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What impact did the Portola expedition have?
The expedition led to the founding of Alta California and contributed to the solidification of Spanish territorial claims in the disputed and unexplored regions along the Pacific coast of North America.
What was the purpose of the Portola expedition?
To the secular leader of the expedition, Gaspar de Portolá (1723–1784), the task was to assert Spanish control of this coast, securing it against the claims of Russia. The Spanish had already established small communities in Baja or lower California, led by the Jesuit order.
What happened in 1769 when the Portola expedition was first exploring the Los Angeles basin?
When the expedition of Spaniards, led by Gaspar De Portola, arrived to explore and colonize Upper California in 1769, they found the land marked by many Indian villages, or “rancherias,” containing from 500 to 1500 huts, in the area which later became Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
Who led the first overland expedition to San Diego?
The Portola expedition The land expedition was split into two parts. Under the command of Capt. Fernando Rivera y Moncada, the first was to establish a mission at San Diego. He arrived in San Diego in May 1769, set up camp and awaited the arrival of Portola's party, which arrived on June 29, 1769.
Who did Gaspar de Portola sail for?
The son of a noble family, Portolá entered the Spanish army in 1734. After 30 years of service in Europe, he rose to the rank of captain.
Did the Portolá expedition realize the significance of their discovery?
Mainly worried about locating Monterey Bay, Portola and his men did not even realize the significance of their discovery.
Who was the first person to explore California?
navigator Juan Rodríguez CabrilloExploration. When Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to sight the region that is present-day California in 1542, there were about 130,000 Native Americans inhabiting the area.
Who were the first people to discover California?
The first explorers and settlers of Coastal California were American Indians. The most expansive European colonizations efforts were made by the Spanish. On September 28, 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his crew entered San Diego Bay--the first Europeans to visit California.
Who explored California first?
Juan Rodriguez CabrilloJuan Rodriguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition that explored what is now the west coast of the United States. Cabrillo departed from the port of Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542. Three months later he arrived at "a very good enclosed port," which is known today as San Diego Bay.
Who was the first American to reach California by land?
After successfully sacking Spanish colonial settlements and plundering Spanish treasure ships along their Pacific coast colonies in the Americas, English privateer and explorer Francis Drake sailed into Oregon, before exploring and claiming an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing at Drake's Cove ...
Who first found San Diego?
JUAN RODRIQUEZ CABRILLOJUAN RODRIQUEZ CABRILLO. Who discovered the Bay of San Diego in September, 1542, and first explored the coast of California. The accounts of Cabrillo's achievement slowly percolated to Spain by way of Mexico, but if they produced any excitement it was successfully restrained for a period of nearly two generations.
Who was the first person to reach the shores of Antarctica?
One hundred years ago today the South Pole was reached by a party of Norwegian explorers under the command of Roald Amundsen.
What was the purpose of the Narváez expedition?
The Narváez expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration and colonization started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in Florida. The expedition was initially led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who died in 1528.
What was the purpose of Desoto's expedition?
Hernando de Soto's Expedition through the Southeast His goal was to conquer and settle the territory of the Gulf States as well as find gold to enrich himself and his king.
Why was Desoto's expedition important?
The Hernando de Soto expedition ultimately covered over 4,000 miles of territory located within the boundaries of ten present-day US states. Although they never achieved their goal of finding gold or establishing a permanent spanish settlement, they were the first Europeans to cross the Mississippi River.
What was the outcome of the villasur expedition in 1720?
The survivors retreated to their base in New Mexico....Villasur expedition.DateJune 16 – August 14, 1720LocationGreat PlainsResultPawnee-Otoe victory
Where did Portolá go?
Although food was critically short and many of the men were ill, Portolá immediately set out to find the reported harbor of Monterey. Moving north from San Diego, he selected several possible mission sites, passed Monterey without recognizing the spot, and explored the region around San Francisco Bay before returning to San Diego in late January 1770. During the spring Portolá returned north and successfully located Monterey, where he and Serra established Mission San Carlos. Shortly thereafter Portolá returned to Baja California, where he remained as governor for several years.
Who translated Portolá's diary?
