Don Fernando Sánchez Salvador researched the earlier proposals and suggested the area of the Gila and Colorado Rivers as the locale for forts or presidios preventing the French or the English from "occupying Monterey and invading the neighboring coasts of California which are at the mouth of the Carmel River." Alta California was not easily accessible from New Spain: land routes were cut off by deserts and Indigenous peoples who were hostile to invasion. Sea routes ran counter to the southerly currents of the distant northwestern Pacific. Ultimately, New Spain did not have the economic resources nor population to settle such a far northern outpost.
As the Spanish and civilian settlers further intruded into Indigenous lands and imposed their practices, ideas of property, and religion onto them backed by the force of soldiers and settlers, Indigenous peoples formed rebellions on Spanish missions and settlements. A major rebellion at Mission San Gabriel in 1785 was led by the medicine woman Toypurina. Runaways from the missions were common, where abuse, malnourishment, and overworking were common features of daily life. Runaways would sometimes find shelter at more distant villages, such as a group of runaways who found refuge at the Vanyume village of Wá'peat, the chief of which refused to give them up. Many children died young at the missions. One missionary reported that 3 of every 4 children born at Mission San Gabriel died before reaching the age of two.
The precolonial Indigenous population of California is estimated to have numbered around 340,000 people, who were diverse culturally and linguistically. From 1769 to 1832, at least 87,787 baptisms and 63,789 deaths of Indigenous peoples occurred, demonstrating the immense death rate at the missions in Alta California. Conversion to Christianity at the colonial missions was often resisted by Indigenous peoples in Alta California. Many missionaries in the province wrote of their frustrations with teaching Indigenous people to internalize Catholic scripture and practice. Many Indigenous people learned to navigate religious expectations at the missions with complex social behaviors in order to maintain their cultural and religious practices.
By law, mission land and property were to pass to the Indigenous population after a period of about ten years, when the Indigenous people would become Spanish subjects. In the interim period, the Franciscans were to act as mission administrators who held the land in trust for the Indigenous residents. The Franciscans, however, prolonged their control over the missions even after control of Alta California passed from Spain to independent Mexico, and continued to run the missions until they were secularized, beginning in 1833. The transfer of property never occurred under the Franciscans.
As the number of Spanish settlers grew in Alta California, the boundaries and natural resources of the mission properties became disputed. Conflicts between the Crown and the Church arose over land. State and ecclesiastical bureaucrats debated over authority of the missions. The Franciscan priests of Mission Santa Clara de Asís sent a petition to the governor in 1782 which stated that the Mission Indians owned both the land and cattle and represented the Ohlone against the Spanish settlers in nearby San José. The priests reported that Indians' crops were being damaged by the pueblo settlers' livestock and that the settlers' livestock was also "getting mixed up with the livestock belonging to the Indians from the mission" causing losses. They advocated that the Indigenous people be allowed to own property and have the right to defend it.
In 1804, due to the growth of the Spanish population in new northern settlements, the province of Las Californias was divided just south of San Diego, following mission president Francisco Palóu's division between the Dominican and Franciscan jurisdictions. Governor Diego de Borica is credited with defining the border between Alta (upper) and Baja (lower) California's as Palóu's division, while the division became the political reality under José Joaquín de Arrillaga, who would become the first governor of Alta California.
Resentment was increasing toward appointed territorial governors sent from Mexico City, who came with little knowledge of local conditions and concerns. Laws were imposed by the central government without much consideration of local conditions, such as the Mexican secularization act of 1833, causing friction between governors and the people.
In 1836, Mexico repealed the 1824 federalist constitution and adopted a more centralist political organization (under the "Seven Laws") that reunited Alta and Baja California in a single California Department (Departamento de las Californias). The change, however, had little practical effect in far-off Alta California. The capital of Alta California remained Monterey, as it had been since the 1769 Portola expedition first established a military/civil government, and the local political structures were unchanged.
