The Carrillos of San Diego ...: A Historic Spanish Family of California (Continued) Author(s): Brian McGinty Source: The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3 (September, 1957), pp. 281-301 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Historical Society of Southern California Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41169135 . Accessed: 18/05/2014 20:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Historical Society of Southern California are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 136.152.126.71 on Sun, 18 May 2014 20:01:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Carrillosof San Diego. A HistoricSpanish Family of California By Brian McGinty (Continuedfrom the June Quarterly) 3i^HE SPANISHAND Mexican periodsin Californiahistory lasted of JÍ| less than a total of eight years. From the landing ìSH JuniperoSerra at San Diego in 1769 to the raisingof the Starsand Stripesover the customshouse of Montereyin 1846, less than threegenerations of SpanishCalifornians passed throughthe annals of provincialhistory. Though the periodwas shortand its people were relativelyfew, Spanish and Mexican California,as unique historicalepochs, have earned for themselvessolid places in the annals of Americanpioneering. The adventof United Statesrule in California,beginning in 1846,brought with it a suddenend to the languidSpanish-Calif or- nian way of life. For thosewho were caughtin the squeeze of the suddenchange of government,adjustment was oftentimesdifficult. At once, the past was gone,- and the futurewas strangeand un- certain. Those Spanish Californianswhose lives were yet to be lived foundthe difficultyto be doubled. A part of themhad died withthe traditionsof theirancestors; but anothergreater and more importantpart yet remained vibrant and breathing- awaiting fulfillmentunder the strange,new rule of the United States. Part IX JoaquínCarrillo SON OF VICTORand Maria |KjOp|0AQUIN CARRILLO,ELDEST JOAQUÍN Es9KH Ig1100^ Lopez de Carrillo,was born in San Diego in WHffMj1820. Sixteenyears old when his fatherdied in about 1836,Joaquín was eighteenwhen his motherand youngerbrothers and sisterstook up theirresidence on RanchoCabeza de Santa Rosa. 281 This content downloaded from 136.152.126.71 on Sun, 18 May 2014 20:01:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA During the late 1830's, the Russian settlementof Fort Ross, twentymiles to the west of Santa Rosa, was at the heightof its Californiaactivity. Spaniardswere encouragedto take up lands on the northernfrontier of the provinceto strengthenMexican territorialclaims and to discouragefurther encroachment on the part of the Russians. The removalof the Carrillofamily to Cali- fornia'snorth country was partof the over-allplan of the Mexican governmentto settlethis area. Soon aftertheir arrival, the Carrillosbegan buildinga large and comfortableadobe house in the centralpart of the Santa Rosa Valley. Joaquin,as eldest son and nominalhead of the family, shoulderedprimary responsibility for the adobe's construction. SalvadorVallejo, soon to becomeJoaquin's brother-in-law, assisted with the designand gave experiencedsupervision, while the Car- rillo sons,together with Indians recruitedfrom the surrounding countryside,performed the actual labor. The adobe house that rose on the wooded banks of the Santa Rosa Creekwas a solid, handsomestructure, - a worthycenter of the greatrancho activities thatwere to takeplace at Cabeza de Santa Rosa in the 1840's. The walls of thishouse, at one timethe mostnortherly adobe dwelling in all California,still stand one mile east ofthe Cityof Santa Rosa. JoaquinCarrillo, like otherCalifornian youths, lived the free and open lifeof a picturesquevaquero. High-spiritedhorses, roam- ing by the hundredsover the grassyfield and woodedhillsides sur- roundingthe Carrilloranch house, were his constantcompanions; throwingmammoth steers and stalkingsavage grizzlybears were his sportsand relaxations.Indians aboundedin the Santa Rosa Valley at that time,and hundredsof themfound employment on the Carrillorancho. For sons of the gentede razón therewere to be no menial tasks. Let thesebe done by los indios! The whole north-bayregion was at thattime under the mili- tary controlof Joaquin'sbrother-in-law, General Mariano Guada- lupe Vallejo. Nearly all youthsin that area were subjectto duty in the PresidiaiCompany of San Francisco,centered in the pueblo of Sonoma. Joaquinserved