93

CHAPTER III.

1608 TO 1768.

The North-West Coasts of North America remain nearly neglected during the whole of this Period-Efforts of the English and the Dutch to find new Passages into the Pacific Discovery of Hudson's Bay and Baffin's Bay - Discovery of the Passage around Cape Horn - Establishment of the Hudson's Bay Trading Company - Endeavors of the Spaniards to settle California unsuccessful - The Jesuits undertake the Reduction of California - Establishments of the Jesuits in the Peninsula, and their Expulsion from the Spanish Dominions.

For more than a hundred and sixty years after the death of Vizcaino, no attempt was made, by the Spaniards, to form establishments on the west coast of California, or to extend their discoveries in that part of America.

Those countries, in the mean time, remained unknown, and almost entirely neglected, by the civilized world. The Spanish galleons, on their way from Manilla to Acapulco, annually passed along the coasts south of Cape Mendocino, which were described in Spanish works on the navigation of the Pacific; and some spots, farther north, were, as will be hereafter particularly shown, visited by the Russians, in their exploring and trading voyages from Kamtchatka: but no new information, of an exact nature, was obtained with regard to those regions, and they were represented on maps according to the fancy of the geographer, or to the degree of faith which he placed in the last fabrication respecting them. Numerous were the stories, gravely related and published in France and England, of powerful nations, of great rivers, of interior seas, and of navigable passages connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, north of California. The most remarkable of these stories. is the account of the voyage of Admiral Fonté, already presented. Captain Coxton, a veteran bucanier, who flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century, also declared that he had, in 1688, sailed from the North Pacific, far eastward, into the American continent, through a river which ran out of a great lake, called the Lake of Thoyaga, containing many islands, inhabited by a numerous

and warlike population; and, upon the strength of the assertions of this worthy, the lake and river, as described by him, were laid down on many of the maps of that time. North-west America was, indeed, during the period here mentioned, the terra incognitissima, the favorite scene of extraordinary adventures and Utopian romances. Bacon there placed his Atlantis; and Brobdignag, agreeably to the very precise description of its locality furnished by its discoverer, the accomplished and veracious Captain Lemuel Gulliver, must have been situated near the Strait of Fuca.

During this period, however, the attention of the maritime powers of Europe was constantly directed towards the Atlantic coasts of North America and the West India Islands, on which settlements were made, early in the seventeenth century, by the French, the English, and the Dutch; and many discoveries were at the same time effected, some of which were of great and immediate importance, while the others served to strengthen the expectation that a north-west passage, or navigable channel of communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific, north of America, would be speedily found. Thus, in 1608, Henry Hudson discovered, or rediscovered, the strait, and the bay connected by it with the Atlantic, to both of which his name is now attached; and, eight years afterwards, the adventurous William Baffin penetrated, through the arm of that ocean, now called Baffin's Bay, separating Greenland from America, into a passage extending westward, under the 74th parallel of latitude, where his ship was arrested by ice.

The most important discovery made in the seventeeth century was, however, that of the open sea, south of Magellan's Strait, through which the Dutch navigators, Lemaire and Van Schouten, sailed, in 1616, from the Atlantic into the Pacific, around the island promontory named by them Cape Horn, in honor of their native city in Holland. By means of this new route, the perils and difficulties of the navigation between the two oceans were so much lessened, that voyages from Europe to the Pacific were no longer regarded as very hazardous enterprises; and the Spanish possessions and commerce on that ocean were ever after annoyed by the armed ships of nations at war with Spain, or by pirates and smugglers of various classes and denominations.

The European colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America were founded, for the most part, by companies under the authority of charters from the respective governments, conveying to the grantees the whole territory within certain limits therein described, gen

For

erally with the qualification that such territory should not have been previously possessed by some other Christian prince or state. the determination of the limits, certain parallels of latitude were usually adopted, between which each colony was declared to possess the whole division of the continent extending from the Atlantic indefinitely westward, or westward to the Pacific Ocean. In one case, however, a different mode of description was used. On the 2nd of May, 1670, King Charles II. of England granted to an association of noblemen and gentlemen, styled "the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay," and to their successors forever,* the possession, almost in sovereignty, of Hudson's Bay and Straits, and all their coasts, and all the territories traversed or drained by streams falling into them, not previously possessed by any other British subjects, or by subjects of any other Christian prince or state; natural boundaries being thus substituted for artificial, imaginary lines.

