The Californian-Spanish Wars
1771
With word of the discovery of the Californians racing across the globe in 1770 the Viceroy de Croix had yet to be relieved of his command of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and decided to act quickly rather than later. Most of the colony’s royal soldiers, the white shirted blanquillos were spread out across most of Mexico and so he organized two expeditions to return to California. One by land and one by sea.
The expedition by land left with 500 soldiers from Baja California and traveled north through the Mojave to find if an further inland route was possible and to possibly catch the still largely unknown Californians by surprise. Unsurprisingly, to even de Croix the expedition did end in a failure having to turn back to lack of supplies, starvation, and a viable land route not being found.
The expedition by sea was much larger and to a degree more successful. Two thousand blanquillos and a small fleet were dispatched to San Diego. At the time the facilities in San Diego were much too small and at least half of the army was deployed in the region to develop the area for future use by the Spanish crown. Meanwhile the other half of the military sailed northward along the California coastline to Monterey Bay-first described by Vizcaino over a century ago. Landing on the southern end of the bay they attached the urban center of Salinas which was the largest population center along the coastline. The attack from the sea was highly unexpected by the Californians, most of the army in the region having deployed south to Paso Robles so the Spanish with their cannons were able to breach the city.
What they found was odd yet familiar in many ways. The city of Salinas had many mount structures not unlike the ruins of Mesoamericans but of a much different style, the gods as well were much different as was the dress and appearance of the Californians. Still, a city was a city and they were able to not only loot the shell and bead jewelry the city was famed for but also gold! Imported from the inland, for the Californians gold was used as a status and religious symbol. So the Spanish committed a religious sacrilege as they plucked the golden orbs from the eyes and mouths of the Californian gods. The Spanish soon advanced northward and similarly took the settlements around Watsonville, surprised by the complexity of the Californian civilization they found.
Here were not tent dwelling nomads or poor beggars in the streets, here were cities, irrigation, and other great works that Spanish eyes had last really despoiled in the Americas with the conquest of the Inca. The Spanish fresh off of their conquest of the Watsonville area were attacked by the Californians whose light infantry succeeded in drawing the Spanish north-westward, deeper inland. Expecting to relive the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro the Spanish commanders received reinforcements from San Diego before they followed the Californians into the Santa Clara valley, where at the northern end laid the city of San Jose.
However, the Spanish never reached San Jose. As they traveled through the southern section of the valley they would come face to face with the irrigation techniques of the Californians. The Spanish crossed into the valley during the spring, during which time the heavy winter snows melted and the water filled the dams and canals constructed by the Californians to prevent disastrous floods and to feed their agriculture. They released the local dams and pointed the flood waters at the Spanish.
The result wasn’t a sudden unstoppable wave of water crushing the Spanish army. No, the Californians wanted to retake their land after all. Instead the rivers, streams, and canal works of the Californians just burst their banks halting the Spanish advance as they were flooded. Soon the Spanish column lost a great deal cohesion as the flood waters separated army units and even saw wagons float back down the river. It was then the Californians attacked from the high grounds and from great river canoe and barges.
The Battle of Santa Clara was an overwhelming defeat for the Spanish as hundreds of Spanish soldiers and their camp followers were killed or captured. The Spanish fled back out of the Santa Clara valley hounded by the Californians back toward Salinas-which had been re-captured in a bloody battle by a Californian army charging south from Rosa Pablos. In disorder the Spanish retreated to their ships with over half of their army being left behind dead or captured by the Californians.
1775-1776
The Spanish invasion of 1771 was a stinging defeat for the Spanish crown but it did not mean the Spanish would give up on California. They had been able to take booty and slaves from the areas of California they conquered and it was decided that the conquest of California was a worthy task. However, failing to take California in 1771 had repercussions as the British shortly afterward made contact with the House of Raven in Onallan to the north and threatened Spain with their territorial demands over the Pacific Northwest, citing Drake’s original discovery as one of the reasons among others. There was also the Russians who exercised their own claims but fortunately for Spain most of those were also counter to the British territorial disputes.
Spain was wary of going to war with Britain over the area, after several defeats during the Seven Years war but to the Spanish the timing seemed to be good once more. The British seemed to be occupied with taxation of their colonies on the eastern coast of North America and had suffered defeats abroad in India.
