Native American Serfs
The ranchos of Mexican California depended upon the labor of Native Americans. A typical California rancho might employ as few as twenty or as many as several hundred Indian workers. The Native work force totaled perhaps four thousand in all, including both former mission Indians and new recruits gathered by the rancheros.
The Native workers tended the fields and herds of the ranchos. Some became highly skilled cowhands or vaqueros. In return for their labor the Indians usually received nothing more than shelter, food, and clothing. The rancheros used various means of coercion--persuasion, economic pressure, violent force--to recruit and maintain their labor supply.
The Indian workers were nominally free, but in practice they were bound to the service of the ranchero as long as he cared to hold them. Thus rancho society of Mexican California was essentially a feudal society. The rancheros ruled as lords on their great landed estates; the Indian workers who tended the fields and herds were their serfs.
During the years of Mexican sovereignty, California was ruled by a governor appointed by officials in faraway Mexico City. A provincial legislature, or diputación, met in Monterey but its powers were strictly limited.
Politics in Mexican California were turbulent and often chaotic. In one five-year period, from 1831 to 1836, California had eleven different gubernatorial administrations--not counting three hapless individuals who were appointed to the governorship but whom the Californians did not permit to take office. The native-born Californios grew discontented with Mexican rule and sought greater control over their own affairs.
The most dramatic assertion of Californio discontent was the "revolution" led by Juan Bautista Alvarado in 1836. Alvarado, president of the diputación, seized control of the capital in Monterey and deported most of the Mexican officials. On November 7, 1836, he proclaimed California "a free and sovereign State."
The revolution was short-lived. The Mexican government in 1837 offered Alvarado the governorship of California. He accepted the offer.
The economy of Mexican California was based on the raising of huge herds of cattle. Skilled vaqueros or cowhands periodically rounded up the cattle, slaughtered them, stripped and cleaned the hides, and stretched the hides in the sun to dry. The hides were a valuable source of leather for making saddles, shoes, and other products. Fat from the cattle was boiled in iron pots until it melted into a fatty liquid called tallow. The tallow was used to make soap and candles.
The rancho elite traded hides and tallow for manufactured goods from foreign traders who sailed along the coast. In the following account, Prudencia Higuera recalled a time in 1840 when a ship from the United States sailed into San Pablo Bay to trade for hides and tallow:
"The next morning my father gave orders, and my brothers, with the peons, went on horseback into the mountains and smaller valleys to round up all the best cattle. They drove them to the beach, killed them there, and salted the hides. They tried out the tallow in some iron kettles.... The captain soon came to our landing with a small boat and two sailors.... The captain looked over the hides, and then asked my father to get into the boat and go to the vessel.... [My father] came back the next day, bringing four boat-loads of cloth, axes, shoes, fish-lines, and many new things. There were two grindstones, and some cheap jewelry. My brother had traded some deerskins for a gun and four tooth-brushes, the first ones I had ever seen."
Among the popular pastimes of Mexican California were horse races, bull fights, and bull and bear fights. For the latter, fearless vaqueros would capture a California grizzly bear, take him to a bull ring, and tie or chain his hindleg to the foreleg of a long-horned California bull. Spectators would then place their bets, sit back, and wait for the swatting, goring, and biting to begin. Whoever survived the fight was declared the winner.
The nephew of ranchero Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo offered the following play-by-play account of one such contest:
"The bull began the fight by charging the grizzly with his horns. A blow from the grizzly's paw did not stop the onset. In a moment they were rolling over each other in the dust. But the bear finally, though badly gored, got his teeth fastened into the bull's neck, and bull was pulled to his knees. The bull's tongue hung out. This was what the bear wanted. He got his claw into the bull's mouth, pulled the tongue out still further, and then bit it off. With this the bull gave up the contest, and soon after both animals were dispatched."
The rancho elite of Mexican California was noted for its prodigal hospitality and spirited entertainments. Singing and dancing were passions for Californios of all ages.
Wedding festivities among the elite Californio families lasted from three days to a week or more, and for each event the bride usually wore a different outfit. To her wedding breakfast, she might wear a dress of brightly colored silk or satin; then change into a low-cut, short-sleeved gown of delicate pink or blue for the afternoon activities. For the actual wedding itself, the bride wore black. Her gown was often of silk brocade, with silk stockings and satin slippers. She wore her hair piled high on her head, accented by a beautiful tortoise-shell comb set with precious stones, and highlighted by an elegant black Spanish lace mantilla.