Part 3 (1/2)
24th day: We left for the north, staying close to the hills.
There are very fine plains and very good pasturage. We encountered several water holes where cattle might drink.
From the Alameda, which is called San Clemente, to the first arroyo northward, which is called San Juan de la Cruz, the distance is about three leagues. The latter creek has little water and a few cottonwoods. We followed along the hills until the Mission of Our Father San Francisco came into view. At this point we turned around; the plains run to the parallel of the presidio. After eating, we surveyed the sh.o.r.e of the bay where, after about a league with no water, we came upon some salt marshes which without doubt are those which Sergeant Amador mentions in his diary. At the present time they do not contain salt, from which I infer that they are marshes like those of San Mateo where in dry years the salt crystallizes out.
25th day: We returned [p. 119] to the first watering place, called San Francisco Solano, at which it is possible to establish the mission, although there is likely to be much damage inflicted by the horses of the town. A cross was placed on a small hill, for in all the region we covered there is no place more suitable. The unconverted heathen are fairly numerous, according to the many trails which are to be seen. In the same plain there are three moderate-sized rancherias.
The above is what I consider adequate for the information of your reverence. If anything be lacking you will advise me so that your reverence may form an appropriate opinion.
The itinerary may be followed with reasonable precision. The journey of the 22nd brought the party to a creek 6 or 7 leagues (Sal says 6) north of Santa Clara. Taking the league as 2.7 miles, this distance puts them on Mission Creek not far from Mission San Jose (called by Danti, San Francisco Solano). On the morning of the 23rd they penetrated to the headwaters of this creek, approximately 2 or 3 miles into the hills.
The idea that this creek came out opposite the town of San Jose is manifestly an error.
Returning to the starting point and then going along the foot of the hills for 2 leagues, as Sal says in the ”Informe,” they reached Alameda Creek very close to Niles. They then went upstream to the junction of Stonybrook Creek in the hills and then retraced their steps to Niles.
The water disappeared just southwest of the town (1/4 league from the hills) and reappeared one league below, perhaps a mile southwest of Decoto and 3 miles east of Alvarado and on the edge of the salt marshes.
On the 24th the party proceeded 3 leagues northward to the stream called San Juan de la Cruz. From the distances, this can have been no other than San Lorenzo Creek. If so, they went on out to the sh.o.r.e of the Bay and saw San Francisco from a point just west of San Lorenzo. A few miles now to the southward would have brought them to the salt marshes just southwest of Mt. Eden. The hills they ascended were the Coyote Hills near Newark. From this point they crossed the plain directly to Mission San Jose and thence to Santa Clara.
Danti notes on Mission Creek the presence of three empty houses, indicating at least transient occupation by a few natives. Toward the end of the ”Diario” he says that the unconverted heathen are ”fairly numerous” and that on the plain there are three ”moderate-sized”
rancherias. Actually, therefore, he saw no indigenous heathen, and could find traces of no more than would inhabit three rancherias of dubious size. It will be remembered that Crespi reported in 1772 that there were five villages between Milpitas and San Lorenzo, whereas Anza in 1776 found six. Danti, in a much more exhaustive survey, located only three.
It is evident that during the intervening twenty years the native population in southwestern Alameda County had been seriously depleted, reduced perhaps more than half. Accordingly it must be recognized that the doc.u.ments relating to the Danti-Sal expedition (and all later ones) are of little value for estimating the preconquest population of the East Bay. The reduction was due, of course, to conversion by the missions and disturbance of the native economy, as well as to introduced diseases.
RAYMUNDO EL CALIFORNIO'S TRIP
Activity along the Contra Costa was again intensified in 1797. This time, as in 1795, the reason for attention in the official records was a minor expedition which got into trouble. Reference to the purely routine correspondence is here omitted and citation is made only of those letters containing matter of intrinsic interest.
On June 20, 1797, the commandant, Jose Arguello, wrote from San Francisco to the missionaries at San Jose (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St.
Pap., XV: 213). He had just learned that a Christian Indian, named Raymundo el Californio, had left the mission at the head of about 30 or 40 other Indians in pursuit of fugitive Christians on the other sh.o.r.e.
He asked for confirmation of this report. Within a few days he had his answer. In an undated letter, probably subsequent to June 22, from San Francisco he informed Governor Borica what had happened (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XV: 216-217).
The Indians under Raymundo el Californio returned, completely dispersed because the winds and high waves swamped many of them. Since they did not tell the same story, he [Arguello]
questioned Raymundo, who declared: having reached the other sh.o.r.e he found in three rancherias of the Cuchillones several Christians, men, women and children. On retreating to the beach with them, he was attacked by the other Indians of the place, but he succeeded in embarking in the boats without their having started a battle. Two of his group who had lagged behind were pursued by the Indians and were forced to jump into the water.
Soon they were rescued by a boat, one of them having received a spear wound in the head, but of little severity. While they [the whole party] were all retiring, a storm came up which dispersed them widely. When they tried to follow Raymundo, they were twice forced back to the territory of the Cuchillones. Seeing that their boats were being broken up and thinking themselves lost, they abandoned the boats and went by land, without leaving the edge of the beach until they arrived opposite San Francisco, where they came upon a rancheria of heathen, named Santa Anna.
The inhabitants made them welcome and furnished them with tules from their own houses, with which they constructed other boats and crossed to this sh.o.r.e.
The expedition sailed across, apparently to the region of Richmond or San Pablo. Later, the fugitives followed the beach to the vicinity of Oakland and San Leandro. The existence of a rancheria of heathen, bearing the name of Santa Anna, is peculiar. The name was familiarly applied without church sanction, or it was a village containing Christian converts rather than heathen. In either event, complete absorption of the natives into the Spanish Colonial system as far north as Oakland is implied. Also noteworthy is the casual manner in which the Mission Indians crossed and recrossed the Bay at its widest point in tule rafts.
PEDRO AMADOR'S EXPEDITIONS
On July 8, Sergeant Pedro Amador reported from San Jose to the Governor (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XV: 371-373) that two heathen, or wild, Indians were trying to stir up a revolt among the Christians of San Jose. ”These two Gentiles are from the rancherias of the Sacalanes, from those which committed the offenses against the Christians of San Francisco. All of them are neighbors of those of the valley of San Jose in that part of the sh.o.r.e opposite San Francisco.” Since the Valley of San Jose was the valley of upper Alameda Creek, extending from Sunol to above Pleasanton, this statement tends to place the Sacalanes in the general area west of Livermore and in the hills to the northward.
Two days later, July 10, the Governor answered Amador's letter, from Monterey (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XVI: 71-72), ordering him to go with two soldiers and twenty civilians to the rancheria of the Sacalanes and capture both the chiefs and all fugitive Christians.
Amador carried out the order immediately and, after his return, submitted a report to the Governor in the form of a diary, together with a letter, both dated July 19 at San Jose. The diary in full is to be found in the Archivo General de la Nacion, Ramo Californias, Vol. 65, Doc. no. 1, MS p. 93. The essential portions are worth reproducing and are translated as follows.
_Amador's Diary (1797)_
[July 6 to 12 inclusive were spent making preparations.]