Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fathers of Spanish California and served as an official within New Spain as Governor of the province of New Mexico.
The Baja California peninsula is a peninsula in northwestern Mexico. It separates the Gulf of California from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula extends from Mexicali, Baja California, in the north to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, in the south.
Alta California, also known as Nueva California among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias, but was made a separate province in 1804. Following the Mexican War of Independence, it became a territory of Mexico in April 1822 and was renamed Alta California in 1824.
Human history in California began when indigenous Americans first arrived some 13,000 years ago. Coastal exploration by the Spanish began in the 16th century, with further European settlement along the coast and in the inland valleys following in the 18th century. California was part of New Spain until that kingdom dissolved in 1821, becoming part of Mexico until the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), when it was ceded to the United States under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The same year, the California gold rush began, triggering intensified U.S. westward expansion. California joined the Union as a free state via the Compromise of 1850. By the end of the 19th century, California was still largely rural and agricultural, with a population of about 1.4 million.
Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km2 (27,071 sq mi) and comprises the northern half of the Baja California peninsula, north of the 28th parallel, plus oceanic Guadalupe Island. The mainland portion of the state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean; on the east by Sonora, the U.S. state of Arizona, and the Gulf of California; on the north by the U.S. state of California; and on the south by Baja California Sur.
Baja California Sur, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California Sur, is the least populated state and the last state to be admitted to Mexico, in 1974. It is also the ninth-largest Mexican state in terms of area.
Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás GarcésO.F.M. was a Spanish Franciscan friar who served as a missionary and explorer in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. He explored much of the southwestern region of North America, including present day Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, and the U.S. states of Arizona and California. He was killed along with his companion friars during an uprising by the Native American population, and they have been declared martyrs for the faith by the Catholic Church. The cause for his canonization was opened by the Church.
Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire.
Tecate is a city in Tecate Municipality, Baja California. It is across the Mexico–US border from Tecate, California. As of 2019, the city had a population of 108,860 inhabitants, while the metropolitan area has a population of 132,406 inhabitants. Tecate is part of the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan region and the largest city between Tijuana and Mexicali. Tecate is a regional economic hub and popular tourist destination, known as home to the Tecate Port of Entry and to Tecate beer.
Beginning in the 16th century Spain established missions throughout New Spain in order to facilitate colonization of these lands.
José María de Echeandía (?–1871) was the Mexican governor of Alta California from 1825 to 1831 and again from 1832 to 1833. He was the only governor of The Californias that lived in San Diego.
The Spanish missions in Baja California were a large number of religious outposts established by Catholic religious orders, the Jesuits, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, between 1683 and 1834. The missionary goal was to spread the Christian doctrine among the Indigenous peoples living on the Baja California peninsula. The missions gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land, and would also act as a deterrent to prevent pirates from using the peninsula of Las Californias as a jumping off point for contraband trade with mainland New Spain. Missionaries introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the region. Indigenous peoples were severely impacted by the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox and measles; furthermore, the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire in 1767 ripped the social fabric of the peninsula, although Franciscans were sent to replace them. In 1769, the Franciscans moved to Upper California, leaving Dominicans in charge of Baja California. By 1800 indigenous numbers were a fraction of what they had been before the arrival of the Spanish, yet even today many people living in Baja California are of indigenous heritage.
The Pious Fund of the Californias is a endowment, originating in 1696, to sponsor the Roman Catholic Jesuit Spanish missions in Baja California, Dominican missions in upper Baja California, and Franciscan Spanish missions in Alta California in the Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1697 to 1834, and originally administered by the Jesuits. It became the object of litigation between the US and Mexican governments in the 19th century, with the resolution making legal history in The Hague in 1902.
The following timeline traces the territorial evolution of California, the thirty-first state admitted to the United States of America, including the process of removing Indigenous Peoples from their native lands, or restricting them to reservations.
Baja California Territory was a Mexican territory from 1824 to 1853, and 1854 to 1931, that encompassed the Baja California peninsula of present-day northwestern Mexico. It replaced the Baja California Province (1773–1824) of the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain, after Mexican independence. Along with Alta California, the two territories were split from the Spanish Californias region.
Rancho Tecate, or Rancho Cañada de Tecate was a land grant made to Juan Bandini in 1829, by the Mexican governor of Alta California, José María de Echeandía. He granted 4,439 acres of land in the valley of Tecate. A grant to Juan Bandini is recorded as being completed for Rancho Cañada de Tecate on July 12, 1834, under governor José Figueroa.
Felipe de Barri (?–1784) was comandante of Alta California. He moved there from Loreto, Baja California Sur. Pedro Fages served as the military governor from July 9, 1770 to March 23, 1774 at the Presidio of Monterey, California. Barri had some friction with the president of the Catholic priests of the Franciscan order, Father President Fray Vicente Mora, but for the most part it was time of peace, but Barri was quick to judge and was suspicious, fearing the return of troubles that the Jesuits were accused of. He and Francisco Palóu, administrator and historian on the Baja and Alta California had some troubles. There was a small revolt at Todos Santos.
The Province of Las Californias was a Spanish Empire province in the northwestern region of New Spain. Its territory consisted of the entire U.S. states of California, Nevada, and Utah, parts of Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado, and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur.
The Palóu Line was the boundary between Alta California and Baja California, demarcated by Franciscan missionary, Francisco Palóu to distinguish Franciscan and Dominican areas of mission control during the Spanish colonial era.
