Summarize

"Part #160: The Golden Province

“Despite the best efforts of both ignorant proletarians and selfish aristocrats across the expanse of our existence both geographical and chronological, history is filled with examples of what greater things can be achieved by individuals from allegedly different societies recognising that those differences are a sham, and coming together to transcend the circumstances of the human predicament and build a true society. I have been fortunate enough to witness the birth of at least one such society in my own lifetime...”

– Pablo Sanchez, Twilight Reflections, 1866​

*

From: “An Introductory History of the Americas” by James Wedmore and Alison Harris, 1988

From the beginning the history of California describes a land that its European settlers viewed as being more than half a dream, for good and for ill. Even the country itself was named after a fictional island from a popular novel of the day, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián) by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. His California was an island ‘very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise’, and inhabited only by dark-skinned women, who were said to live after the manner of the Amazons of Greek mythology. As was commonly the case with many fictional lands (especially those conceived in the wake of the conquistadores’ discoveries in America), the island of California was also said to be so rich in gold—indeed lacking any other metal— that its female citizens even worked with tools made of gold. In this respect at least, the name unconsciously turned out to be a fitting one. It may, however, also influenced the incorrect idea, perpetuated by maps based on guesswork, that the real California was also an island rather than merely being partly separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California. Though it might have taken centuries for this mistake to be entirely corrected, it may have also solidified the idea in the public imagination that California was a land apart.

Initially, though, its Spanish claimants viewed it as more of an afterthought than anything. As early as the 1530s, Hernán Cortés himself commissioned an exploratory expedition under Francisco de Ulloa, based –of course—on rumours of mysterious cities of gold. Ulloa mapped much of what is now called Old California[1] but failed to find much of interest. A few years later, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo ventured further north, discovering what became San Diego, although at the time he dubbed it San Miguel and, as was not uncommon in the Spanish colonies, the name was later changed. At the turn of the seventeenth century, Sebastián Vizcaíno explored further under the auspices of the then Viceroy of New Spain, Gaspar de Zúñiga, 5th Count of Monterrey. He discovered a bay which he named Monterey after the Viceroy and hoped to follow this up with a colonisation expedition, but Monterrey’s successor as Viceroy was less enthusiastic about such projects, and in the end an early chance for Spain to stake a stronger claim to the region was missed.

In the midst of these Spanish explorations, the English explorer and privateer (or ‘pirate’ as the Spaniards would doubtless say) Sir Francis Drake also charted parts of the western coast of America and staked a claim to what he named ‘New Albion’. Scholars continue to debate just where exactly this was, with suggestions that it could have been anywhere from New Muscovy[2] down to Old California, but the claim was exploited by the Empire of North America in the late 18th century when its government laid claim to the Oregon country—though ironically they used the name ‘Drakesland’ rather than the one Drake himself had chosen.

Despite Drake’s activity, the Spanish administration generally viewed California as an unimportant backwater and it was generally added on to other administrative units—sometimes very distant from the land—as an afterthought. Actual Spanish presence in New California was minimal until the mid-eighteenth century, and as many as an estimated 300,000 natives continued to live in the country, unmindful of both their alleged Spanish overlords and the ravages their relatives were facing further east.

Things changed with the First Platinean War in 1763-1767, which resulted in a great deal of turnover in the Spanish colonial administration across the Americas, as scapegoats for defeats were selected and replaced. One such gentleman caught up in this upheaval was Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Girault, a renaissance man who would likely be in the history books anyway for being jointly responsible for the discovery of platinum in New Granada in 1744 together with Jorge Juan. The Second War of Supremacy having broken out in the meantime, he was captured by the British when he attempted to return to Spain, but had promptly been welcomed by the Royal Society and made a Fellow of that organisation for his discoveries. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, an organisation whose profile would soon be drastically raised by Linnaeus, also recognised him for the discovery. Through the Royal Society’s efforts, Ulloa was soon released and allowed to return to Spain, but he was viewed with some suspicion by the Spanish authorities for his new foreign connections. Thus it is not surprising that Ulloa, then serving in Peru managing the quicksilver mines, was a natural scapegoat for the Viceroy in 1765, despite having had nothing to do with the defeat to the Portuguese in question. Ulloa was reassigned to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, where the Viceroy there in turn sent him on what seemed like a thankless task.

