Eternity Street

by John Mack Faragher

  Three days later Governor Micheltorena arrived in the San Fernando Valley with a force of three hundred men. Some two hundred rebels, under the command of Captain Castro, marched out of the pueblo and over Cahuenga Pass to confront him. The engagement began on the morning of February 20, not far from the spot where the Californios had halted Governor Manuel Victoria fourteen years before. Micheltorena had three field guns, the Californios had two, and deploying these along the barrancas, or gulches, that crisscrossed the bed of the Río Porciúncula, the combatants began a lengthy artillery duel that continued throughout the day.

  The sound of the barrage could be heard back at the pueblo, and many residents climbed the rolling hills on the north side of town to observe the battle. William Heath Davis, an American merchant trader, joined them there and was struck by the scene. “Women and children with crosses in their hands, kneeling and praying to the Saints for the safety and protection of their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, lovers, cousins—that they might not be killed in the battle, indifferent to their personal appearance, tears streaming from their eyes, their hair blown about by the wind.” The firing ceased at sunset and the people made their way back down to their homes. “The night that followed was a gloomy one,” wrote Davis, “caused by the lamentations of the women and children.”

  But there was no reason for grief, since no one had been killed in the firing. Americans ridiculed the lack of casualties. The Californios “uniformly preferred delay to fighting,” wrote Thomas Farnham, choosing “to massacre time instead of men.” Californio cowardice would be a consistent refrain among Americans, who had little appreciation for the art of bloodless warfare. In the internecine battles that pitted relatives against each other, the Californio objective was not outright victory so much as it was the defense of honor and eventual arbitration.

  The following morning the artillery was repositioned and the barrage resumed, but soon Americans on both sides found an opportunity to fraternize. Workman, leading the southern rifleros, declared that this was not their fight and that all of them should withdraw together. When the northerners, Isaac Graham among them, objected that Micheltorena had promised to honor their land claims, Workman arranged for Pío Pico himself to speak to them. “I will give you my word of honor as a gentleman,” he told the Americans, “that I will protect all and each one of you in the land that you hold now.” Castro spoke as well, saying he hoped “to unite the Californians and foreigners and then declare the country independent of Mexico.” Those promises proved decisive. The Americans agreed to lay down their arms, and when Micheltorena realized he had lost the support of his rifleros, he raised the white flag. Following a brief negotiation with the Californios, he marched his convict army to San Pedro, and they returned to Mexico as soon as transport could be arranged.

  “The Californians have succeeded,” reported Thomas O. Larkin in Monterey. “Upper California, from Bodega to San Diego, is once more under its own command.” Pío Pico—who resided in a townhouse on the Plaza, built with the wealth accumulated during his administration of Mission San Luis Rey—declared his intention of governing the department from Los Angeles. The norteños demanded their due, however, and in a compromise the legislature selected Castro as the department’s commandante militar and Alvarado as chief customs inspector, both positions based at Monterey. All these appointments were later confirmed by Mexican authorities, demonstrating once again their inability to control events in distant California.

  But over subsequent months the regional and personal jealousies among the Californios continued to break out in persistent conflict. Larkin’s initial enthusiasm was considerably dampened. “The Californians are now free to govern themselves,” he wrote in September, “which freedom they exercise by not governing at all.” Leading Californios were divided among themselves at what turned out to be the moment of their greatest peril. “There is little to prevent the Americans from making this land another Texas,” observed a French diplomat. “California will undoubtedly belong to whatever nation is willing to send out a man-of-war and 200 men.”

