Yerba Buena Book

With both Russia and Great Britain moving down the Pacific coast toward Spanish territory in the 1770s, King Charles III knew that he had to act quickly to protect his country's interests in Alta, or Upper, California. In the fall of 1775, he commissioned Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza to choose a settlement site adjacent to the Gran Puerto, or Grand Port, of San Francisco. Charles knew that by establishing a fort and mission along the shores of this immense protected harbor, the Spanish would be able to control the region.

On October 23, 1775, Anza's band of 240 settlers set out from the Spanish outpost of Tubac (in present-day southern Arizona) on an arduous trek toward their new home. During what came to be known as the "Anza Expedition," the settlers overcame brutally cold weather and treacherous terrain. Finally, after nearly five months, they reached Monterey, approximately 100 miles to the south of the Gran Puerto. From there, Anza led a small exploratory party, which included Friar Pedro Font, the expedition's chaplain, who aptly named the new Spanish outpost Yerba Buena, or "Good Herb," for the aromatic flowering vine that grew in abundance near the settlement site.

About the Author:
Larry A. Van Meter is assistant professor of English at York College in York, Nebraska

Children's Literature

Spanish settlement in California is the subject of this volume in the "Colonial Settlements in America" series. The first chapter briefly presents the five-month journey of 240 people, led by Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza and Father Pedro Font, from Tubac, south of present-day Tucson, Arizona, to establish a settlement in what was then known as the Grand Port of San Francisco. The trip lasted from October 23, 1775, to March 27, 1776. The second chapter moves back to the European explorations from Columbus's landing in the Bahamas to the west coast voyages of Balboa, Cortes, Narvaez, Cabrilho, Cermeno, Vizcaino, and Drake. Between 1603 and 1769, the Spanish made no more attempts to explore California. In the latter year, a combined water and land expedition of two ships and two land divisions led by Don Gaspar de Portola and Junipero Serra set out to establish five new missions between the ports of San Diego and Monterey. The high incidence of scurvy on the San Carlos caused the death or severe illness of almost every man on board. The land parties fared better and traveled north to a point ten miles south of the entrance to San Francisco Harbor. In 1774, Juan Battista de Anza traced a land route from Tubac to San Gabriel Mission near present-day Los Angeles and then to Monterey before bringing a party of 240 soldiers and families all the way from Tubac to San Francisco the next year. A strict leader, he moved his party rapidly, with only one death (from childbirth) in spite of snowstorms and winds in the mountains. Some of the families settled in San Gabriel, but 200 people reached Monterey, and 191 settlers went on to San Francisco in 1776. The colony was built in three partslike the other Spanish colonies of the late Eighteenth Century: the pueblo, or town, to provide a civilian Hispanic population; the mission to provide for religion and education and to try to convert the Native Americans; and the presidio, or military post, to provide protection. Attempts to force the native Ohlone people to become Christian created hostility and ended in the destruction of their culture and the reduction of the people from 20,000 when the Spanish arrived to 2,000 in 1810. In 1821, Spain turned over the California colony to Mexico, and, in 1846, the United States claimed it during the Mexican-American War. The text is illustrated with prints and photographs and adds information with occasional sidebars. A chronology, a timeline, three pages of notes, a bibliography, a list of four books for further reading, a list of five web sites, a list of picture credits, and an index follow the text. Reviewer: Judy DaPolito