Eternity Street

by John Mack Faragher

  But people would talk. Horace Bell repeated a story about Barton and his consort that clearly expressed contempt. “He was an uncouth, illiterate man,” Bell wrote. “He had lived for years prior to his death in illicit intercourse with a Capistrano Indian woman.” But one day, because of “some alleged ill treatment,” the woman took her things as well as her child to the home of her mother, who lived in a ranchería on the east side of the Los Angeles River. “The high sheriff of Los Angeles County,” wrote Bell, “went to the Indian settlement to recover his woman. She refused to return to him. After long argument he seized her by her scalp lock and started to lead her away.” But Barton was immediately challenged by a young medio indio, or “half breed,” named Andrés Fuentes who, according to Bell, was María del Espiritu Santo’s brother and “a desperate sort of fellow given to the use of his knife on slight provocation.” Under the circumstances Sheriff Barton did the wise thing and retreated. But two days later, Bell reported, he had Fuentes arrested on a trumped-up charge of horse theft, for which he was convicted and sentenced to two years in San Quentin. The sheriff was present when the young man, manacled hand and foot, boarded the stage taking him to prison. “You put this job on me,” Fuentes said to Barton “I will return and kill you.”

  There is no corroboration for Bell’s story, which he claimed to have heard from Fuentes himself some years later. Whether or not he was María del Espiritu Santo’s brother—his name is not among those of her siblings on the parish register—he nursed a bitter grudge against Barton, the man who set him up. Fuentes was convicted during the summer of 1854, shortly after the birth of Barton’s son but before Barton’s formal acknowledgment of paternity. Perhaps that was what Barton and María del Espiritu Santo were fighting over. One thing seems clear. Once Barton made his declaration, which had significant implications for the child, his mother returned to Barton Ranch.

  BARTON WAS NOT ONLY a man of property but a man with considerable power. Elected county sheriff four times on the Democratic ticket, he became a fixture of the party’s local leadership. He resigned from law enforcement in the autumn of 1855, but not from politics. The following spring he was elected to fill a vacancy on the county’s governing board of supervisors and he served as a delegate to the party’s annual state convention. He kept a low profile during the crisis following the killing of Antonio Ruiz, when Sheriff David W. Alexander, his successor, came in for a great deal of criticism for his weak leadership. Alexander resigned shortly afterward, his term completed by Deputy Charles Hale. Party colleagues and friends, arguing that the office required Barton’s experienced hand, urged him to stand for sheriff once again. That was all the encouragement Barton needed, and at summer’s end he resigned from his post as supervisor and announced his candidacy for county sheriff in the upcoming November election.

  “Bloody Kansas” was the commanding item of national news during the summer of 1856, and that autumn’s political contest, which focused on the question of slavery in the western territories, promised to be equally turbulent. John C. Frémont, presidential nominee of the nascent Republican Party, ran on a “Free Soil” platform, while Democrat James Buchanan endorsed the principle of “Popular Sovereignty,” leaving the decision over slavery for territorial residents themselves to decide. The contest had local resonance. A group of notable Californios—led by Pío Pico and including representatives of the Lugo, Yorba, Ávila, Sepúlveda, and Carrillo families—announced their endorsement of Frémont’s candidacy, which stirred up a great deal of political backlash among Democrats. Californio José Rubio, who supported the Republicans, reported that Democrat Antonio Coronel, a consummate political insider, had been harassed by Anglo members of his own party when he showed up to vote at a special municipal election held in October. “Here comes another Greaser vote,” the Anglos had shouted, “here comes another vote for the Negro. If the Negro Coronel comes to vote, don’t let him.” That’s the way it would always be with the Democrats, Rubio warned his fellow Californios. They sang the praises of the hijos del país as long as the community followed them blindly, but “now that you want to vote for Frémont, they cannot find words despicable enough to condemn you.” Francisco Ramírez proclaimed that the outcome of the election would determine whether Californios moved forward together under the banner of freedom and independence, or remained under the thumb of the Democrats, “whose vile ‘Greaser’ laws have weighed on us so ignominiously.”

