The American Alcalde at Monterey

Commodore Stockton informed me to-day [Tuesday, July 28, 1846] that I had been appointed Alcalde of Monterey and its jurisdiction. I had dreamed in the course of my life, as most people have, of the thousand things I might become, but it never entered my visions that I should succeed to the dignity of a Spanish alcalde. I much preferred my berth on board the "Congress," and that the judicial functions in question should continue to be discharged by the two intelligent gentlemen, Purser R. M. Price and Dr. Edward Gilchrist, upon whom they had been devolved. But the services of these officers were deemed indispensable to the efficiency of the ships to which they were attached. This left me no alternative; my trunks were packed, my books boxed, and in an hour I was on shore, a guest in the house of our consul, T. O. Larkin, Esq., whose munificent hospitalities reach every officer of the squadron, and every functionary in the interest of the flag. This is the more appreciated from the fact that there is not a public table or hotel in all California. High and low, rich and poor, are thrown together on the private liberality of the citizens. Though a quasi war exists, all the amenities and courtesies of life are preserved; your person, life, and liberty are as sacred at the hearth of the Californian as they would be at your own fireside. He will never betray you; the rights of hospitality, in his generous judgment, require him to Imperil his own life in defence of yours. He may fight you on the field, but in his family, you may dance with his daughters, and he will himself wake the waltzing string….

Thursday, July 30. Today I entered on the duties of my office as Alcalde of Monterey: my jurisdiction extends over an immense extent of territory, and over a most heterogeneous population. Almost every nation has, in some emigrant, a representative here—a representative of its peculiar habits, virtues, and vices. Here is the reckless Californian, the half-wild Indian, the roving trapper of the West, the lawless Mexican, the licentious Spaniard, the scolding Englishman, the absconding Frenchman, the luckless Irishman, the plodding German, the adventurous Russian, and the discontented Mormon. All have come here with the expectation of finding but little work and less law, Through this discordant mass I am to maintain order, punish crime, and redress injuries.

Friday, July 31. Nearly all the houses in Monterey are of one story, with a corridor. The walls are built of adobes or sun-baked brick, with tiled roofs. The center is occupied by a large hall, to which the dining-room and sleeping apartments seem mere appurtenances. Everything is in subordination to the hall, and this is designed and used for dancing. It has a wood floor, and springs nightly to the step of those who are often greeted in the whirl of their amusements by the risen sun. The dance and a dashing horse are the two objects which overpower all others in interest with the Californians. The fiddle has been silent since our flag went up, from the fact that many of the gentlemen have left to join General Castro. But if they return, though covered with disaster, the fiddle will be called upon to resume its fantastic functions. You might as well attempt to extinguish a love of air in a life-preserver as the dancing propensity of this people….

Tuesday, Aug. 4. The military chieftains, who have successively usurped the government of California, have arbitrarily imposed such duties on foreign imports as their avarice or exigency suggested. A few examples will be sufficient to show the spirit and character of these imposts. Unbleached cottons, which cost in the United States six cents the yard cost here fifty and shirtings cost seventy-five. Plain knives and forks cost ten dollars the dozen; coarse cowhide shoes three dollars the pair; the cheapest tea three dollars the pound; and a pair of common truck-wheels seventy-five dollars. The duty alone on the coarsest hat, even if made of straw, is three dollars.

The revenues derived from these enormous imposts have passed into the pockets of a few individuals who have placed themselves, by violence or fraud, at the head of the government, and have never reached the public in any beneficial form. These exactions, enforced by an irresponsible tyranny, have kept California poor, have crushed all enterprise, and have rolled back the tide of emigration from her soil as the resisting rock the rushing stream. But the barriers are now broken, and broken forever. California is free….

Saturday, Aug. 15. To-day the first newspaper ever published in California made its appearance. The honor, if such it be, of writing its Prospectus, fell to me. It is to be issued every Saturday, and is published by Semple and Colton. Little did I think when relinquishing the editorship of the "North" in Philadelphia, that my next feat in this line would be off here in California. My partner is an emigrant from Kentucky, who stands six feet eight in his stockings. He is in a buckskin dress, a foxskin cap; is true with his rifle, ready with his pen, and quick at the type-case.

