The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1881-05-29
CALIFORNIA UNDER THE
FRIARS.

So long as the Spanish dominion
was maintained, all the missionaries
were natives of Spain or of the
Spanish islands in the Mediterran.
can. Most of them had reached
middle life before coming to Califor-
mia, and, so far as we can learn from
their writings and the books OF
others, all were sincerely devOut
humble, and aScetic men. Sierra
himself made near approach to the
ideal of Franciscan perfection, and
he found, or at least publicly ex.
pressed, no cause of serious COM
plant against any of his compan-
ions. The military officers made nc
charges against the missionaries ex-
cept mistakes of policy in governing
the Indians; and Vancouver and La
Perouse, who landed on our coast in
the latter part of the last century,
while criticising the management of
the missions, had nothing to say
against the character of the mis-
sionaries. The first notable scan
dals about the conduct of ecclesias-
tics in California arose after the
authority of Spain had been over
thrown, and natives of Mexico, who
had assumed the habit without
adopting the ascetic spirit of st.
Francis, succeeded their brethren of
the Old World, who had left the
country or died.
In 1774, orders were issued for the
establishment of two towns or
pIe6LoS in California, and the results
were San Jose, founded in 1777
by fourteen families, and Los
Angeles. founded in 1871 by
twelve families, most of the adult
male settlers in each case being men
who had come to the territory as
soldiers, and who were still under
obligation to render military service
whenever they might be summoned
to resume their arms. These towns
were separated from each other by a
distance of four hundred miles
along the travelled road. and each
was known in its own region as Ell
pueblo, or "the town." and San Jose
was generally designated by that
title by all the Spanish-speaking
population north of Gilroy as late as
1852. The law may have recognized
the existence of pttebloS at Yerba
Buena or Sonoma, but common
speech did not.
The judgment shown in the selec-
ton of the sites of tie Spanish plL-
ebloS has been approved by time.
San Jose and Los Angeles are now
the largest two cities in California
south of San Francisco Bay, and
also the largest in the state not stu
ated on the edge of navigable water.
Both are remarkably beautiful
places-garden cities, centres of
horticultural skill and activity.
These were the only towns that
Spain founded in California; nor did
she make much efforts to increase
their population. She did not sur
vey the unoccupied lands and throw
them open to settlement. She did
not invite immigration from foreign
countries, nor aid any large num-
Der of MexicanS to cross the Col
orado Desert from Sonora. She did
not adopt any plan of civilian colon
izatiOn. She offered no prizes in
California to the industrious or
ambitious. She did nothing to adj
vertise the attractions or make
known the resources of the country.
One town was built fifty miles from
the anchorage of San Francisco, and
the other 100 miles from San Diego.
The two magnificent bays of the
coast were avoided, thus proving
that the sites were not selected for
their commercial advantages. The
hadno fitness for military
strongholds. 1t is evident that the
main objects of the Spanish govern
ment in establishing these pttebloS,
were to obtain a small indigenous
Spanish in sympathy,an
partly Spanish in blood, to produce
soldiers for the missions and pre-
sidioS (fortifcations) at the sea-ports,
and to plant the germs of a Spanish
province.-JOh1 s. HitteLl
in Californian for Nay.