page_title: Hippolyte Bouchard
section_title: California and Central America
hierarchical_section_title: Hippolyte Bouchard / Campaign with La Argentina / California and Central America
caption_attribution_description: English: Mission San Juan Capistrano, April 2005. Photograph by Robert A. Estremo, copyright 2005.
context_page_description: Hippolyte Bouchard, or Hipólito Bouchard, was a French-born Argentine sailor and corsair who fought for Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
  During his first campaign as an Argentine corsair he attacked the Spanish colonies of Chile and Peru, under the command of the Irish-Argentine Admiral William Brown. During his overseas voyage he blockaded the port of Manila. In Hawaii, he recovered an Argentine privateer which had been seized by mutineers. He also met the local ruler, King Kamehameha I. His forces occupied Monterey, California, then a Spanish colony, raised the Argentine flag and held the town for six days. After raiding Monterey, he plundered Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California. Toward the end of the voyage Bouchard raided Spanish ports in Central America. His second homeland remembers him as a hero and patriot; several places are named in his honour.
context_section_description: Bouchard sailed towards California to exploit the Spanish trade. However the Spanish authorities knew his intentions since on 6 October the Clarion had reported two corsair ships were ready to attack the Californian coast. The governor, Pablo Vicente de Solá, who resided in Monterey, ordered removed from the city all valuables and two thirds of the gunpowder stocked in the military outposts.
  On 20 November 1818, the watchman of Punta de Pinos, located at the tip of the southern end of Monterey Bay, sighted the two Argentine ships. The governor was informed; the Spanish prepared the cannons along the coastline, the garrison manned their battle stations, and the women, children, and men unfit to fight were sent to an inland mission at Soledad.
  Bouchard met with his officers to design the attack plan. Peter Corney knew the bay from two previous visits to Monterey. They used the corvette Santa Rosa to attack since the deep draft frigate La Argentina might run aground. The frigate had to be towed by small boats and out of range of the Spanish artillery. Once it was out of range, Bouchard sent captain Sheppard to the Santa Rosa, leading two hundred soldiers, carrying firearms and lances.
  Santa Rosa corvette, led by Sheppard, anchored by midnight near the Presidio of Monterey. Since, after towing the frigate and rowing back to the corvette the men were very tired, Sheppard decided not to attack in the night. At dawn he discovered that he had anchored too close to the coast and that few meters ahead the Spanish artillery was ready to attack them. The captain opened fire, but after fifteen minutes of combat the corvette surrendered.
  From the frigate, Bouchard saw his men defeated, but also noticed that the Spanish lacked boats to seize Santa Rosa. The corsair ordered his ships to weigh anchor and move towards the port. However, due to the frigate's draft, he could not get close enough to open fire. After sunset they brought the corvette's survivors aboard the frigate.
  On 24 November, before dawn, Bouchard ordered his men to board the boats. They were 200: 130 had rifles and 70 had spears. They landed  7 km (4.3 mi) away from the fort in a hidden creek. The fort resisted ineffectively, and after an hour of combat the Argentine flag flew over it. The Argentines took the city for six days, during which time they stole the cattle and burned the fort, the artillery headquarters, the governor's residence and the Spanish houses. The town's residents were unharmed.
  On 29 November they left Monterey, passed Point Conception, and anchored off of Refugio Canyon, about twenty miles west of Santa Barbara, where they went to the hacienda of the Ortega family rancho.  Bouchard was told the family had strongly supported the Spanish cause. On 5 December the Argentines disembarked near the farm and, meeting no resistance, took all the food, killed the cattle, and slit the throats of the saddle horses in the corrals. A small squadron of cavalry, sent by José de la Guerra y Noriega from the Santa Barbara Presidio, waited quietly nearby for an opportunity to capture some stragglers.  They captured an officer and two sailors, whom they brought back to the Presidio in chains. Bouchard waited for them the whole day, because he thought they were lost, until he decided to burn the farm and go to Mission Santa Barbara, where the three men could have been taken as prisoners. Once he arrived at Santa Bárbara, and seeing the town was heavily defended (in reality, what Bouchard saw through his spyglass was the same small troop of cavalry, which stopped and changed costume each time it passed behind a heavy clump of brush), the privateer sent a messenger to speak to the governor. After the negotiation the three captured men returned to the Santa Rosa and Bouchard freed one prisoner.
  On 16 December the ships weighed anchor and headed to San Juan Capistrano. There he requested food and ammunition; a Spanish officer said "he had enough gunpowder and cannonballs for me". Threats annoyed Bouchard; he sent one hundred men to take the town. After a short fight the cor
caption: The Mission San Juan Capistrano.
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