He created the materials of our office out of the chaos of a small concern, which had been used by a Roman Catholic monk in printing a few sectarian tracts. The press was old enough to be preserved as a curiosity; the mice had burrowed in the balls; there were no rules, no leads, and the types were rusty and all in pi. It was only by scouring that the letters could be made to show their faces. A sheet or two of tin were procured, and these, with a jack-knife, were cut into rules and leads. Luckily we found, with the press, the greater part of a keg of ink; and now came the main scratch for paper. None could be found, except what is used to envelop the tobacco of the cigar smoked here by the natives. A coaster had a small supply of this on board, which we procured. It is in sheets a little larger than the common-sized foolscap. And this is the size of our first paper, which we have christened the "Californian."

Though small in dimensions, our first number is as full of news as a black-walnut is of meat, We have received by couriers, during the week, intelligence from all the important military posts through the territory. Very little of this has transpired; it reaches the public for the first time through our sheet. We have, also, the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico, with an abstract of the debate in the Senate. A crowd was waiting when the first sheet was thrown from the press. It produced quite a little sensation. Never was a bank run upon harder; not, however, by people with paper to get specie, but exactly the reverse. One-half of the paper is in English, the other in Spanish. The subscription for a year is five dollars; the price of a single sheet is twelve and a half cents….

Wednesday, Aug. 26. The Californians breakfast at eight, dine at twelve, take tea at four, supper at eight, and then go to bed—unless there is a fandango. The supper is the most substantial meal of the three, and would visit anybody but a Californian with the nightmare. But their constant exercise in the open air and on horseback gives them the digestion of the ostrich.

The only meat consumed here to any extent is beef. It is beef for breakfast, beef for dinner, and beef for supper. A pig is quite a rarity; and as for chickens, they are reserved for the sick. The woods are full of partridges and hare; the streams and lagoons are covered with ducks and wild geese; and the harbor abounds with the most delicious fish. But no Californian will angle or hunt, while he has a horse or saddle left. And as for the Indians, but very few of them have any hunting gear beyond the bow and arrow; with these they can kill the deer and elk, but a partridge and hare are too shy and too quick. They spear a large salmon which frequents Carmel river, three miles distant, and bring it in to market. This fish is often three feet long, extremely fat, and of a flavor that takes from Lent half the merit of its abstinence. Spearing them is high sport for the Indian, and is another feature in California life….

Friday, Aug. 28. The ox-cart of the Californian is quite unique and primitive. The wheels are cut transversely from the butt-end of a tree, and have holes through the centre of a huge wood axle. The tongue is a long, heavy beam, and the yoke resting on the necks of the oxen, is lashed to their horns, close down to the roots; from these they draw, instead of the chest, as with us; and they draw enormous loads, but the animals are large and powerful.

But to return to the cart. On gala days it is swept out, and covered with mats; a deep body is put on, which is arched with loop-poles, and over these a pair of sheets are extended for a covering. Into this the ladies are tumbled, when three or four yoke of oxen, with as many Indian drivers, and ten times as many dogs, start ahead. The hallooing of the drivers, the barking of the dogs, and the loud laughter of the girls make a common chorus. The quail takes to the covert as the roaring establishment comes on, and even the owl suspends his melancholy note. What has his sad tone to do amid such noise and mirth? It is like the piping cry of an infant amid the revelry and tumult of the carnival….

Tuesday, Oct. 20. The mode of cultivating land in California is eminently primitive. In December or January they take a piece of wood in the shape of a ship’s knee, dress it down a little with a dull axe, and spike a piece of iron to the lower point. A pole, by which the oxen draw, runs from the inner bend of the knee to the yoke. This pole has a mortise, about eight inches long, made slanting, and about a foot from the after end; a piece of wood, about two inches by six, runs up through the plough and pole, and is so wedged into the mortise of the pole, as to make the plough run shallow or deep as required. But if the ground happens to be hard the plough will not enter an inch, and if there are roots in the ground it must be lifted over, or it will be invariably broken. Such is a California plough; such a fair specimen of the arts here….

