[Noozhawk’s note: Third in a series. Click here for the first column, and click here for the second.]
In a previous column, I introduced Noozhawk readers to Spanish Santa Barbara by outlining its social and political history in terms of a JEDI approach — justice, equity, diversity and inclusiveness.
In this article I turn to biography — in particular, describing briefly the life and career of a little known historical figure: Capt. Felipe Antonio de Goicoechea, the second comandante of El Real Presidio de Santa Bárbara, where he served from 1784 to 1802.
My interest in Goicoechea came from a personal connection. He was in charge of building the Presidio from 1784 into the 1790s; my job as projects administrator and later CEO of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation was to oversee its reconstruction from 1981 to 2016.
With my wife, Michele, we undertook working in various archives in the United States, Mexico and Spain to bring Goicoechea’s history to light. Most of this research effort was spent during vacations as my duties as manager of El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Park and projects outside the park were a full-time job in themselves.
One of the trips we made in our Goicoechea quest was to Mazatlán with friends and, from there, renting a car to travel to Cosalá, a Colonial period mining town where Goicoechea was born in 1747.
In the town, we found the church where he was baptized and, from the bell tower, we looked out over an area described as the “Comandancia,” almost certainly where Goicoechea was born. It was enclosed by a wall that was almost exactly the height of the Santa Presidio defense wall. I photographed the site for the Santa Barbara Presidio archives.
Later, Michele and I made a trip to the present-day Mexican town of Álamos, 350 miles north of Cosalá, where Goicoechea spent about 30 years of his life before being appointed comandante of the Santa Bárbara Presidio.
We examined historical records at these places, but the archive that yielded the most genealogical information on him was in the Special Collections Department at a university in Las Cruces. There are housed the parish records that provide information on Goicoechea’s parents, Capt. Juan de Goicoechea and Maria de Goicoechea y Aragon.
His father was likely born in the Basque country in Spain, but to date, I have been unable to substantiate this fact; his mother came from a distinguished family dating back to the 16th century in Durango, Mexico.
Michele and I also found other records on Goicoechea’s career in military archives in Spain.
From all this information I was able to write several articles on Goicoechea’s life, but regarding his day-to-day life in Alta California, the best source is the microfilm of Spanish documents in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.
Clearly, the highlight of his career was the successful construction of the Presidio — a building process that took more than a half-decade, and really was quite an achievement. I make this latter comment based on my personal experience of being in charge for 35 years of rebuilding the fort.
Lacking the modern equipment available today, the effort required a tremendous amount of paid physical labor and planning, as the construction had to take place seasonally — adobe bricks could not be left out in the rain, as they would have melted to mud.
Over the course of describing the reconstruction of the fort, in several installments, I hope to convey to the reader just what it takes to make and lay the bricks and gather the other materials required for fenestration and the roof structure.
The task was formidable, and Goicoechea was able to carry it out effectively with a cooperative labor force that included a mix of soldiers and local Chumash Indians. I came across only one hostile incident in the records, when a soldier disobeyed a Goicoechea order, was pulled down from a wall, arrested and sentenced to jail time.
Last time I wrote about the soldiers and the Indians, and their unique relations. Goicoechea also had a unique relationship with Chumash chieftain Yanonali, who resided in the village at the beach close to the fort.
A reflection of the depth of their friendship came when Yanonali’s 5 year-old son died in the 1780s, and was buried in the floor of the Presidio Chapel in a special ceremony that gave the boy a Christian name, Juan Bautista. This is one of the rare instances in which we know the gravesite of a local Indian, as they usually were buried in mass graves.
Relations of soldiers with Indians became economic as individual soldiers hired Indians to help with building their adobes and to work in agriculture or process wool. The latter was usually the work of Chumash women.
Interestingly, there was only one marriage between a Presidio soldier and a Chumash Indian during the entire Spanish Period, and that soldier is listed as of Mexican Indian origin. In fact most of the soldiers arrived with wives and family, which accounts for the limited number of matrimonies between soldiers and local Indians.
While Goicoechea’s lineage was clearly traceable to its Spanish origins, that was not the case with the soldiers he commanded, called Soldados de Cuera (Leather-Jacket soldiers). In many ways their racial and cultural mix make up what one today would call “Mexican.” They hardly fit the mold of being Spanish conquistadors.
I have had the privilege of knowing many of the descendants of these soldiers, and some have become re-enactors. Others have made up Santa Barbara’s working and middle class. I have always felt a personal responsibility helping preserve their heritage, which is manifested inside the adobe walls of the (rebuilt) fort.
With regard to Goicoechea, I have also felt it important to make his name wider known as a key figure who helped establish the Spanish beginnings of our town. He was a single man, never married, although he did leave behind a “love child.” Thus we do have Goicoechea descendants in California.
From Santa Barbara, Goicoechea left for Mexico, later becoming governor of Baja California, where he died in 1814.
Among Goicoechea’s interesting activities in Alta California was leading an expedition of soldiers and their animals to explore the coast north of San Francisco in 1793, with the idea of possibly establishing a Spanish colony at Bodega Bay; this was in response to Russian encroachment from the north.
That colony never happened, but I make the case in an article I published that Goicoechea may have actually been able to swim the horses across the bay from the San Francisco Presidio to the peninsula, before heading north.
In addition, having followed the path (by car) he covered to Bodega Bay, and using the report he filed with the viceroy in Mexico City, Michele and I determined that Goicoechea may have been the “discoverer” of the Russian River.
In leading this expedition, Goicoechea was extending north of San Francisco Bay the famed and controversial El Camino Real, about which I am going to write in the next installment.
— Jarrell Jackman is the former executive director of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. After receiving his Ph.D. in history from UC Santa Barbara, he taught for six years in Europe and Washington, D.C. In 2015, he was honored as a knight of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica by Spain’s King Felipe VI and was named an honorary state park ranger by the California State Park Rangers Association in 2016. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.