  •

  CHAPTER 5 •

  THE TEXAS GAME

  IN MARCH 1845, as Californios attempted to take charge of their homeland, President James K. Polk entered the White House, determined to take it from them. Fifty years old, married but childless, Polk was devoted to politics, “aside from which,” according to his biographer, “he had no aspirations, intellectual interests, recreations, or even friendships.” A protégé of Andrew Jackson, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and governor of Tennessee, Polk prevailed in a close presidential election after waging a spread-eagle campaign calling for “the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas,” language suggesting that the nation had a preemptive claim to those territories, implying that expansion was, in the legendary phrase of a Democratic Party propagandist, “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent.” Expanding the nation’s boundaries, Polk declared in his inaugural address, “is to extend the dominions of peace over additional territories and increasing millions.” Conquest was justice. “The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.” There would be ample opportunity to test his proposition.

  A few days before Polk’s inauguration, Congress passed a joint resolution offering statehood to Texas, and by the time the new president took the oath of office, he was considering further extensions of the national domain. He shared his views in a private conversation with his new navy secretary, historian George Bancroft, an avid supporter of continental expansion. “In the clearest manner and with the utmost energy,” Bancroft later recalled, Polk declared that “the acquisition of California for the United States” would be a principal goal of his administration. He hoped to accomplish it through negotiation, but was willing to wage war if necessary. Polk hoped to lure Mexico into making a hostile move providing him with a casus belli. The commander of the Pacific Squadron received the same standing orders given to Commodore Jones in 1841—seize California at the first news of a declaration of war between the United States and Mexico.

  In the meantime Polk devised a covert operation aimed at securing California more directly. His plan required an agent, and with Secretary Bancroft’s assistance he selected Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie, an ambitious young Marine Corps officer, known for his shock of red hair, his fluency in Spanish, and his familiarity with the Pacific region, having served several tours in that theater as commander of the marine guard aboard several American warships. Gillespie was briefed by Secretary Bancroft, then by Polk himself in a private interview at the White House. His assignment was to get himself to California as quickly as possible, traveling incognito across central Mexico to the Pacific port of Mazatlán, then catching a lift to Monterey on an American naval vessel, in order to deliver secret instructions to two Americans in California.

  The first was merchant Thomas O. Larkin, the man who tipped Commodore Jones to his mistake in 1842 and the following year was appointed American consul at Monterey. Larkin enjoyed excellent relations with influential Californios, including Alvarado, Vallejo, Castro, and the Pico brothers. Gillespie carried instructions from Secretary of State James Buchanan naming Larkin a “confidential agent” of the American state and instructing him to do everything in his power to encourage the Californios in their struggle for autonomy. “Should California assert and maintain her independence,” wrote Buchanan, “we shall render her all the kind offices in our power as a sister republic.” And if the Californios “should desire to unite their destiny with ours, they would be received as brethren.” Larkin’s task was to persuade California’s leaders to seek annexation by the United States.

  Gillespie’s second contact was Captain John C. Frémont of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, celebrated as the “Pathfinder” for his leadership of two official government explorations of the trans-Mississippi West. In the summer of 1845 Frémont departed on a third expedition, guided by
mountain man Kit Carson and accompanied by a private company of sixty or seventy well-armed men. His official instructions were to explore and survey the front range of the Rocky Mountains, but President Polk told Gillespie he would find the explorer in California. As Frémont later put it, in making arrangements for his expedition “the eventualities of war were taken into consideration, . . . the contingencies anticipated and weighed.” He was privately told to lead his men to the Pacific coast, assigned the task of watching, waiting, and, if expedient, “carrying the war now imminent with Mexico into the territory of California.” Polk provided Gillespie with what he characterized as additional “secret instructions” for Frémont, oral directives that were not committed to paper. According to Bancroft, Gillespie was to inform Frémont of “the new state of affairs and the designs of the President,” namely his determination “to take possession of California.” But by what means?

  Polk was a secretive man. He hinted at what he had in mind, though, in a conversation with Samuel J. Hastings, an experienced California trader who visited the White House shortly after Gillespie’s departure and reported what he learned in a letter to Thomas Larkin. “I am now going to give you some advice, and I have good grounds to go on,” Hastings wrote. “Carry on your business exactly as you would if you had been in Texas ten years since and knew at that time things would turn out as they have.” The president, in other words, expected the Texas game—an uprising of American settlers—to be played in California. “American agents and American capital,” Hastings continued, “will be at the bottom of it.” The most important of those agents was John C. Frémont.