The pirates who frequented the Pacific during the seventeenth century were principally English and Dutch. The Gulf of California was the principal resort of the Dutch, who, under the name of Pichilingues, kept the inhabitants of the west coasts of Mexico in constant anxiety. For the purpose of dislodging these depredators, and also of obtaining advantages from the pearl fishery in the gulf, several attempts were made, by the government of Spain, and by individuals in Mexico, to establish colonies, garrisons, and fishing or trading posts, on the eastern side of the peninsula of California. The details of the expeditions for these purposes, made by Vicuña and Ortega in 1631, by Barriga and Porter in 1644, by Piñadero in 1664 and 1667, by Lucenilla in 1668, and by Atondo in 1683, are devoid of interest. Many pearls were obtained, among which are some of the most valuable in the regalia of Spain; but the establishments all failed from want of funds, from the extreme barrenness of the soil, and the determined hostility of the natives of the peninsula, and, above all, from the indolence and viciousness of the persons employed in the expeditions. In the last attempt of this kind, under the direction of Don Isidro de Atondo, a number of settlers, soldiers, and Jesuits, were carried out from Mexico, and distributed at points on the gulf where the establishments were to be formed; but these stations were all abandoned before the end of a year, and it was thereupon resolved, in a council of the chief authorities of Mexico, that the reduction of California by such means was impracticable.

* See Proofs and Illustrations, under the letter I, No. 1.

The Jesuits who had accompanied Atondo to California, while concurring in this opinion with the council, nevertheless insisted that the desired political objects might be attained by a different course, namely, by the civilization and conversion to Christianity of the natives of that country; and this task they offered themselves to undertake, doubting not that their labors would be crowned with the same success which had attended them in Paraguay. Their proposition was, as might have been expected, coldly received by the authorities, who could gain nothing by its execution. The Jesuits, however, not being disheartened by this refusal, perambulated the whole country, preaching, and exhorting all to contribute to the accomplishment of an enterprise so pious and so politic. By such means, and by the coöperation of their brethren in Europe, they raised a small fund; and finally, in 1697, they procured royal warrants, authorizing them to enter upon the reduction of California for the king, and to do all that might tend to that object at their own expense. On receiving these warrants, Father Salvatierra, the chief missionary, immediately sailed, with a few laborers and soldiers, to the land which was to be the scene of their operations. There he was soon after joined by Fathers Kuhn, (a German, called, by the Spaniards, Kino,) Piccolo, Ugarte, and others, all men of courage and education, and enthusiastically devoted to the cause in which they were engaged; and, in November, 1697, the first establishment, called Loreto, was founded on the eastern side of the peninsula, about two hundred miles from the Pacific.

The Jesuits, on entering California, had to encounter the same perils and obstacles which had rendered ineffectual all the other attempts to occupy that country. They were attacked by the natives, to whose ferocity several of the fathers fell victims; the land was so barren, that it scarcely yielded the means of sustaining life to the most industrious agriculturist, for which reason the settlements were all located near the sea, in order that the necessary food might be procured by fishing; and the persons employed in their service, being drawn from the most miserable classes in Mexico, were always indolent and insubordinate, and generally preferred loitering on the shore, in search of pearls, to engaging in the regular labors required for the support of settlers in a new region. The operations of the Jesuits were also, for some time, confined within the narrowest limits, from want of funds. Their brethren and friends occasionally made remittances to them, in money or goods; and the king was persuaded to assign, for their

use, a small annual allowance: but the Mexican treasury, which was charged with the payment of this allowance, was seldom able to meet their drafts when presented; and the assistance derived from all these sources was much diminished in value before it reached those for whom it was destined. Embarrassments of this nature occurred in 1702, at the commencement of the undertaking, in consequence of the great costs of the expeditions from Mexico for the occupation of Texas, and the establishment of garrisons, at Pensacola and other places in Florida, as checks upon the French.

By perseverance and kindness, however, rather than by any other means, the Jesuits overcame all the difficulties to which they were exposed; and, within sixty years after their entrance into California, they had formed sixteen principal establishments, called missions, extending in a chain along the eastern side of the peninsula from Cape San Lucas to the head of the gulf. Each of these missions comprised a church, a fort garrisoned by a few soldiers, and some stores and dwelling-houses, all under the entire control of the resident Jesuit; and it formed the centre of a district containing several rancherias, or villages of converted Indians. The principal mission, or capital, was Loreto; south of it was La Paz, the port of communication with Mexico, probably the same place called Santa Cruz by Cortés, where he endeavored to plant a colony in 1535; and near Cape San Lucas was San Jose, at which an attempt was made to provide means for the repair and refreshment of vessels employed in the Philippine trade. No establishments were formed on the west coast, which does not seem to have been visited by the Jesuits, except on one occasion, in 1716. The villages were each under the superintendence of Indians selected for the purpose, of whom one possessed the powers of a governor, another took care of the church or chapel, and a third summoned the inhabitants to prayers, and reported the delinquents. The children were taught to speak, read, write, and sing, in Spanish, and were initiated into the doctrines and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion. The converts were directed in their labors by the fathers; each being generally allowed to retain the fruits of his industry, though he was at the same time made to understand that he could not claim them as his property. Immigration from other countries, except of Jesuits, was as far as possible prevented; the efforts of the mission aries being, in California as in Paraguay, devoted exclusively to the improvement of the natives, and their union into a species of commonwealth, under the guidance of their preceptors.