  The Democrats carried Los Angeles once again. But Buchanan’s electors captured only a bare majority of the votes cast. Editor Henry Hamilton of the Star was upset at the number of Californios who cast their ballots for Frémont, and he blamed Ramírez, accusing him of deliberately stirring up ethnic hostility in order “to produce a rift between them and their Democratic brethren.” For his part, Ramírez was scornful of Hamilton’s assumption that the Democratic Party was the natural home for Californios. “What name will the Democrats use for us now,” he wondered, “Mexicans or Greasers?” Buried in the debate over the outcome of the election was the news that James R. Barton had won a fifth term as county sheriff, outpolling the national ticket, with more than two-thirds of all the votes cast.

  SHORTLY AFTER the presidential election in November, a notorious outlaw gang arrived in the Los Angeles vicinity from the north. The putative leaders, Francisco “Pancho” Daniel and Juan Flores, were young Californios from the vicinity of San José. Daniel, the older of the two, was a career criminal who survived by avoiding the limelight. He had a ferocious reputation but an unassuming appearance, looking for all the world like “an ordinary appearing little Mexican,” in the words of an Anglo who knew him. Flores was the flashy one. Horace Bell described him as “a dark complexioned fellow of medium height, slim, lithe and graceful, a most beautiful figure in the fandango or on horseback.”

  Flores had been to Los Angeles before. In the spring of 1855 he and an associate had been convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for stealing a team of horses from the Hardy brothers, teamsters who operated a livery stable southeast of the Plaza. According to Antonio Coronel, after Flores was sentenced, he swore that “whenever he got out he’d wreak vengeance on the person responsible.” That was Garnett Hardy, the man who testified against him in court, earning Flores’s everlasting enmity. Flores met Pancho Daniel at San Quentin, where they were both serving time, and in October 1856 they joined several other convicts in a spectacular breakout, hijacking a brig from the prison’s dock and sailing it into San Francisco Bay. Guards fired into the ranks of the several dozen prisoners who jumped aboard, killing a number of them. But the ringleaders, still in handcuffs, successfully piloted the vessel to the eastern shore and escaped. Calling themselves los Manillas (the Handcuffs), Flores and Daniel recruited a peripatetic band of followers, including Andrés Fuentes, Sheriff Barton’s nemesis, who had been released from prison several months earlier. Fuentes agreed to join the gang, he told Horace Bell, “on condition that they would help him to murder Jim Barton.”

  The Manillas were responsible for a number of attacks committed in the Los Angeles vicinity. But both Fuentes and Flores were preoccupied with revenge. On a Sunday afternoon in mid-January 1857, one of the gang observed Garnett Hardy leaving town with a wagonload of goods intended for a merchant in San Juan Capistrano, sixty miles southeast, about halfway to San Diego. It was an opportunity for Flores to wreak vengeance, and he gathered his men and set out in pursuit. Hardy made a cold camp somewhere along the road that night, and in the darkness the Manillas missed him. They arrived at San Juan before him the following morning, and spent the next several hours visiting the drinking establishments and bragging of their criminal accomplishments. By the time Hardy pulled in, most of the gang were sleeping it off. Warned that someone named Flores was looking for him, it all suddenly came back to Hardy. He wrote a short note of warning to his brothers and arranged for a rider to carry it express to Los Angeles. Then he unhitched his horses, abandoned his wagon, and set out for home, taking
a circuitous route to avoid being overtaken by the gang.

  Flores discovered Hardy’s wagon some time later and flew into a rage. Suspecting that local residents had warned him, he unleashed his men on the town. They plundered several stores, including the retail establishment of Jewish merchant Michael Kraszewski, who saved himself by hiding under a large clothes basket. “I looked upon myself as lost,” Kraszewski recalled, “but did not lose my presence of mind.” He sat without moving a muscle while the Manillas shot and wounded his clerk, then proceeded to loot the place, loading the booty onto their horses. They departed late that night, but were back the following day to continue the plunder of other shops. George Pflugardt, a German who operated a tavern and grocery, armed himself and warned them not to enter, but Flores and two accomplices pushed their way inside and shot Pflugardt dead. Across the street was the old mission compound, which had been converted into the palatial home of ranchero John Forster, brother-in-law of Pío Pico and proprietor of several large properties in the area. Many townspeople had taken refuge there. As the gang members prepared to leave with their loot, they fired a few random shots at Forster’s place. They would return, they shouted, and when they did “they would kill all the San Juanians.”