In the final decades of Mexican rule, American and European immigrants arrived and settled in the former Alta California. Those in Southern California mainly settled in and around the established coastal settlements and tended to intermarry with the Californios. In Northern California, they mainly formed new settlements further inland, especially in the Sacramento Valley, and these immigrants focused on fur-trapping and farming and kept apart from the Californios.
After the United States Navy's seizure of the cities of southern California, the Californios formed irregular units, which were victorious in the Siege of Los Angeles, and after the arrival of the United States Army, fought in the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Domínguez Rancho. But the Californios were defeated in subsequent encounters, the battles of Río San Gabriel and La Mesa. The southern Californios formally surrendered with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. After twenty-seven years as part of independent Mexico, California was ceded to the United States in 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States paid Mexico $15 million for the lands ceded.
The data in this table includes California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming.
California Septentrional ('Northern California'), California del Norte ('North California') or California Superior ('Upper California') were unofficial names.[1]
Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1884). History of California. The History company. p. 68. without any uniformity of usage, the upper country began to be known as California Septentrional, California del Norte, Nueva California, or California Superior. But gradually Alta California became more common than the others, both in private and official communications, though from the date of the separation of the provinces in 1804, Nueva California became the legal name, as did Alta California after 1824. https://archive.org/stream/historycaliforn08bancgoog#page/n166/mode/1up
Williams, Mary Floyd (July 1922). "Mission, presidio and pueblo: Notes on California local institutions under Spain and Mexico". California Historical Society Quarterly. 1 (1): 23–35. doi:10.2307/25613566. JSTOR 25613566. Retrieved 4 June 2018. https://archive.org/stream/californiahisto1219cali_0#page/n34/mode/1up
Robinson, William Wilcox (1979). Land in California: The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters, Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip, Homesteads. Chronicles of California, Volume 419: Management of public lands in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 29. ISBN 0520038754. Retrieved 30 May 2016. 0520038754
Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. San Diego: Thunder Bay Press. p. 18f. ISBN 1592233198. 1592233198
José Bandini, in a note to Governor Echeandía or to his son, Juan Bandini, a member of the Territorial Deputation (legislature), noted that Alta California was bounded "on the east, where the Government has not yet established the [exact] borderline, by either the Colorado River or the great Sierra (Sierra Nevada)."[5] /wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_de_Echeand%C3%ADa
Chapman points out that the term "Arizona" was not used in this period. Arizona south of the Gila River was referred to as the Pimería Alta. North of the Gila River were the "Moqui", whose territory was considered separate from New Mexico. The term "the Californias", therefore, refers specifically to the Spanish-held coastal region from Baja California to an undefined north.[6] /wiki/Gila_River
Forging communities in colonial Alta California. Kathleen L. Hull, John G. Douglass. Tucson, AZ. 2018. pp. 12–18. ISBN 978-0-8165-3892-8. OCLC 1048786636.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) 978-0-8165-3892-8
See Bonialian, op. cit, p. 277; or in English book review by Duggan, op. cit.
Kino, E. F., & In Bolton, H. E. (1919). Kino's historical memoir of Pimería Alta: A contemporary account of the beginnings of California, Sonora, and Arizona. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, pp. 215–216.
Starr, Kevin (2005). California: A History. New York: Modern Library. p. 28. ISBN 978-08129-7753-0.Rawls, James J.; Walton Bean (2008). California: An Interpretive History (9th ed.). McGraw Hill. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-07-353464-0. 978-08129-7753-0978-0-07-353464-0
Plans for the Occupation of Upper California: A New Look at the "Dark Age" from 1602 to 1769 Archived 2016-04-06 at the Wayback Machine, The Journal of San Diego History, San Diego Historical Society Quarterly, Winter 1978, Volume 24, Number 1 http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/78winter/plans.htm
The elusive West and the contest for empire, 1713–1763, Paul W. Mapp, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture https://books.google.com/books?id=sbrx4Um1_hcC&pg=PA345
Starr, Kevin (2005). California: A History. New York: Modern Library. p. 28. ISBN 978-08129-7753-0.Rawls, James J.; Walton Bean (2008). California: An Interpretive History (9th ed.). McGraw Hill. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-07-353464-0. 978-08129-7753-0978-0-07-353464-0
Starr, California: A History, 31–32. Rawls and Bean, California: An Interpretive History, 33.
