Tombstone Tales Preview: Don Pío Pico and the Revolt Against Governor Manuel Victoria, November-December 1831

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

This weekend, the Homestead offers its new program, Tombstone Tales, which concerns the history of El Campo Santo Cemetery and focuses on a specific person interred in the acre-sized burial ground established by the Workman family in the 1850s and which includes a cast-iron fenced plot from about that period and the Walter P. Temple Memorial Mausoleum, finished in 1921 as the Homestead’s then-owner completed an extensive renovation of the nearly destroyed parcel.

Among those buried in the Mausoleum, and relocated there with great ceremony at the time, are Don Pío Pico and his wife Doña María Ygnacia Alvarado de Pico, and they are the subjects of the inaugural edition of Tombstone Tales. During our regular tour hours of Noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, you can hear an illustrated presentation about the Picos, see artifacts related to them and visit the Cemetery.

As a preview, and in contrast to the weekend, which looks at the demises of Don Pío and Doña Ygnacia, this post looks at a central early event in the life of the former, who played important political parts during some fifteen years between 1831 and 1846, including his service, at the end of that period, as the last governor of Mexican-era Alta California, while, at the front end of the era, he was a central figure in a revolution that toppled the existing chief executive and fully established Don Pío as a preeminent politician in the remote department once called the “Siberia of México.”

A San Diego merchant of thirty years of age, Pico was a member of the departmental legislative body, the diputación, when the revolt took place and, in his 1877 interview (published in 1973 as Don Pico’s Historical Narrative, dictated by Don Pío to Thomas Savage, who worked for Hubert Howe Bancroft in the collection of narratives from prominent personages relating to events in pre-American California, the former governor went into great detail and about the drama and his role in it.

It should be noted that the sparsely-populated (that is, by Mexicans, as opposed to the indigenous people, whose numbers were ravaged by European contact, including conditions at the California missions, the loss of traditional food sources, alcoholism, violence and other causes) department was so used to a forced independence because of remoteness and a lack of material support from México City that the Spanish-speaking inhabitants called themselves Californios as a distinct identity from Mexicanos.

Consequently, they preferred their own departmental governors and, at best, bristled and, at worst, turned to force in dealing with appointed chief executives sent up from the south. Manuel Victoria (1793-1833) was a lieutenant colonel in the Mexican Army and was governor of Baja California from 1829 when he was appointed to take charge of Alta California, replacing José María de Echeandía. Pico told Savage that, when Victoria was named to the position and then came north, the merchant met him.

Pico felt that Echeandía, while “of pleasant manner” and “not haughty,” was “very apathetic” and this allowed for the increase of criminal activity in the department. As for Victoria, he was deemed “very gruff and despotic” and added that,

During his administration it was the general opinion that Victoria was a despotic ruler who did want to recognize the right of the deputies to perform their duties. Therefore I, as a deputy, came to Los Angeles to consult with Vicente Sánchez [alcalde, roughly mayor of the pueblo and who was liked by the governor], We were in agreement and we issued a communication to Victoria because we had important matters to discuss.

Sánchez, however, did not sign the documented and presented it to Victoria as if was solely Pico’s doing. The angered governor informed Pico that it was his prerogative, by his orders from the “supreme government” to decide whether to convene a gathering of the diputación and seeking “to persuade me not to concern myself in such matters.” Victoria followed this with a public address, which induced Pico to issue a written rejoinder distributed to the ayuntamientos (town councils).

The peeved chief executive ordered the council in Monterey, the capital of Alta California, to take down Don Pío’s statement, which was refused, so a military force of 25 men was sent to do so. While Sánchez elected not to display the document, its author’s brother, Andrés, who became a very prominent general in the Army, especially during the defense of the department against the invading Americans in 1846-1847 and an American-era politician, distributed it, but was tossed into the adobe jail by Sánchez.

Then, Pico continued, he learned from a brother-in-law, Joaquín Ortega, that Victoria intended to march with troops from the capital to San Diego to execute Don Pío, as well as Don Juan Bandini. Pico consulted another brother-in-law, Don José Antonio Carrillo, who’d been exiled to Baja California and who went to Don Pío’s Rancho Jamul, situated east of San Diego, and then the two went to that town, where Bandini joined them.

Pico related “during that interview we discussed the best methods to combat Victoria’s plans” and “we resolved to plan an uprising.” Don Pío then went to Los Angeles to gain supporters, but found that Sánchez rounded up “about seventy of the most outstanding men (among them the Regidor [council member] Francisco Sepúlveda, Don José María Avila, Demesio Dominguez, and my brother in irons, and Nazario [Nasario] and Pedro Domínguez) in the public jail.

Citing Avila’s “determination and courage” which earned Pico’s trust, Don Pío talked to him through the door of the cárcel cell door, while the former telling the latter that it was his view that, once Victoria learned of the mass incarceration, he would free the prisoners, so it was better to wait until then and after the governor’s impending departure to San Diego for the Angeleños to join the revolt. When Pico returned to that southern pueblo and talked to Bandini and Carrillo, though, it was decided to stick with the original plan.

