The Wild West of Yester-Year
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
By Rachel Kovaciny
Was he a shrewd
leader? A power-hungry politician? A loyal Californio? An
opportunistic land-grabber? A skilled military commander? A
rebel traitor? During his lifetime, you could have found
people who believed all those things about General Mariano
Guadalupe Vallejo.
Vallejo was born to
an aristocratic Spanish family in Monterey, California, in
1807. According to his family lore, his
great-great-grandfather served as the viceroy of New Spain,
as California was originally called. His family also claimed
as ancestors an officer serving under Cortés and the ship’s
captain who transported Columbus back to Spain in 1500.
Although that family history is hard to confirm, the Vallejo
family held significant power and influence in Alta,
California, well before Mariano’s birth.
Alta California was
an exciting place to grow up in the early 1800s. As a boy,
Vallejo witnessed Argentinian pirates looting and pillaging
Monterey. As a teen, he served as the personal secretary of
the Spanish Governor until Mexico won her independence from
Spain. While working as the governor’s secretary, Vallejo
learned to speak French, English, and Latin.
Vallejo eventually
entered military service and rose quickly through the ranks.
He won great fame and popularity by leading his troops
against an uprising of Miwok Indians and subduing them. By
1830, in his early twenties, he became the military
commander of all troops stationed in San Francisco.
Vallejo soon married
Francisca Benicia Carrillo, daughter of a prominent Californio family.
The couple had sixteen children, ten of whom lived to
adulthood. One year after their marriage, Vallejo went north
to establish a new military outpost near San Francisco Bay.
While there, he was granted a sizeable chunk of land called
Rancho Petaluma east of the mission. He laid out street
plans for a new town called Sonoma and built himself a big
house there by the new military barracks. Before long, he
had been declared military commander of all of California
north of San Francisco.
In 1836, Vallejo’s
nephew, Juan Alvarado, led a revolt against an unpopular
Mexican governor. When the dust settled, Juan Alvarado was
the new civil governor of California, and Mariano Vallejo
had become the new military governor. He acquired quite a
lot of new land and became one of the wealthiest men in
California.
However, during the
Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, rebel leader John C. Fremont did
not believe Vallejo truly agreed with the idea of California
leaving Mexico and becoming part of the US. He threw Vallejo
and many other high-ranking Californios into prison and did
not release them until the conflict had been resolved.
Despite this, Vallejo became a member of the California
State Constitutional Convention in 1849. Not only that, but
he was elected to the first California state legislature.
As he grew older,
Vallejo became passionate about preserving the history of
Alta California, especially as the region rapidly left its
Spanish and Native American roots behind and became
anglicized. He worked with historians to collect oral
histories from aging Californios, many of whom agreed to
have their histories written down by the historians only
because they knew and trusted Vallejo. Besides assisting
with that project, he also wrote more than a thousand pages
in five volumes, his own detailed history of Alta,
California.
General Mariano
Guadalupa Vallejo died in 1890 and was buried in Sonoma, the
city he planned and helped build. In 2017, that city honored
him with a life-sized statue. His great-great granddaughter,
Martha Vallejo McGettigan, gave a speech when the statue was
dedicated. While he lived, he served first the Spanish
government, then the Mexican government, and finally, the
California state government once it became part of the
United States of America. While some detractors pointed to
this as a sign Vallejo was an opportunist, maybe even a
traitor to his Spanish origins. I think it shows that he was
loyal to California and her people above all else. ♦