Increasing encroachment on the Spanish-claimed lands in New California by Russian and Anglo-American explorers (many of whom with a commercial glint in their eye) meant that the viceregal government in the City of Mexico was increasingly concerned about the claim being ignored. The late war with the British indicated that this was a potential threat. There was also a more subtle reason to intervene: over the past century, a small number of Jesuits had established missions in the region among the natives, and—like many such missions—were functioning virtually as independent states. The increasing anti-clericalism of the Spanish government, which had ultimately helped spark the First Platinean War in the first place, came to bear once again, and the Jesuits were officially expelled from New Spain. To that end, it was decided to extend Spanish control more deeply over New California, with existing Jesuit settlements being secularised and new ones founded. Ulloa got the task, perhaps a whimsical choice by the Viceroy considering he shared a name with one of the earliest explorers of California.

Ulloa proved to rise to the task, founding several cities according to the rules laid down in the Law of the Indies by Philip II almost two centuries ago. This drew upon architectural principles created by the Roman engineer Vitruvius, creating the rationally designed street grids we still associate with California today.[3] Ulloa was less successful in suppressing the Jesuits, often underestimating opposition from the Society and its native allies and being forced to retreat; fortunately for him, reports of this rarely reached the City of Mexico.[4] As well as expanding the existing settlements of San Diego and Monterey, he was responsible for founding a number of other new settlements, two of which grew to be great metropolises. But what to name them? Spanish explorers and administrators generally named things after Biblical saints or titles, and Ulloa chose one of the latter that whimsically fit his scientific background, specifically his interest in astronomy. The more southern of the two cities, situated on the floodplain north of San Diego which had formerly played host to two Jesuit missions, Ulloa named ‘El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de las Doce Estrellas’ or ‘The town of Our Lady of the Twelve Stars’. He was referencing the ‘Crown of Immortality’ of twelve stars which the Virgin Mary is often depicted with in Catholic iconography.[5] Of course the very long full names of Spanish colonial cities were rarely used, and it was soon worn down to the name we are familiar with: Las Estrellas, the City of Stars, or in its more common English nickname, Star City.[6]

The second city was far to the north, through a gap that generations of explorers had missed. Despite following the coastline in their explorations, both Drake and Cabrillo had completely failed to recognise that something lay beyond: history might have turned out quite differently if either of them had. It is understandable, however, considering the persistent summer fogs that still to this day fill the bay and obscure its entrance. It was not until 1769, when Ulloa’s subordinate Captain José de Unzaga[7] dared to venture deeper into the mists that he found them unrolling before him, and beyond, a great baby-blue bay, rich wetlands stretching out of sight into the fog, and finally a far green country beneath the rising sun. Unzaga moored his ship, the San Cristobál, beside the island that still bears his name.[8] It was he that chose a name for the bay, ‘Puerto Oculta’ (‘Hidden Bay’ or ‘Hidden Gate’), but Ulloa would choose the name for the city he would found in the land of mystery beyond. It happened that Unzaga brought news of the discovery to Ulloa on the same day that Ulloa had observed a new comet with his telescope—a comet that Messier in Europe would get the credit for.[9] Flushed with his discovery, Ulloa decided that just as the elusive comet had hidden itself in the heavens, Unzaga’s hidden city should take its name from it. As it was also St Lawrence’s feast day, he named the city San Lorenzo del Cometa Brillante (St Lawrence of the Bright Comet). Due to the large number of other places in the Viceroyalty of New Spain named San Lorenzo, and the fact that the settlement was initially very small, the preferred name became El Pueblo del Cometa (‘Comet Town’), which Ulloa probably preferred anyway. Comet City, in opposition to Star City to the south, remains Cometa’s common English nickname today.[10]

Despite Ulloa’s ambitious projects, California slipped off the Photrack[11] again for the viceregal government for some years; there were always troubles closer to home. In the end, interest would not be reawakened until the turn of the nineteenth century, when clashes between Russian and British interests on Noochaland once again led to more resources being poured into California. This would be redoubled after the exile of the Infantes and the foundation of the Empire of New Spain in 1803.[12] After the Empire narrowly escaped defeat and emerged victorious from the Third Platinean War with the UPSA, the new imperial government could finally turn its attention to responding to the intrusions of the Americans’ Morton and Lewis expedition and the Russo-Lithuanian Pacific Company’s increased activity. Antonio, king of the new Kingdom of Mexico under his brother the Emperor, sent a mission to found Fort San Luis in what the British called Drakesland and the Spanish claimed as Far California.[13] Besides the small military fort, Antonio was keen to try and integrate California—which had done its own thing since Ulloa created its administration—into his new kingdom. By agreement with his brother Emperor Charles, and in response to the devastation of the City of Mexico by the Meridian commanders Fernández and Rojaz, the imperial capital would move to Veracruz while the Mexican royal capital would move north into California itself. Monterey was chosen as the most developed of the current settlements. Antonio hoped to bring court interests north with him, and then after the capital moved again after the City of Mexico was restored, to leave stronger links between California and the rest of Mexico.

