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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
The Negro in California Before 1890 (PH 10-1)(1945) (55 pages)
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Page: of 55
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On April 10, 1537, Estevanico’s companions, Cabeza de Vaca,
Castillo, and Dorantes sailed to Spain, but the Negro remained in
Mexico. * According to Lummis, “their report on what they saw,
and of the stranger countries to north of which they had heard,
had already set on foot the remarkable expeditions which resulted
in the discovery of Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, and
Colorado.”*® In these expeditions, Estevanico was to play a
further part. Because of his experience as an explorer, his
knowledge of the country, and his familiarity with the language
and customs of the Indians, he was commissioned by Viceroy
Mendoza to guide Coronado to discover the northern boundary of
New Spain. It was while guiding an expedition under the leadership of Friar Marco from Mexico in search of the fabled “Seven
Cities of Cibola” that Arizona and New Mexico were discovered.
Reputed to have been the first member of an alien race to visit the
North Mexican pueblos, he lost his life in the same venture at the
hands of the Zuni Indians, in the golden cities of Cibola.
If we can believe the evidence of translations, offered by Beasley,
from various sources, there were other Negroes in the various exploring parties of this era. From a translation of a Herrera document, she writes, “The Friar Luis de Escalone of Saint Vida wished
to stay in this land—They would stay with him in this land of the
Recortes some Christian Indians— and two Negroes, one with his
wife and children; besides, the Friar Juan Campo, a Portuguese and
another Negro that took the habit of a friar—.”’
The exact location of this land of settlement is questionable, but
there is the possibility that it was California, inasmuch as the
expeditions were started from Mexico City with orders to find the
northern limits of Nueva Espana. Fanny Bandillier translates that
Friar Marco of Nissa in his reports says, “—I thought it good to
name that country ‘El Nueva Reyno de San Francisco’.’’*
Thus the Negro played a worthy, though subordinate, part in
the series of events leading up to the discovery of the land now
known as California. He suffered the years of wandering and want
on the uncharted plains, deserts, and mountains of the southwest
and west, facing attack and torture of hostile Indians, but leaving
behind an easier trail and an entree for settlement for those who
followed—to California.
Under Spanish rule in California, Negro slavery did not exist to
a great extent; yet we can be quite certain that some Negroes were
held in slavery, for it was a legal practice and encouraged by the
King. Interesting though, is the idea that the King of Spain was
benevolent to the slaves. In 1511 he investigated the death of a
323.