Timeline
of California History
Early Beginnings and the Spanish Entrada
YEAR
EVENT
1510
California is described at a "Terrestrial Paradise in Garci Ordóñez's Spanish romance novel Amadis de Gaula
1513
Vasco Núñez de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean
1519
Ferdinand
Magellan begins his voyage around the world;
Hernán Cortez begins the conquest of Mexico
1539
Explorer Francisco de Ulloa explores the mouth of the Colorado River and discovers Baja California is not an island
1540
Hernando de Alarcón ascends the Colorado River. He may be the first European to cross into Alta California.
1542
Portuguese Sailor Juan Rodríquez Cabrillo, under instructions from the Viceroy in Mexico, leads an expedition of two ships along the coast of Alta California, hoping for signs of treasure. He claims Alta California for the King of Spain. During the voyage he dies and is alleged to be buried on San Miguel Island in the Santa Barbara Channel although no grave has ever been found.
1565
The first Manilla Galleons sail across the Pacific Ocean from Mexico to the Philippines to compete with the Portuguese for the treasures of the Orient.
1579
Englishman Sir Francis Drake harasses the Manilla Galleon trade in the Pacific. He enters a bay on the Pt. Reyes peninsula thereafter named Drake's Bay and claims the land for England.
1595
The Spanish Galleon San Agustin is sent to chart the coast of Alta California searching for save harbors for Manilla Galleons. The ship, carrying a wealth of treasure, is wrecked at Pt. Reyes. Sabastian Rodriguez Cermeño and his 72-man crew then sail a small craft from there 2,000 miles along the coast to Acapulco.
1602
The Duke of Monterrey commissions Sebastian Viscaíno to salvage the San Agustin. Viscaíno names the Santa Barbara Channel on Dec, 4, 1602, the feast day of Saint Barbara. He fails to salvage the San Agustin and fails to discover San Francisco Bay but does name Monterey Bay after his patron.
1768
The Jesuit
Order is expelled from the Spanish Empire. Franciscans replace the Jesuits
at the Baja California missions.
Prompted
by concerns that Russian fur trappers may be encroaching on Alta California
from the north, Spain decides to colonize this borderland.
1769
In
January, the Sacred Expedition, a joint effort of the Spanish military
and Franciscan priests leaves Baja. Its leaders are Gaspar de Portolá
and Fray Junipero Serra. Two overland parties and two ships make up the
Expedition. After much hardship and sickness, Mission
San Diego de Alcala is dedicated in June. It is the first of 21 missions
the Franciscans built over the next 54 years.
The expedition
continues north, failing to find Monterey Bay based on Viscaíno's
navigational data, but seargent José Francisco Ortega becomes the
first European to set eyes on San Francisco Bay.
1775
In January Captain Juan Bautista de Anza leaves the mission in Tubac Sonora (later Arizona) and pioneers an overland route to Alta California, crossing the Colorado River at its confluence with the Gila River.
1776
Captain de Anza leads a party of settlers over his inland route from Sonora and takes them safely all the way to Mission San Francisco de Asís. He loses just one settler, a woman who dies in childbirth on the trail, but the baby survives.
1777
Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe becomes the first civilian settlement in Alta California.
1781
A party of soldiers and settlers led by Fernando Xavier de Rivera y Moncada, a former lieutenant governor of Alta California is attacked by Indians at the Yuma crossing of the Colorado River. Rivera and five of his soldiers are massacred, along with all the Franciscan priests at the Yuma missions. Rivera had sent all of the settlers and most of the newly enlisted soldiers ahead to Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, but the de Anza overland route to Alta California is never used again, severely limiting Spain's ability to populate Alta California. Later in the year, the settlers are the founding citizens of Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles.
1782
The soldiers of the Rivera party, joined by Father Serra and Governor Pedro Fages, found Mission San Buenaventura on Easter Sunday and then proceed to Santa Barbara where they establish the fourth presidio built in Alta California, but do not found a mission in Santa Barbara for another four years.
1784
In August, Father Junipero Serra dies at Mission San Carlos de Borromeo.
1786
In
September two frigates of the French Navy become the first non-Spanish
ships to reach Alta California. Under the leadership of Captain Jean François
Galaup Comte de La Pérouse, the ships spend 10 days at Monterey.
On December
4, the feast Day of Saint Barbara, Mission
Santa Barbara is founded by Serra's successor Fray Fermin Lasuen.
1792
Captain George Vancouver leads a British naval expedition into San Francosco Bay. Vancouver's reports on the rich fur trade on the Northwest coast sparked British interest in what became the Oregon Territory and added to Spain's worry over foreign nations intruding on their North American land.
1796
American ship Otter drops anchor in Monterey Bay.
1810
Mexico declares its independence from Spain and the ensuing conflict lasts until 1821.
The Russian American Fur Company establishes Fort Ross on the California coast north of San Francisco. The colony is intended to grow food for the major fur trapping activities of the company at Sitka, Alaska
Russian warship Rurik, commanded by German-born Otto von Kotzebue, arrives in San Francisco Bay.
1818
French-born privateer Hipolito de Bourchard, his two ships flying the flag of the Republic of Buenos Aires, attacks Monterey and sacks the town. Sailing south, Bouchard plunders Rancho Refugio on the Gaviota coast, threatens Santa Barbara and attacks Mission San Juan Capistrano as part of the South American nation's revolution against Spain.
1821
Mexico achieves its independence from Spain and Alta California becomes a territory of the new nation.