This was only partially effective. The need for rapid transport between California and the rest of the kingdom was responsible for the considerable improvement of the old road known as El Camino Real (the Royal Road), but many of the new Mexican nobility simply moved to Veracruz and tried to get in directly with the Emperor’s court rather than his royal subordinate’s. In practice, despite Antonio’s best efforts, the administration of the Kingdom of Mexico ended up being more often routed through Veracruz than the City of Mexico. Although his experiment was responsible in building up administrative apparatus in Monterey—which then became the capital of all three Californias as a new autonomous Captaincy-General—Antonio had failed to achieve most of his aims when, in 1821, musical chairs was played with capitals as the Empire’s moved back to the rebuilt City of Mexico and Mexico’s moved to Veracruz. Antonio could at least comfort himself with the thought that he had been responsible for bringing many more colonists into California and helping prevent the idea of Russian or American freebooters laying claim to the land. Except...

In 1818, the explorer Miguel Juan Díaz y Franco discovered gold in the American River. Within a couple of years, his discovery had begun a frenzy of immigration into California from across the globe. King Antonio was probably entitled to a sense of frustration, as after spending over a decade trying to force Mexicans to move north to California with various tax incentives, the gold fever outmatched his best efforts many times over in a matter of months. More worrying, however, was the fact that though Mexicans comprised the largest group of the new immigrants, they were not quite a majority of them. Europe was still recovering from the Jacobin Wars and there was the sense of sullen frustration among many of her peoples, a sense that the ruling classes had tried to pretend the revolutions and wars had never happened and jam the lid back down hard on the Pandora’s box of reform. Some such infuriated individuals stayed behind and helped spark the Popular Wars, but many others gave up Europe as a lost cause and moved overseas. Others had no such ideological objections but were simply looking for a better life, especially after the ‘Year Without A Summer’ of 1816 and the ensuing bad harvest. This worsened in turn after the potato famine of 1822. Poor Europeans were heading anywhere and everywhere, but California had the lure of gold, the dream of a quick fortune as well as the land to yourself that the ENA or UPSA could offer. Americans came down the Santa Fe Trail from Burkeston, Virginia,[14] in larger numbers than ventured straight westward along the trails developed for the Drakesland project; settlers continued to have problems with natives such as the Lakota and, later, the Thirteen Fires alliance. Going through Spanish territory seemed a safer option. Russians and their compatriots—Lithuanians, Courlanders, some German and Polish adventurers, even Chinese, Coreans and Yapontsi—came across the Pacific from their holdings in the East. Others came via the sea or across the land. Many displaced by the potato famine across northern Europe arrived, though the Irish mostly settled in Texas instead, which the government had made more open to Catholic immigration to help fend off French encorachment from Louisiana. California, on the other hand, was officially closed to external immigration...and it rapidly became clear that this law no longer meant anything.

Historians can look back and say that the New Spanish government did nothing. Many historians have indeed said just that. But the truth is that the New Spanish government tried, and found the experience akin to trying to hold back a wave with your hands: you could have the strength of Hercules and it would still slip around the edges. The imperials tried deporting immigrants directly, only to face constant diplomatic incidents with the ENA over the alleged brutal treatment of American citizens—something that would serve to be another issue for the Carolinian confederate government to take up with Fredericksburg, for the Carolinians claimed to abide by New Spanish laws as part of their separate trade agreements and warned that they were threatened by the activities of the illegal immigrants from other Confederations. At one point the New Spanish even tried arming the natives in California, who were often being displaced from their land by the immigrants looking to establish gold mines, a policy that was praised by Andrew Eveleigh and the Burdenists in the ENA. Although armed natives were not exactly something the New Spanish were comfortable with, they did provide a discouragement for settlers that could not be directly traced back to the City of Mexico. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough, as the little settlements Ulloa had founded turned into boom towns that doubled in size every year.