  That same day in Los Angeles Alfred Hardy received his brother’s note of warning and immediately went to Sheriff Barton. San Juan Capistrano was within Barton’s jurisdiction—Orange County would not be hived off until 1889—and the news that the town had been invaded by an armed gang of desperadoes under the command of two escaped convicts was alarming, to say the least. Barton organized a small posse consisting of Deputy Frank Alexander and Constables William Little and Charles Baker. Anxious over the fate of his brother, Alfred Hardy volunteered to go along, as did Charles Daley, a blacksmith who worked for him. Barton arranged for a guide, a Frenchman identified only as “François,” who had worked as a vaquero at Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana and knew that part of the county as well as anyone in the pueblo. The preparations of the posse were observed from a distance by Andrés Fuentes, who had remained behind when the Manillas took off in pursuit of Hardy. Watching and listening, he soon learned where Barton was headed, and as the sheriff prepared to depart, he mounted a horse and set off at a furious pace for San Juan.

  The news of what was taking place in San Juan Capistrano spread around town. According to Harris Newmark, Anglos were “seized with terror.” He recalled the moment Louis Hayes Griffin—sister of Benjamin Hayes and wife of Dr. John S. Griffin—burst into the Newmark house in panic. Lock the doors and bolt the windows, she cried, “the outlaws are on their way to Los Angeles to murder the white people.” By Thursday evening most of the town’s Anglo women had been relocated to the heavily defended armory on Spring Street, while armed men took up positions at key defensive points throughout town.

  The fear of attack was understandable, but there is little or no evidence that the Manillas gang was targeting “white people.” John Forster noted that “they are down upon the Americans particularly,” but virtually all accounts agree that the gang attacked indiscriminately, threatening and assaulting any and all who stood in their way, without regard to ethnicity or race. That did not prevent commentators from repeating the claim that the violence had ethnic and political overtones. Horace Bell wrote that the Manillas “raised the standard of revolt,” declaring that their intention was to “rid the country of the hated gringos.” According to Hubert Howe Bancroft, the gang “threatened the extermination of the Americans.” But aside from Forster’s offhanded comment, there is absolutely no firsthand evidence to support those claims.

  More recently this notion has mutated into an argument that the Manillas were “quasi-revolutionary,” as one historian puts it, that they were “social bandits” who sought to reverse the conquest and enjoyed the popular support of ordinary Californios and Mexicans. The only contemporary evidence for such an interpretation, however, comes from the terrified imaginings of Anglos. Henry Dwight Barrows, who had been in Los Angeles barely two years, reported that “the Sonoreans and Mexicans, many of them, succor and assist the villains, either through fear or sympathy.” Barrows offered no support for his claim, because he didn’t have any. It was a slander against ordinary Mexicans and Californios, most of whom were simply trying to get along. Anglos at the time, and historians after them, considerably exaggerated the gang’s size, something Flores and Daniel themselves encouraged. “The robbers use every means to impress the idea of their superior force,” wrote John Forster. “But I notice that the very same individuals have been engaged in every action.” He estimated that the Manillas numbered no more than ten or fifteen men. The exaggeration and the attribution of motive was driven by politics, not evidence.

  SHERIFF BARTON AND HIS POSSE left Los Angeles at dusk, and after traveling some forty miles, at about one in the morning, they arrived at the crossing of the Santa Ana River, where they made a cold camp. A short ride of two or three miles the next morning brought them to El Refugio, the home of José Andrés Sepúlveda, proprietor of Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, where they fed their horses and breakfasted. Don Andrés’s vaqueros had told him of the troubles at San Juan, and he warned Barton that the Manillas were said to number fifty men or more. Barton dismissed that figure as implausible. “The party made light of it and proceeded on their journey,” the Star later reported.

