Province of Las Californias
| Las Californias Las Californias | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Province of New Spain | |||||||||
| 1767–1804 | |||||||||
 Flag
 Coat of arms
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Gobernadores | | ||||||||
• 1767–1770 | Gaspar de Portolá (first) | ||||||||
• 1800–1804 | José Joaquín de Arrillaga (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1767 | ||||||||
• Divided into Alta and Baja California provinces | 1804 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | United States Mexico | ||||||||
Province of Las Californias (
Etymology
There has been understandable confusion about use of the plural Californias by Spanish colonial authorities. California historian
In very early times, while the country was supposed to be an island or rather several islands, it was commonly known by the plural appellation of "Las Californias" (The Californias). Afterwards, when its peninsular character was ascertained, it was called simply California; but the territory so designated was unlimited in extent. When the expeditions for the settlement of San Diego and Monterey marched, it was understood that they were going, not out of California, but into a new part of it. The peninsula then began to be generally spoken of as Antigua or Old California and the unlimited remainder as Nueva or New California, subsequently more commonly called Alta or Upper California. At the same time the old plural name of The Californias was revived, but with a more definite signification than before.[5]
History
The first attempted Spanish occupation of California was by the Jesuit missionary
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In 1767, the
The more ambitious province name, Las Californias, was established by a joint dispatch to the King from
The single province was divided in 1804, into Alta California province and Baja California province.[7] By the time of the 1804 split, the Alta province had expanded to include coastal areas as far north as what is now the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. Expansion came through exploration and colonization expeditions led by Portolá (1769), his successor Pedro Fages (1770), Juan Bautista de Anza (1774–76), the Franciscan missionaries and others. Independent Mexico retained the division but demoted the former provinces to territories, due to populations too small for statehood.
Geography
The Baja California Peninsula is bordered on three sides by water, the Pacific Ocean (south and west) and Gulf of California (east); while Alta California had the Pacific Ocean on the west and deserts on the east. A northern boundary was established at the 42nd parallel by the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819. That boundary line remains the northern boundary of the U.S. states of California, Nevada, and the western part of Utah.
Inland regions were mostly unexplored by the Spanish, leaving them generally outside the control of the colonial authorities.
See also
- List of governors in the Viceroyalty of New Spain
- Spanish missions in Baja California
- Spanish missions in California
- Indigenous peoples of California
- Population of Native California
- Indigenous peoples of Baja California
- Ranchos of California
- History of California
- History of California through 1899
- Territorial evolution of California
- Spanish colonization of the Americas
- The Canadas
- The Carolinas
- The Dakotas
- The Floridas
- The Virginias
References
- ^ the Californias... what we now refer to the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur and the State of California. in California Parks Department: Missions of the Californias
- ^ "Lieutenant-Governor of California: Commission of the Californias". Archived from the original on 2019-01-02. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
- S2CID 146950170.
- ^ "Video: Is this the first or last beach in the Californias?". Los Angeles Times. 2015-03-06. Retrieved 2023-03-18.
- OCLC 21706930.
las californias.
- ^ Richman, I. B. (1965). California under Spain and Mexico, 1535–1847: A contribution toward the history of the Pacific coast of the United States, based on original sources, chiefly manuscript, in the Spanish and Mexican Archives and other repositories, pp.64–66. New York: Cooper Square Publishers.
- ^ Bancroft, H. H. (1970). History of California: Vol. II, 1801–1824, pp.20–21. Santa Barbara Calif.: Wallace Hebberd. (Note: Bancroft translated the names of the two new provinces as "Antigua" and "Nueva", but Richman uses Baja and Alta - as on the 1847 map of Mexico.)
- ISBN 0-405-09538-4
- ^ Chapman, Charles Edward (1973) [1916]. The Founding of Spanish California: The Northwestward Expansion of New Spain, 1687–1783. New York: Octagon Books. p. xiii.
Further reading
- Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1884). History of California: 1542–1800. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. 18. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company.
- Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1886). History of California: 1801–1824. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. 19. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company.
- Beebe, Rose Marie (2001). Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535–1846. Berkeley: Heyday Books. ISBN 1-890771-48-1.
- Bouvier, Virginia Marie (2001). Women and the Conquest of California, 1542–1840: Codes of Silence. Tucson: University of Arizona. ISBN 978-0-8165-2446-4.
- Chapman, Charles E. (1916). The Founding of Spanish California: The Northwestward Expansion of New Spain, 1687–1783. New York: Macmillan.
- Chapman, Charles E. (1921). A History of California: The Spanish Period. New York: Macmillan.
- Forbes, Alexander (1919) [1839]. California: A History of Upper and Lower California from Their First Discovery to the Present Time. San Francisco: Thomas C. Russell.
- González Cruz, Edith; Altable, María Eugenia, eds. (2003). Historia general de Baja California Sur: Los procesos políticos. Vol. 2. Mexico City: Plaza y Valdes. ISBN 970-722-199-2.
- María Luisa Rodríguez-Sala; Karina Neria (2003). Los gobernadores de las Californias, 1767–1804: contribuciones a la expansión territorial y del conocimiento (in Spanish). Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM. ISBN 978-9-703-20277-5.
External links
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