The golden time was brief, with much of the most obvious deposits in the Sierra Nevada being worked out within a few years; by the start of the Popular Wars, California’s main deposits were tapped out (though many harder-to-extract ones remained) and the economy promptly crashed. Any New Spanish hopes that this might persuade some of the immigrants to go home—most of whom had failed to realise their golden dreams anyway—were dashed, however. The upheavals of the Popular Wars started a whole new wave of emigration from Europe, and although California had something of a reputation for broken dreams due to only a minority of immigrants gaining the wealth they had hoped for, it was still a fine destination. Many European emigrants mainly looked for a land that would be untouched by war, having soured on the ENA after the Virginia Crisis affected the country’s reputation. But, while New Spain had been deeply involved in the Popular Wars and had seen the great triumph of retaking Old Spain, little indication of the conflict had reached distant California besides a few new taxes to pay for armies. Much to the government’s annoyance, the three provinces remained popular destinations, and in 1839 they gave up, immigration to California being quietly retroactively made legal. Even then there were provisions in the law about only allowing Catholic immigration, as in Texas, which were patently ludicrous: California was now home not only to the Protestant heretics the Spanish colonials had always worried about, but also Orthodox Russians, Buddhists and pagans from East Asia, and even a few Jews and Muslims; Ferdinand and Isabella would be turning in their graves.

It was obvious to everyone that sooner or later this situation would come to a boil. But, besides the fact that there didn’t seem to be much of an obvious course of action, the government was distracted by other matters, principally the administration of Old Spain, the death of Emperor Charles and the succession of his son Ferdinand, and related issues. New Spain muddled on, gradually reforming government institutions, sometimes taking (hotly denied) inspiration from the UPSA. The Empire was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on one’s perspective) to have a technological enthusiast in the King Antonio’s chief minister Rodrigo de Unzaga, son of the man who had discovered the Hidden Gate. Unzaga was particularly taken by the Russian invention of railways, which he had witnessed on a visit to the country during the Popular Wars.[15] The New Spanish had always had somewhat Sutcliffist tendencies towards steam vehicles, associating them with the Jacobin regime in France, but by the end of the 1830s had reluctantly concluded that they could not be left behind. A new steam navy was constructed in the early 1840s with assistance from both the Carolinian confederate government and a Meridian private company. In parallel with this, Unzaga pushed for railway development, and after a route from Veracruz to the City of Mexico—the royal and imperial capitals—proved to be a great success in 1841, Unzaga was authorised by the ageing King Antonio to pursue a wider network, including a branch linking to the Californian cities.

Once again, the government hoped to try and fend off the idea of California being a separate land, a land apart, an impression that had been there from the start, when it had been named for a land from an author’s imagination, not part of the earthly world at all.

Once again, they would fail.

But rather more spectacularly.




[1] A name also used in OTL, basically meaning modern Baja California but sometimes extending slightly further north; regional definitions were a bit vague in this era, but in TTL it comes to include the San Diego region as well, with the border being just north of OTL Los Angeles.

[2] OTL British Columbia.

[3] This is OTL, although the circumstances of the cities’ founding is slightly different. In OTL the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolà.

[4] In OTL, Ulloa was assigned to be Governor of Spanish Louisiana after the Seven Years’ War (which in TTL, as the Third War of Supremacy, Spain wasn’t involved in and never got Louisiana) and similarly had issues with underestimating local opposition, being thrown out by a pro-French revolt in 1768.

[5] Twelve gold stars on a blue background, to be exact. In OTL some have suggested this was the origin of the design on the EU flag.

[6] This is, of course, OTL Los Angeles, which in OTL was founded about a decade later by Governor Felipe de Neve.

[7] The ATL son of Luis de Unzaga, who ironically in OTL was the next but one Governor of Louisiana after Ulloa and was largely responsible for cleaning up the mess he made.

[8] OTL Angel Island.

[9] Messier discovered this comet in OTL as well; it is known by the classification number C/1769 P1.

[10] And of course this is OTL San Francisco and the Golden Gate.

[11] Radar.

[12] These authors make a minor but common mistake—the Empire of New Spain was originally referred to as the Empire of the Indies, and this was a misnomer that gradually became the official name.

[13] San Luis is on the site of OTL Portland.

[14] The Santa Fe Trail is OTL, but the town it started from is in OTL Independence, Missouri. In TTL, the town of Burkeston (named after Richard Burke) is on the same site, in the province of Missouri in the Confederation of Virginia.

[15] Of course, railways aren’t actually a Russian invention as such, but this is how they are generally regarded by the rest of the world."