Portolá's diary of the 1769 expedition was translated by Donald E. Smith and Frederick J. Teggart as Diary of Gaspar de Portolá during the California Expedition of 1769-1770 (1909). There has been less written about Portolá than about his more famous companion, Fray Junípero Serra. Zoeth S. Eldredge, The March of Portolá and Discovery of the Bay of San Francisco (1909), contains much interesting material. The best firsthand account is in Francisco Palóu, Life of Fray Junípero Serra (trans. 1955). See also Richard F. Pourade, The Call to California (1968).
Who was the Spanish governor who established the first missions in Alta California?
The Spanish explorer and colonial governor Gaspar de Portolá (ca. 1723-ca. 1784) headed the Spanish expedition that established the first missions in Alta California.
Where did Portolà and his men go?
Unharmed by the natives, Portolà and his men proceeded north toward San Francisco but got lost in the thick coastal fog and missed their final destination: Monterey Bay.
When did Portolà leave Baja California?
Accompanied by missionaries (including Father Junipero Serra), settlers and a band of what he described in his diaries as "leather-jacket soldiers," Portolà left Baja California on May 15, 1769.
Why was Portolá chosen?
A reliable army captain, he was chosen to perform difficult tasks: first, to oust the Jesuits from their California missions —since the Jesuit order had been suppressed in Spain—and install the Franciscans in their place. Next, he was expected to secure the northern territory.
What did Portola look for in his expedition?
In an overland expedition up the coast, Portola looked for two sites reported to offer protected bays for Spanish ships: San Diego and Monterey, sighted from shipboard 150 years before by Sebastien Vizcaino, a Spanish merchant-adventurer. Portola hoped to do his duty while keeping himself and his men alive. Spanish soldiers in America were subject to Indian attack, disease, and starvation (since they understood little about subsisting on the native plants and game). Sea travel was even more perilous than overland ventures. Of three vessels sent up the coast to provision Portola’s 1769 expedition, one sank and another wandered, lost, while those aboard fell ill with scurvy.
Why did Father Serra prefer the Monterey Peninsula?
Library of Congress, LAMB, no. 2418. Perhaps Serra preferred the Monterey peninsula because the natives of the area, the Rumsen, were a gentle, unwarlike people.
What did Serra do to the natives?
Like many Spanish missionaries in Mexico and the American Southwest who preceded him, Serra expected the natives to participate in daily catechism and used corporal punishment to enforce rules. He sent soldiers to round up native converts who fled the missions, ordering severe floggings when escapees were returned. In reports to the civil authorities, he argued such punishment was essential to the missions’ survival. As one who himself practiced self-mortification, he also thought it beneficial to the natives’ souls. Or perhaps, as at least one biographer (Gregory Orfalea) suggests, he rationalized the floggings in this way. Certainly, he worried that Natives left outside the Missions would be enslaved by later Spanish settlers, without gaining any spiritual benefit.
When did Serra and Portolá reach San Diego?
Portolá’s party reached San Diego on June 29, 1769. Portolá stayed only two weeks before setting out again to find Monterey. Left behind with two priests and a detachment of nine soldiers, Serra constructed a rustic chapel, furnished it with devotional objects, and dedicated the San Diego Mission on July 16. Meanwhile, Portolá’s party passed Monterey without finding it. Returning dispirited to San Diego, he assessed the mission’s dwindling provisions and returned to Baja for supplies. Serra stayed in San Diego, insisting he could not abandon the new mission, while still hoping to reach Monterey.
What was the role of Serra in the Spanish mission?
Given charge over the missions of Baja California after the expulsion of the Jesuits, Serra had proved himself a forceful and dedicated organizer . He could not, however, make the Spanish agricultural model work on the arid Baja Peninsula, despite efforts to recruit native converts to work the fields. The missions languished as civil and religious authorities jostled for their control, a common pattern in the Spanish conquest of America.
How old was Serra when he was martyred?
Serra, a Franciscan priest and 55-years-old in 1769, zealously pursued an apostolic vision. He was prepared for martyrdom at the hands of the natives, but he meant to convert as many as possible to the Catholic faith. Eighteen years earlier, he’d left a more comfortable life as a professor of theology and philosophy on the island of Mallorca to travel to the New World and evangelize.
Where did Portola begin his journey?
Portola, nonetheless, could not have foreseen the problems which lay before him when he departed from Loreto on March 9, 1769, and began the first leg of his long journey - to Mission Santa Maria, the northernmost of the peninsular chain, about 400 miles distant.5 The
How long did Portola serve in the military?