in Sonoma in the early 1840's,along withhis brothers,Julion, José Ramon, Juan and Dolores. On April25, 1842,Joaquin was marriedin the chapel of Mis- 282 This content downloaded from 136.152.126.71 on Sun, 18 May 2014 20:01:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Carrillosof San Diego sion San FranciscoSolano de Sonoma.1 His bride was Señorita Guadalupe Caseres,daughter of the prominentSpanish pioneer, FranciscoCaseres, who had emigratedfrom Spain in 1816 and arrivedin Alta Californiain 1817. Amongthe childrenborn of thismarriage were: EnriqueGuadalupe, Isabela, Frederico,Maria, Francisco,Amelia, Luisa, Catalina, Josefa,and AlbertoRonaldo Carrillo.2 On March 29, 1844, GovernorManuel Micheltorenagranted JoaquinCarrillo three square leagues of Rancho Llano de Santa Rosa.3 This property,consisting of 13, 317 acres,lay west of his mother'srancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa. It had previouslybeen grantedto Marcus West, whose title to the propertyhad been allowed to lapse priorto Joaquin'sgrant. Selectinga site on his sprawlingrancho near a large pond knownas the Laguna, JoaquinCarrillo built his home.4 At first he erecteda small adobe; later,when he had becomemore firmly established,he builta large and comfortableadobe housein which his wife,Guadalupe Caseres de Carrillo,and his childrenmade their home formany years. This house faced east on a part of the old Spanish trail, a road that was later used by the firststage-coach lines to penetrateSonoma County. The Bear Flag Revoltburst suddenly upon the residentsof the regionnorth of San FranciscoBay in Juneof 1846. IsolatedAmeri- can immigrantshad been filteringinto Californiafor over twenty years; but they had been treatedcordially, in many cases given rich grantsof governmentland, and had, forthe mostpart, con- ductedthemselves in a friendlyand peacefulmanner. Now, under the ambitiousprodding of the newly-arrivedCaptain John C. Fremont,they were "rebelling"against their accommodating hosts. JoaquinCarrillo was in Sonoma at the time of the raisingof the Bear Flag, and, as one of the district'smost prominent citizens, he was taken prisonerby ulos Osos" along with his brothers-in-law, Marianoand SalvadorVallejo, and severalother prominent Sonoma residents.They were taken to Sutter'sFort, there to languishfor nearlya monthand a half awaitingtheir eventual release by order of CommodoreStockton. When the hecticevents of 1846 came to an end and California 283 This content downloaded from 136.152.126.71 on Sun, 18 May 2014 20:01:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA emergedthrough the smokeof controversyand the blood of battle as part of the United States,Joaquín Carrillo was one of the few Spanish Californianswho adapted with relativeease to the new orderof things. In mid-1846,he assumedthe importantoffice of Alcalde (Mayor) of Sonoma. At that time,the pueblo of Sonoma was the only legally constitutedsettlement north of San Francisco Bay. In the size of its populationand in its administrativeauth- ority,it far outshoneits southernrival, Yerba Buena, a sleepy pueblo that sometimelater was to be knownas the City of San Francisco. In the early 1850's Americansettlers began squattingon the Carrillolands in and aroundthe Santa Rosa Valley, and Rancho Llano de Santa Rosa steadilydecreased in size. In the 1850's, at a time when talk of the CrimeanWar was on the lips of people throughoutthe world,a group of Americanpioneers founded a town on part of JoaquínCarrillo's rancho, - namingtheir settle- mentfor another more famous city in the Crimea,Sebastopol. In the early days of Llano de Santa Rosa, therehad been a great numberof Indians on the property.For many years,flint arrowheadsand stonemortars and pestleswere uncovered,attest- ing to the presencethere of a large native settlementbefore the advent of the Spanish.5 When ranchingand farmingactivities werebegun by JoaquínCarrillo, numerous Indians were employed as laborers. But thousandsof them died in whiteman's plagues duringthe 1840's,and afterthe Americanconquest only a fewre- mained. Now, proudcaballeros were forcedto descendfrom their prancinghorses and guide plows throughthe rollingfields that lay along the banks of Laguna Creek. Though they grumbled as theywent about suchmenial tasks, Joaquin Carrillo and his sons did not refuse. They knew that this was the price of survivalin the new Americanlife. Joaquinand Guadalupe Carrillooperated