Ranchos and Rancheros

Historical Context: By : Carol Banegas

Kumeyaay

The literature of the great rancho period of California is steeped in romanticism. The period is defined generally as the time between the breakup of the Franciscan mission system and the Americanization of California that came with the end of the United States-Mexican War.

In San Diego, the rancho period began later than in some other areas of the state, all of its ranchos having been granted during the time that the California was a province of Mexico. But the period lasted longer in that change came slower and ranching remained a way of life well into the late 1800’s.

The rancho period, so romantically known as the Days of the Dons, actually had two phases. Together they covered less than thirty years. But it was a feudal-like era in which each man was king and governmental restraints were nonexistent, or limited.

Even under Spanish rule, California was a remote territory subject to little direct influence of the King or the Church. The revolution in Mexico brought independence to a new nation, and to California a further lessening of the always-fragile ties of domination from Mexico City.

California was open to intrusions from all directions. When the Mexican revolutionists decreed the secularization of the missions, vast tracts of land in California were made available to solders and settlers, as well as to American traders and adventurers who had felt, or hoped, that someday California would fall into their hands.

Lands were passed out lavishly to the faithful. Tremendous herds of cattle provided hides for shoe manufacturers in New England and for tallow to be made into soap for South America. Within fifteen years, however, the more foresighted Dons saw that it could not last forever. As the motherland of Mexico held little control over their affairs and their lands, and could provide little or no military protection, California might soon have to become a country of its own or become possession of England, or some other foreign nation.

The government in Washington knew that too. The war between the United States and Mexico perhaps merely hastened the inevitable. The resistance of the Californios was limited. California became a part of the United States.

In the unsettled times that followed, the hapless Dons awoke to the fact that, despite pledges, the titles to the lands they had obtained through what they believed had been legal means, or by thinly disguised seizures, had to be justified before a United States Land Commission, and often again in the courts. Hard times followed.

Soon afterward the discovery of gold brought new life to the ranchos of the sough. Great herds of cattle were driven north to Sacramento and San Francisco. For a time the silver on saddles grew heavier and lands larger. But that period, too, passed and the Days of the Dons were numbered. Few of them were able to hold onto their ranchos. The pressures of law suits and heavy migrations of land-hungry Americans brought about a new era of agriculture and towns more than of ranching.

Though ownership’s changed, many of the more remote ranchos persisted through the years, shrinking or increasing in size from time to time. Today on many of the original rancho lands cattle still roam the hills and valleys as they did a hundred years ago.

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