California, where he had carried out the expulsion of the Jesuit Order and was serving as governor.1 Following his return from Upper Cali- fornia, Portola would serve the crown for an additional sixteen years, half of them as governor of Puebla. Portolá's Upper California duty was, therefore, but a brief episode in a distinguished fifty-year military career. Evidence indicates, however, that it very probably was the most distasteful period of his life.
How many men did Portola have in his party?
Leaving a few soldiers in San Diego to protect the Spaniards remain- ing in the land-settlement and on the San Carlos, Portola began his journey to Monterey Bay on July 14.14 His party was comprised of sixty-some men, or, as he later described them, * 'skeletons, who had been spared by scurvy, hunger and thirst."15
Where did Portola find the mission and presidio?
later observed, "the spot at which the expeditionaries by land and sea were to meet in accordance with the visitor-general's instructions to recount the great events which had happened to us and the discoveries incident to our journeys."10 And had Gálvez' plans been on schedule, Portola would have found the mission and presidio in San Diego well on their way to completion and preparations for founding the Monterey settlements already made.11
When did Portola break camp?
On May ii Portola broke camp at Mission Santa Maria and began
How long did the Spaniards rest?
After three days of rest, the Spaniards turned their backs on their objective and resumed their march. Progress was slow, for scurvy con- tinued to spread among the soldiers, and several had to be carried on litters. Six were given the last rites at various times but fortunately
What was the lowest point of Spanish morale?
Spanish morale reached its lowest point on October 28. The party was then well above the reported latitude of Monterey Bay, but it was nowhere to be found. Its food supply was dangerously low, making rationing necessary. A form of diarrhea had afflicted all of its members, including Portola. And heavy rains had begun to fall. The expedition's plight was such that Miguel Costansó, its cosmographer and engineer, feared it had reached its end.24 Miraculously, however, those suffering 189
Overview
External links
• Biography of Gaspar de Portolá at the San Diego Historical Society website
• Early Exploration of San Diego: 1542 to 1769 at the California History & Culture Conservancy website (archived)
• Portolá's History and Statue in Pacifica, California(archived)
Early life
Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira, known in Catalan as Gaspar Portolà i Rovira, was born on 1 January 1716 in Os de Balaguer, in Catalonia, to a family of minor Catalan nobility.
Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal. He was commissioned ensign in 1734, and lieutenant in 1743.
Expedition to Las Californias
Spain was driven to establish missions and other outposts on the Pacific Coast north of the Baja California Peninsula by fears that the territory would be claimed by foreign powers, in addition to its Catholic proselytizing mission and insatiable need for additional sources of income. The English, who had established colonies on the East Coast of the continent and north into what is now Canad…
Second expedition
One of Portolá's officers, Captain Vicente Vila, convinced him that he had actually been exactly on the Bay of Monterey when he placed his second cross at what later became Pacific Grove. After replenishing supplies at San Diego, Portolá and Serra decided on a joint expedition by land and sea to again search for the bay and establish a colony if they were successful. The San Antonio sai…
Later life
Governor Portolá's task was finished. He then left Captain Pedro Fages in charge, and on June 9 he sailed for San Blas, never to return to Upper California. In 1776, Portolá was appointed the governor of Puebla. After the appointment of his successor in 1784, he was advanced money for expenses and returned to Spain, where he served as commander of the Numancia cavalry dragoon regiment. On February 7, 1786 he was appointed King's Lieutenant for the strongholds …
Legacy
A 9 ft (2.7 m) statue in Pacifica, California was sculpted by the Catalan sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs and his associate, Francesc Carulla. It was given to the people of California by the Catalan government in 1988.
The city of Portola in Plumas County, the town of Portola Valley in San Mateo County, and the Portola neighborhood of San Francisco were named after Porto…
Further reading
• Crespí, Juan; Alan K Brown (2001). A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1769–1770. San Diego: San Diego State University Press. ISBN 1-879691-64-7.
• Nuttall, Donald A. (1971). "Gaspar de Portolá: Disenchanted Conquistador of Spanish Upper California". Southern California Quarterly. 53 (3): 185–198. doi:10.2307/41170367. JSTOR 41170367.