  Polk’s clandestine California operation played both ends against the middle. Gillespie carried two sets of instructions promoting two seemingly incompatible objectives. Larkin was to conciliate the Californios and persuade them to request American protection, while Frémont was to encourage insurrection among American settlers. The incongruity of the two aims led early California historian Josiah Royce to wonder how a “sane government” could have simultaneously pursued both goals. But in attempting to shape the outcome of events by covert means, nation-states often choose the most expedient rather than the most rational course. Polk sought to create turmoil in California and thereby opportunity for the United States. It mattered little to him which plan succeeded, as long as one of them did.

  LIEUTENANT ARCHIBALD H. GILLESPIE arrived at the Gulf coast port of Vera Cruz in early December 1845 and set off across central Mexico. At about the same time Captain John C. Frémont arrived at Sutter’s Fort on the Sacramento River, following a swift march across the Rockies and the Great Basin. Frémont took a small party to Monterey, where he paid his respects to Californian officials and met with Thomas Larkin. Commandante Castro was suspicious, but Frémont assured him that his visit was peaceful and scientific. That must have been something of a hard sell. Neither Frémont’s personal entourage of Delaware Indian scouts nor the frontiersmen who made up his company looked like peaceful, scientific types. Frémont told Castro he planned a survey of the lower Río Colorado, and in anticipation of a hard journey he requested permission to spend a few weeks grazing his horses and mules in California’s Central Valley. Castro reluctantly agreed. But instead of departing for the San Joaquín, Frémont and his company spent the late winter exploring the coastal valleys near Monterey, the department’s most thickly settled region. Frémont was following Polk’s instructions, playing for time, watching for signs of war between Mexico and the United States.

  In early March 1846 a Mexican officer and two guards rode into Frémont’s camp with a summons from Commandante Castro. “You and the party under your command have entered the towns of this department,” it read, “and such being prohibited by our laws, . . . you will immediately retire beyond the limits of this same department, such being the orders of the Supreme Government.” Frémont had no business being where he was. In fact, he was engaged in spying. As the guest of a foreign nation, he ought to have responded respectfully. But, as Frémont would demonstrate numerous times throughout his career, he was disdainful of authority. He was also impulsive, and bristling at Castro’s threatening tone, he reacted in knee-jerk fashion. “I peremptorily refused compliance to an order insulting to my government and myself,” he later explained. Having provoked the challenge, Frémont’s sense of honor compelled him to meet it.

  Breaking camp, he led his men into the hills east of the Salinas River, mounted a commanding summit, and hoisted the American flag, thereby raising the stakes considerably. Castro immediately issued a proclamation. “Bandoleros commanded by a captain of the United States Army, J. C. Frémont, have without respect to the laws and authorities of the department daringly introduced themselves into the country.” It was imperative, Castro declared, that the authorities “lance the ulcer,” for if the Americans got away with such outrageous conduct, it would threaten “our liberties and our independence.”

  Consul Larkin wrote to both Castro and Frémont, counseling moderation, and his intervention may have prevented a clash. On March 9, after a three-day standoff, Frémont retreated under cover of darkness, leading his men east to the Central Valley, then north toward Sutter’s Fort. News of the confrontation preceded him, and when Frémont and his men arrived at the Sacramento River, dozens of American settlers were there to offer support. That demonstration of sentiment proved more disturbing to California officials than Frémont’s bravado. With a sense of mounting crisis, Castro called prominent Californio military officers together for what Consul Larkin described as “a council of war.”

