[Noozhawk’s note: Second in a series. Click here for the first column.]
In this installment on El Real Presidio de Santa Bárbara, I try to encapsulate four decades of Presidio history in our community (1782-1820).
The Spanish period can be extended to five decades if the period when Alta California was first established in 1769 is included. The Spanish crisscrossed Santa Barbara during this time, and first developed El Camino Real through the region.
From some I have heard over the years that too much emphasis has been placed on this “sliver” of Santa Barbara history — manifested in the Spanish colonial architecture that became a signature of the town after the 1925 earthquake, not to mention the annual Old Spanish Days celebration.
In fact, the changes wrought in Santa Barbara during the Spanish period were profound. While the Spanish population of Santa Barbara was only slightly more than 500 in 1820, the introduction of thousands of domestic animals — cattle, sheep, horses, mules and pigs — and the agricultural transformation of the landscape to grow European crops covered literally thousands of acres.
At the same time, all Indian villages of Santa Barbara had been abandoned by 1820 and the Chumash had relocated to the California missions out of necessity.
The Santa Barbara military/administrative district covered the area from the El Pueblo de los Ángeles to the Santa Maria River and included Missions Santa Bárbara, Santa Inés, La Purísima Concepción, San Buenaventura and San Fernando Rey de España.
A tremendous amount of rich history, both positive and tragic, took place in Spanish Santa Barbara.
In addition to being the last Presidio founded in Alta California (1782) — the others being San Diego de Alcalá (1769), San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo near Monterey (1770) and San Francisco de Asís (1776) — Santa Barbara’s early history provides a window to the history of the Spanish Empire in North America.
The Spanish empire extended all the way to the Mississippi River and into Florida. While it collapsed in 10 short years, its lasting impact has been the ongoing migration of peoples of Hispanic origin from then until today to the United States. Its linguistic, cultural and political influence continues to shape America, as does its history.
Perhaps an interesting way to try to capture the history of the Santa Barbara Presidio is to apply a modern approach to its interpretation.
Lately, with the social movements in the country, the concept of JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness) is much talked about. What I have done is to try to explain the Presidio history in these terms.
What follows is a consolidation of my research over the years in primary and secondary sources in libraries and archives in California, New Mexico, Mexico and Spain.
Justice
The Spanish had a legal system that was not entirely different from ours today, except it did not have a trial by jury. All crimes were brought before the comandante of the Santa Barbara Presidio District.
If brought to trial, especially the more serious crimes that we would call felonies, the cases proceeded as follows: The comandante was the judge and would appoint two officers, one to prosecute the case, the other to defend the accused.
Most of the trials were related to violence committed by soldiers against Indians and Indian-on-Indian crimes. There were murder trials, and cases of capital crimes committed by Indians. The surviving documents from trials sometimes are dozens of pages in length.
Of those convicted, Indians were sentenced to jail; they were never executed. There was an instance of a soldier who was convicted of a flagrant sex crime based on the testimony of two Chumash women and sentenced to death despite an elegant defense from José Maria Ortega that the accused was an orphan who came from a troubled background.
Before the sentence was carried out, it had to be approved by the viceroy in Mexico City, and eventually was. This was the one of two executions carried out of a Spanish soldier in Santa Barbara, the other being a soldier convicted of murder.
The comandante also served as the judge in civil cases. For example, two citizens in the Los Angeles pueblo had a dispute over possession of sheep. The comandante heard the case and rendered a decision. It was possible to appeal to the governor in Monterey.
Equity
The Spanish empire operated under the Christian doctrine that all humanity was equal before God, and that included Indians.
The Santa Barbara Presidio operated as a military hierarchy similar to most militaries, with officers and enlisted men. To protect enlisted soldiers against exploitation by officers, the Spanish had a system in which, at each presidio, the soldiers elected the habilitado or paymaster. This person oversaw the distribution of pay and expenses.
The comandante could be the paymaster, but the soldiers had to elect him. This was the case in Santa Barbaram where Comandante Felipe de Goicoechea was the paymaster.
While the social structure of the Presidio was based along racial lines, over time soldiers who started out in the enlisted ranks were able to advance to officer status. You usually had to be listed as “Español” to be advanced to this status, but there were cases in which soldiers’ racial designation was changed so they could become officers.
As previously mentioned, the legal system put all equal before the law, but in the case of the Indians, Spanish authorities thought it was wise to limit harsh punishment of Indian peoples unfamiliar with the social mores and political system of the Spanish.
During the Mexican period, large land grants were handed out to a few of the upper class during the Spanish period in California (1769-1820). Viceroys gave out only a few large land grants, providing instead small land grants to retiring soldiers in the hope of maintaining a more equitable society.
Diversity
Presidio soldiers and their families were a diverse group, many of whom were people of color, including of African and Native American origin — more than half, as a matter of fact.
This was the result of a 250-year frontier experience that began in Mexico and moved up North America to include what is today the borderland states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Many of the descendants of the early Hispanic settlers of Alta California carry the DNA of Native Americans. Armando Quintero, the recently appointed director of California State Parks, mentioned in one of his talks that his testing showed that he has a significant percentage of indigenous DNA.
Most of the Chumash Indians today have Hispanic names and, like the Presidio soldiers and their families, are a mixed group of people carrying the biological diversity that is part of their heritage.
Very little of this social history is known, and consolidation of the genealogical studies of early California families would be a great contribution to our understanding of the social and ethnic origins of Hispanic Santa Barbara and California.
Inclusiveness
One of the key elements of Santa Barbara’s Hispanic history was the unique approach of bringing the indigenous people into the Spanish system. Santa Barbara was the only place in California where a Presidio was initially founded without a mission, and there was a direct early connection between the civilian and military authorities and the Chumash.
Under the influence of the Enlightenment period, Gov. Felipe de Neve and others brought a new approach to Indian/Spanish relations, allowing the Indians to remain in their villages and not requiring that they be brought to the missions.
This strategem was used in California until about 1810, when the Spanish empire began to collapse due to Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupation of Spain and insurgent movements in the New World. From then on Indians were brought into the missions, but at the same time Indians became part of military auxiliaries that served under comandantes and at the missions.
Historians have speculated how the socio-political world of Santa Barbara might have evolved had Santa Barbara’s Spanish settlers been able to proceed with the Enlightenment approach in their relations with the indigenous Chumash that was more secular based.
In all, if one looks closely, there is plenty of JEDI evidence in early Santa Barbara history. Previously mentioned was de Goicoechea, who served as comandante from 1784 to 1802. He was one of the most important historical dignitaries in Spanish Santa Barbara but — compared to names like Ortega, Carrillo, Cota and De la Guerra — much less is known about him.
In an upcoming column, you will learn more about de Goicoechea, the Leather-Jacket Soldiers he commanded, and the construction of the adobe fort that he oversaw.
— 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.