alvarado surrendered and went into exile outside the city.

However, the new governor sent by Mexico was disastrous, and California was again rocked by insurgencies. Alvarado was returned as the collector of customs in 1845. He was elected to represent California in the Mexican congress in 1846, and as he prepared to head south, war was declared between Mexico and the United States. The American forces invaded Monterey and quickly took the capital, but even as other California officials fled to Mexico, Alvarado stayed and was granted protective custody. Repeatedly offered positions within the new American government, Alvarado refused, preferring to remain in a palatial ranch north of Monterey in San Pablo with his wife and nine children. Although in the thick of the California gold rush in 1849, Alvarado never prospered from mineral strikes. Instead he dabbled in several unsuccessful businesses, most notably running a hotel, and he wrote a much-respected history of California before American annexation. He died in 1882.

Significance

Given the tangled alliances that defined California’s political environment between Mexican independence and the American annexation, it is easy to lose sight of Juan Bautista Alvarado’s significance. Given that both the Mexican and American governments considered California largely as a commodity, Alvarado pledged his allegiance to the fortunes of his people, those born in California, and sought to preserve their self-determination and self-government. Though he lacked the army to make this vision a reality, his staunch support of these basic rights and his unswerving integrity at a time when politicians were routinely corrupt, as well as his heroic one-shot revolutionary victory, secured him a place in California history and folk culture.

Bibliography

Beebe, Rose Marie, and Robert M. Senkewicz. Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2001. Original historic documents create a vivid, compelling picture of the era leading up to California’s annexation. Discusses the political impact of Alvarado. Illustrated.

Hackel, Steven W. Alta California: Peoples in Motion, Identities in Formation. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library Press, 2010. Fascinating account of the politics, economics, and cultural diversity of colonial life in independent California.

Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States. New York: Hill and Wang, 2008. Reexamination of the pivotal conflict in Alvarado’s political career. Describes how the Mexican government engaged in a war it was sure to lose.