  They assembled at Monterey in late March. All those attending—including former governor Juan Bautista Alvarado and former commandante Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo—knew California was on the verge of extraordinary change. What course should they pursue? For Commandante Castro, fear of the Americans was the overwhelming sentiment. “We find ourselves suddenly threatened by hordes of Yankee emigrants,” he told his colleagues.

  Already have the wagons of that perfidious people scaled the almost inaccessible summits of the Sierra Nevada, crossed the entire continent, and penetrated the fruitful valley of the Sacramento. What that astonishing people will next undertake, I cannot say; but in whatever enterprise they embark they will be sure to prove successful. . . . We cannot successfully oppose them by our own unaided power, and the swelling tide of emigration renders the odds against us more formidable every day.

  Their best hope, Castro believed, was to request the protection of France or Great Britain. “Is it not better that one of them should be invited to send a fleet and an army, to defend and protect California, rather than we should fall an easy prey to the lawless adventurers who are overrunning our beautiful country?”

  Vallejo respectfully disagreed. As a liberal, he admired the United States for its political system, particularly for the promise of economic liberty and the legal protection of property rights. “We are republicans,” he argued. “So far as we are governed at all, we at least profess to be self-governed. Who, then, that possesses true patriotism will consent to subject himself and his children to the caprices of a foreign king and his official minions?” He dared his colleagues to consider the option of “annexation to the United States.”

  Why should we shrink from incorporating ourselves with the happiest and freest nation in the world, destined soon to be the most wealthy and powerful? Why should we go abroad for protection when this great nation is our adjoining neighbor? When we join our fortunes to hers, we shall not become subjects, but fellow-citizens. . . . Look not, therefore, with jealousy upon the hardy pioneers who scale our mountains and cultivate our unoccupied plains; but rather welcome them as brothers, who come to share with us a common destiny.

  Vallejo had long held such views, but this was the first time he had made them known in a public forum. Earnest discussion followed, but the Californios found themselves unable to agree on a way forward.

  Vallejo’s perspective was shared by a surprising number of pr
ominent men in the southern part of the department. Los Angeles merchant Abel Stearns had family and many friends among the elite. “The majority of the people in this quarter,” he wrote to Thomas Larkin, “particularly the land holders and the most respectable part, would willingly and anxiously join the United States if they were sure of immediate protection against the Mexican Government. I often hear them say, ojalá que toma esta los Americanos”—I hope the Americans take us. The “vast majority of Californians would be glad and anxious to throw themselves into the hands of the United States,” reported Jonathan Trumbull Warner, another Yankee, the proprietor of a southern California rancho who counted the Pico brothers among his closest associates. “This opinion I believe to be almost universal.”

  ON APRIL 17, shortly after the adjournment of the Californio council of war, Archibald Gillespie arrived in Monterey aboard the sloop of war USS Cyane, which he had boarded in Mazatlán after a short meeting with Commodore John D. Sloat, commander of the Pacific Squadron. Gillespie immediately went to Larkin’s residence with Secretary of State Buchanan’s dispatch, which Larkin read with delight. His new assignment would pay him six dollars a day for continuing to do what he was already doing—encouraging the Californios to consider the United States their friend. He remained confident that a process of peaceful annexation was possible, despite Frémont’s unfortunate provocation, about which he informed Gillespie.

  Larkin deplored Frémont’s adventurism, but Gillespie found it exhilarating. In a report to Washington he applauded Frémont’s “bold and chivalrous manner” and condemned Commandante Castro as “a treacherous and cowardly knave,” language drawn almost word for word from Thomas Farnham’s account of the deportation of the American rifleros. At least three hundred American settlers, Gillespie reported, were “ready at a moment’s warning to rally in defense of their new homes and firesides.” The Californios were “cowardly and inert,” powerless to stop them. He expressed his strong conviction—based on old prejudices rather than new intelligence—that “the government of California must soon fall into the hands of a very different set of men than those who direct its destinies at present.” Despite Larkin’s instructions to conciliate the Californios, Gillespie put the emphasis on violent confrontation.