Haycox, Stephen W. (2002). Alaska: An American Colony. University of Washington Press. pp. 59–60. ISBN 978-0-295-98249-6. 978-0-295-98249-6
Robinson, William Wilcox (1979). Land in California: The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters, Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip, Homesteads. Chronicles of California, Volume 419: Management of public lands in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 29. ISBN 0520038754. Retrieved 30 May 2016. 0520038754
Ryan, Mary Ellen & Breschini, Gary S. (2010). "Secularization and the Ranchos, 1826–1846". Salinas, CA: Monterey County Historical Society. Retrieved 30 May 2016. http://mchsmuseum.com/secularization.html
"Kosa'aay (Cosoy) History". www.cosoy.org. Archived from the original on June 7, 2010. Retrieved 2020-08-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20100607221122/http://www.cosoy.org/History.html
Starr, California: A History, 35–36. Rawls and Bean, California: An Interpretive History, 37–39.
Peet, Stephen Denison (1881–82). Gatschet, Alb. S. (ed.). The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. Jameson & Morse. p. 73. https://books.google.com/books?id=ar0RAAAAYAAJ
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Woodward, Lisa Louise (2007). The Acjachemen of San Juan Capistrano: The History, Language and Politics of an Indigenous California Community. University of California, Davis. pp. 3, 8.
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Hackel, S. W. (2003-10-01). "Sources of Rebellion: Indian Testimony and the Mission San Gabriel Uprising of 1785". Ethnohistory. 50 (4): 643–669. doi:10.1215/00141801-50-4-643. ISSN 0014-1801. S2CID 161256567. /wiki/Doi_(identifier)
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Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, Volumes 25–26. Malki Museum. 2005. p. 19. https://books.google.com/books?id=JRErAQAAIAAJ
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Encomium musicae : essays in memory of Robert J. Snow. Robert J. Snow, David Crawford, George Grayson Wagstaff. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press. 2002. p. 129. ISBN 0-945193-83-1. OCLC 37418391.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) 0-945193-83-1
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Kling, David W. (2020). A history of Christian conversion. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-0-19-006262-0. OCLC 1143823194. Apart from a tiny minority who gave the clearest evidence of meaningful conversion... Overall, outright rejection and chronic resistance characterized the Indian response. [...] The Franciscans admitted as much, recording repeatedly the difficulty of convincing adult Indians to accept any aspect of Catholicism. 978-0-19-006262-0
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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.)
Williams, Mary Floyd (July 1922). "Mission, presidio and pueblo: Notes on California local institutions under Spain and Mexico". California Historical Society Quarterly. 1 (1): 23–35. doi:10.2307/25613566. JSTOR 25613566. Retrieved 4 June 2018. https://archive.org/stream/californiahisto1219cali_0#page/n34/mode/1up
Ryan, Mary Ellen & Breschini, Gary S. (2010). "Secularization and the Ranchos, 1826–1846". Salinas, CA: Monterey County Historical Society. Retrieved 30 May 2016. http://mchsmuseum.com/secularization.html
See "República Centralista (México)" in the Spanish version of Wikipedia https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rep%C3%BAblica_Centralista_de_M%C3%A9xico
Parker, Robert J. (1 June 1942). "Larkin's Monterey Customers". The Quarterly: Historical Society of Southern California. 24 (2): 41–53. doi:10.2307/41168001. JSTOR 41168001. https://doi.org/10.2307/41168001
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Woolfenden, J.; Elkinton, A. (1983). Cooper: Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper, sea captain, adventurer, ranchero, and early California pioneer, 1791–1872. Pacific Grove, CA: Boxwood Press. pp. 35–38. ISBN 0910286957. 0910286957
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Almost the entire Spanish and mixed-race population lived in present-day California.
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