Page 17 - 2014 Travel Guide to California

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1768: FIRST
EUROPEANS
SEE SAN
FRANCISCO BAY
by explorers, soldiers and missionaries, who
were themselves starting over in the New World.
The Spanish built 21 Roman Catholic missions,
from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the
north, from 1769 to 1823. In converting native
communities to Christianity, the newcomers
overwhelmed native cultures. Of necessity, the
Native Americans started over in a bewildering
new world.
In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost
province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of
the Spanish Empire. In 1833, the missions were sec-
ularized by the Mexican government and
abandoned. Their buildings moldered, their pio-
neering vineyards and olive groves were eventually
overgrown and forgotten. Not until the 20th cen-
tury were the missions restored and revived. Many
flourish today as redoubts of history and contem-
porary worship, handsome, evocative reminders
of the first major European presence.
The Gold Rush
Alta California grew slowly in its isolation. That
changed on January 24, 1848, with the discovery
of gold on the American River. The California
Gold Rush, beginning in earnest in 1849, gave for-
tune-seekers a second—some said a last—chance
to make good. Half-a-million newcomers—many
from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa—
globalized California in a hurry. The Mexican
descendants of Spanish settlers—the Californios,
with their sprawling ranchos and lives attuned to
the slow turning of the seasons—were swept
aside, left to start over.
Many 49ers stayed on and found another kind
of gold: richly productive new lives in a place
where beginning afresh—personally, financially,
even spiritually—was already a common rite of
passage. In 1850, pried loose by the U.S. victory
GASPAR DE PORTOLA and his expedition became the first
Europeans known to see San Francisco Bay. Spain’s Manila
Galleons had been sailing along the California coast for more
than 200 years, but never spotted the bay because of the fog.
THE BEACH BOYS were
a rock band formed in
Hawthorne, California in 1961,
known for their sweet
harmonies and evocation of
the SoCal surfer scene, above;
San Juan Capistrano Mission
bells, right; Bodie State
Historic Park, below.
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