Consequently, an uncle of Pico, José López (most Californios were related closely to their peers in those days), went to Los Angeles to restate that concept, but Avila stood firm. Meanwhile, another banished resident, the American merchant Abel Stearns, arrived in San Diego by ship from Monterey and told the trio of conspirators that Victoria was on his way to carry out his plan of hanging Bandini and Pico and pledged to join the revolt, the date of which was established as 30 November 1831.

That evening, fifteen others joined as the military barracks at San Diego were seized, with Pico, arrested the company commander, Don Santiago Argüello, who was playing a game with his wife and Ensign Ignacio (Ygnacio) del Valle, telling Savage,

I entered with a gun in each hand and charged them to surrender, begging him at the same time to forgive the violence with which I presented myself in his house because the circumstances demanded it.

Bandini seized the commander-at-arms, Don Pablo de la Portilla, and the three arrested officers were told of the conspiracy and, related Don Pío, “confessed that all the assertions in the plan of revolt were true and well founded.” They, however, adhered to their sworn duty as military officials and would not agree to join the uprising, but “pledged themselves, under protest, not to take any steps against us until the conclusion of the affair.”

The captured men were released, but Bandini and Pico took the weapons in the barracks, while a corporal and four soldiers abandoned their oaths and joined them. These men were sent north to what is now the southern limits of Orange County to patrol the road, this essentially the route of Interstate 5 now, and “prevent any person passing through to Los Angeles.” Finally, Argüello, de la Portilla and del Valle, agreed to take part in the revolution, provided that Echeandía be the military leader against Victoria.

The officers marveled that such a small number of rebels had the audacity to launch the enterprise, according to the narrative, and, after a little lie that “the towns of all the territory” of Alta California “would revolt,” as well, Bandini and Pico insisted that “all Mexicans who should refuse to cooperate with us against Victoria would be expelled from the country as soon as we were victorious.”

Once Echeandía arrived to take the leadership role in the revolt, a pronunciamiento was issued and, within a few days, de la Portilla, with about fifty men, marched to Los Angeles and was nearing the pueblo when word was received that Governor Victoria was at the mission community of San Fernando with about thirty in his force. He then sent the mission’s majordomo, or foreman, to the Angel City “to inquire of the alcalde [Sánchez] what was known for certain about the revolution,” but Sánchez replied “there was not the slightest rumor of a revolution—that all was peaceful.”

De la Portilla’s force, however, then arrived and took the alcalde captive, while a brother, Juan, disguised as a woman escaped to seek help while Sánchez was held and the aforementioned prisoners set free. That armed group then headed northwest towards Cahuenga Pass to camp and was met the following morning by Victoria’s force and the First Battle of Cahuenga, the second occurring during Pico’s second revolution fourteen years later, ensued.

During the skirmish, José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco, a captain under Victoria (and whose son, Romualdo, served as California’s governor in the 1870s) advised the governor against confronting a larger force, leading the governor to scoff, “he who wears skirts should not follow me.” So goaded, Pacheco charged and swung his sword at José Antonio Carrillo, who blocked the parry with his gun, while Avila pulled out a pistol “and shot Pacheco, who fell dead as the bullet passed through his heart.”

Tossing his weapon aside and brandishing the lance, the skillful use of which made the Californios widely known including to the Americans vanquished at the Battle of San Pascual in late 1846, Avila demanded to know where Victoria was as he rode through the enemy force and then, finding him, growled, “you black bastard, I have been looking for you.” He hit the governor with the side of his weapon, but his horse stepped backward and, as Avila attempted another hit, Leandro Morales, shot and wounded him.

Victoria then stepped up and was about to use his sword to dispatch the disabled man, but Avila grabbed the governor and tossed him to the ground. As another Victoria soldier prepared to kill him, Avila took out a pistol from his boot and wounded his attacker. Pico then related that rebel Tomás Talamantes rode up “and while still mounted, addressed a blow to Victoria but only succeeded in scratching his cheek with the end of the sabre, because the other moved his body over.”

While de la Portilla left the field to the governor and camped at Los Nietos, near where Pico later owned the Rancho Paso de Bartolo and resided at his Ranchito, now a state historic park, Don Pío stated that “this ended the battle with Victoria withdrawing.” He added that two men on either side trying firing on each other, but the weapons jammed, so they pummeled each other with the gun butts until they left. Other accounts of the battle, however, differed with that of Pico, who was recollecting events nearly a half-century later and who did not mention Avila’s death.

In any case, Don Pío continued that,

The next day Victoria sent a letter to Portilla advising him that he surrendered. This, in truth, was the best thing left to do because he was extremely unpopular due to his severity and despotism, and he had no followers; besides, he was wounded and incapable of carrying on the campaign . . . We came to directly to Los Angeles, where we decided Victoria’s fate, ordering him shipped from San Diego, to the interior of the Republic of Mexico. Our cause, then, was triumphant and we busied ourselves in organizing the government . . .

Pico then told how he became governor, or jefe político, but Echeandía and the Los Angeles ayuntamiento protested and, predictably, internal bickering, which marked so much of the history of the Californios, as with people broadly, continued until the arrival of a new appointed governor, Brigadier General José Figueroa.

With that, we’ll end this post and invite readers to join us this weekend for Tombstone Tales and hear about the end of Pico’s remarkable life and pay your respects to the last resting place of Don Pío and Doña Ygnacia.