  Friday, January 23, was a clear, dry day, quite warm for midwinter, even by southern California standards. It was still early in the morning when the men left El Refugio, and by ten they had traveled approximately twelve or thirteen miles, about half the distance from the rancho to San Juan. They rode by ones and twos, strung out along the road for several hundred yards, so those behind could avoid the dust kicked up by those ahead. As they rounded a projecting spur of the San Joaquín Hills on their right, Constables Little and Baker, riding point with the guide François, saw a horse and rider emerge from a ravine several hundred yards ahead and gallop briskly away from them. Curious, the three men picked up the pace, ignoring Barton’s call to stay close. They had their eyes fixed on the distant rider, who was in fact a decoy, when suddenly off to their right they heard the sound of gunfire. Turning in that direction they saw a party of a dozen men riding down on them through a gap in the foothills. Andrés Fuentes had arrived in San Juan and alerted the Manillas of Barton’s approach, and they had staged this ambush expertly. “There is Juan Flores, boys!” shouted François. “There are the ladrones! Fire! Fire!” And then, wheeling his horse, the Frenchman tore off in the opposite direction. “Run for your life, boys!”

  Little and Baker did not panic, but calmly drew their revolvers and got off several rounds before both of them were hit. Baker took a ball to the forehead and fell dead. Little was wounded in the stomach. He tumbled to the ground, crawled into a gully, and commenced firing with a second revolver as Barton and the other three men came charging up. The posse was outnumbered two or three to one, but in the first exchange three Manillas were hit and killed. Pancho Daniel saw Barton and bore down on him. “We have got you now, Don Santiago, God damn you,” he shouted. “And I reckon I’ve got you too,” Barton shouted back. According to Frank Alexander, the two men fired at the same instant. Daniel was hit in the leg, Barton’s shot penetrating the top of his leather boot and shattering the bone, a serious though not a life-threatening wound. But Daniel’s shot was decisive, tearing into Barton’s chest, a mortal blow. He fell hard, breaking his left arm. Barton quickly pulled a second revolver from his belt and continued firing.

  Hardy and Alexander saw him go down. Hardy had lost his pistol in the melee and was defenseless. He signaled to Alexander, and suddenly the two men retreated at full speed. They were pursued by several Manillas all the way back to El Refugio but escaped with their lives. Their flight was made possible by Barton and Little, who kept the rest of the gang occupied for several critical minutes. Eventually Little stopped firing from the gully. A Sonoreño named Juan Catabo crept over and peered in. Little w
as reloading his revolver with powder, cap, and ball. Catabo shot him dead.

  “Barton fought like a lion,” one member of the gang later reported, “and kept the whole gang at bay by his terrible defiance.” They circled him at a safe distance until he had finally emptied his revolver. Then Andrés Fuentes dismounted and slowly advanced toward him on foot. Barton raised himself on his left elbow and hurled his empty revolver at the outlaw. “Now kill me, God damn you!” he said. According to Horace Bell, who had it from the shooter himself, Fuentes walked up to Barton and fired point-blank at his face. “Thus ended the massacre,” wrote Bell. “Taking the arms, equipment and horses of the murdered gringos, the murderers returned to San Juan in triumph.”

  AFTER A CHANGE OF HORSES, a quick bite, and a stiff drink, Hardy and Alexander started back, riding together until they reached the San Gabriel River, not far from Barton Ranch, at which point Alexander turned north for the Monte, while Hardy continued west toward the pueblo. Darkness had fallen by the time Hardy arrived, but his distressing intelligence spread like wildfire, provoking intense anxiety and excitement. Marshal Getman immediately raised a party of thirty or forty men, rode out of town before midnight, and arrived at the scene of the disaster early the following morning. He found the bodies of the four men scattered along the road, bloated and blackened after a full day in the sun. Barton had three gunshot wounds to the chest and a bloody cavity where his right eye had been. The other bodies displayed similar wounds, apparently inflicted after death—Little and Baker in the right eye, like Barton, Daley in the mouth. Their pockets were turned out and all their money and valuables were gone, along with their boots, belts, and firearms.