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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
internment in the cemetery was that of Ignacio Ramirez, a
Mulatto slave from the San Antonio, who had money to purchase
his freedom.”!* There is no similarity of names of the two
individuals; so we conclude that together these two pioneer sailors
came; together they were buried. The significance being—that if
we can put any meaning in Christianity and its spread or attach
any value to the martyrdom of those who came, in whatever state
of being to establish missions and otherwise interfere with the
native way of life—a Negro was the first known to die for the
cause and the first to be buried on California soil.
On the 26th of August, 1781, Governor Neve issued an order for
the founding of Los Angeles. Of this incident, Bancroft writes from
translations, “—-Of subsequent proceedings for a time, we only
know that the pueblo was founded September 4, 1781, with twelve
settlers and their families, forty-six persons in all, whose blood was
a strange mixture of Indian and Negro, with here and there a trace
of Spanish.” '* Identified as Negroes according to Bancroft’s listing
were Joseph Moreno, a 22 year old Mulatto with a wife and five
children; Manuel Cameron, a 30 year old Mulatto and his wife;
Antonio Mesa, a Negro 38 years of age with a Mulatto wife and 6
children; Jose Antonio Navarro, a 42 year old Mestizo (white and
Indian) with a Mulatto wife and 3 children, and an Indian, Basil
Rosas, 68 years of age who had a Mulatto wife and 6 children.
Hence, it is indeed noteworthy that twenty-four of the forty-six
founders and first settlers of Los Angeles fall in the category of
Negroes.
By 1819 there was an Anglo-Saxon (permanent resident) population in California of three and a free Negro population of one. The
one Negro was Bob Cristobal, a sailor, who had arrived with
Captain William Smith on the Albatross in January, 1816. '*
Captain Smith and some of his men including Bob Cristobal,
were captured by the Spaniards upon landing and were detained
for some time under suspicion of smuggling. Smith, after repeated
petitions for release, was permitted to sail on the Lydia which
touched at Santa Barbara March 15, 1816. Bob Cristobal elected
to remain to be instructed in the true faith and was baptized as
Juan Cristobal on August 16, 1819.'°
In 1819 there occurred an incident which was to increase the
population. Hypolite Bouchard, French commander of the Buenos
Aires insurgents, invaded California at Monterey. In an exchange
of batteries, one of the ships, the Frigata Chica, was disabled.
Upon demand that some responsible officer be sent ashore, “the
Second Officer,” says Bancroft, “an American, then came in a boat
with two sailors. . . . One of them is described as a native of
325.