Wednesday, Oct. 21. If late in the season, the Californian rarely prepares the ground by any furrowing attempts. He scatters the seed about the field, and then scratches it in with the thing which he calls a plough. Should this scratching fail of yielding him sixty bushels to the acre, he grumbles. In reaping he cuts so high, to save a little trouble in threshing, which is done here by horses, that he loses one-eighth of his crop; but this eighth serves for seed the next season; and what to him is better still, saves the trouble of sowing. So that his second crop plants itself from the first, and is often nearly as large as its predecessor. Even the third self-planted crop is quite respectable, and would satisfy a New England farmer for his laborious toil; but here it generally goes to the blackbirds….

Friday, Dec. 4. The moment a child is born on a farm in California, and the nurse has had time to dress it, it is given to a man on horseback, who, with its future godfather and godmother, ride post-haste with it to some mission, and present it to a priest for baptism. This ceremony concluded, the party, full of glee, start on their return; and the little newcomer may now, perhaps, rest a week or two before he starts on another excursion; but after that, hardly a day will elapse without his being on horseback. He literally rides from his cradle to his grave. Thus, by the time a boy is ten or twelve years of age, he becomes an expert rider, is devoted to the saddle, and looks upon pedestrian motion as a contemptible way of getting through the world. He would sooner travel a hundred miles on horseback than ten on foot, and connect less fatigue and hardship with the result. Most of his labors, too, are on the saddle. He has a farm of twenty or thirty miles to ride over; vast wheat-fields to survey, and perhaps, ten thousand head of cattle to keep from straying….

Wednesday, Dec. 9. The horses of California are of a hardy nature; and it is well for them that they are, considering the inhuman manner in which they are generally treated by the natives. If a man wants to ride forty or fifty miles from his residence, he mounts his horse, and spurs off upon the gallop. On arriving at the place of his destination, he ties him to a post, where he stands two or three days waiting for his master. During this time he is not once fed, and is quite fortunate if he gets a swallow of water. At last his rider comes, mounts him, and he takes him back again at the same free and easy gait with which he first started. This, of course, is confined to the summer season, when the grass has the most substance and nutriment: still it is almost incredible. Besides the weight of his heavy rider, the horse generally carries fifty or sixty pounds in the gear of his saddle, and double this in a soaking rain. It requires two large tanned ox hides to fit out a Californian saddle; then add to this, the wooden stirrups, three inches thick, the saddle-tree, with its stout iron rings and buckles, a pair of goat-skins across the pommel, holsters and pistols, and spurs at the heels of the rider, weighing from four to six pounds, and we have some idea of what a Californian horse has to carry. Still he is cheerful and spirited, and never flags till nature sinks with exhaustion. A man who can abuse such an animal, ought to be bitted and saddled himself.

Thursday, Dec. 10. The old as well as the young are coming over the mountains. I had an emigrant to dine with me to-day, who has recently arrived, and who is seventy-six years of age. His locks are as free of gray hairs as those of a child, and his eye still flashes with the fires of youth. He is among the volunteers, and you may see him every day on a spirited horse, with a rifle at his saddle-bow. He has four sons with Colonel Fremont. They enlisted before they had time to unpack their saddles, and have with them the remnants of the biscuit and cheese which they brought from the United States, I asked the old man what could induce him at his age to come to California, He said his children were coming, and so he determined to come too. I asked him if he had no compunction in taking up arms against the inhabitants the moment of his arrival. He said he had Scripture example for it. The Israelites took the promised land of the East by arms, and the Americans must take the promised land of the West in the same way. I told him that would do, if he could show the same high commission. But I find this kind of parallel running in the imagination of all the emigrants. They seem to look upon this beautiful land as their own Canaan, and the motley race around them as the Hittites, the Hivites, and Jebusites, whom they are to drive out. But they have gone at it with other weapons than rams’ horns, except as powder-flasks.