This time the invasion of California would once more be by land, the Spanish authority in New Spain, now Viceroy de Bucareli y Ursua wanted to take a much more cautious approach than the debacle under de Croix. The Spanish plan was to once more probe the interior for an inland passage into California. In the intervening years the Spanish authority had continued to develop San Diego and San Gabriel (Los Angeles) and probe along the shore and inland area through native scouts the Spanish could bribe. This lead to the discovery of the Tejon Pass through the San Emigdio Mountains. Landing an army of some three thousand five hundred in San Gabriel the Spanish marched north in the Central Valley.
The Spanish were spotted before they made it through the Tejon pass but in shoring up their coastal and south-western defenses against a possible Spanish attack the Californians had discounted the Spanish attacking through the Mojave. Californian riders sped northward and the Californians in Tejon pass did their best to delay the Spanish advance as much as possible, creating landslides and other obstacles but the Spanish eventually managed to cut their way through Tejon pass and breach the Californian forts to make it into the Central Valley.
The southern end of the Central Valley is mostly classified as desert and had seen a serious depopulation as a result of the smallpox outbreaks. The area had been resettled by the Tubatalabal people who spoke an Uto-Aztecan language and had joined the Californian Confederacy. They took up Californian agricultural practices and brought green back to the area. The Spanish army that crossed into the Kern river basin attacked and looted the Taubatalabal communities in the area around Bakersfield, wrecking much of the irrigation systems in the area as they corralled the local natives and dealt with them harshly through manners learned fighting the Apache and Comanche. The area was not known for the more harsh floods further north in the Central Valley so the Spanish found very few high urban centers they could use to defend their new territory.
The Spanish commanders then resolved to push northward to find a more defensible center they could hold. Moving north they were finally checked around the banks of the Tule river as an army of 6,000 Californians counterattacked. What was most interesting about this was that a good portion of the Californians were also armed with Spanish and crudely manufactured muskets and cannonry. If the Spanish had managed to get a closer inspection they would have noticed British, make as well. The Californian army forced the Spanish back in a series of hit and run battles all across the southern area of the Central Valley, for the first time the Californians also used horses as a part of their military tactics as they sped around the Spanish.
The Spanish were forced back and out the way they had come, sustaining heavy loses they returned to San Diego mostly empty handed.
1785
Once more defeated the Spanish were unable to muster another attack on California as wider world events quickly overtook them. Along with growing troubles in Mexico and their other New Spanish colonies, the world went to war with Britain over the secession of their 13 colonies. The Spanish knew they had to protect their interests in the Caribbean before they could expand again. Overall the victory in the American Revolution was extremely successful for Spain which defended its territory, regained prestige, and even recaptured disputed territories with Britain. Buoyed by increased mining spoils in Mexico and Bolivia the Spanish government resolved to capture California once by, this time by sea.
Since their attack in 1771 the Spanish had committed to scouting the Californian coastline for any and all suitable landing points. They found the Californian coastline to be extremely rocky and mountainous in most places. On secluded shores where they could land they often attacked the local costal natives, most of whom were not aligned with the Californian Confederation but soon would be, and sought an inland route into the heart of California. The one prize they did find was the Bay Area, from their scout ships they could see that it was a large bay that could fit the entire Spanish fleet and was also heavily populated by the Californians. It was reasoned that the Bay Area must be some sort of capital for the Californians and to capture it they could force the rest of the Californians into submission as they had done with Moctezuma and Atahualpa.
Thirty four Spanish warships and merchantmen were sent to San Diego to spearhead the attack into San Francisco, with a compliment of some seven thousand the attack on the Bay would make or break the assault into California.
Sailing north the Spanish fleet in as much haste as possible to outrun any possible Californian reinforcements sailed into the Bay area. What they expected to find was one city, what they found instead was several. They did not know that in the ages past the city-states of the bay area had often warred among each other and so had very quickly developed sea walls and sea fortifications to prevent cross-bay attacks by their neighbors. As the Spanish fleet entered through the Golden Gate the flagship and center of the fleet gravitated toward Alcatraz island while the fleet separated into two wings, one going for San Francisco and the other for Oakland.
The Californians themselves had not really developed a blue water navy but they certainly had developed a riverine and bayrine navy. The Spanish fleet was met by a swarm of attack canoes and ramming barges from all sides that sought to hem in the Spanish attack into the Bay. Spanish cannon fire pounded the Californian ships at first before they slowly began to receive fire-from San Francisco and Oakland. Crude catapults and cannonry was wheeled into position by the Californians in the city and proceeded to bombard the Spanish, while mostly not powerful enough to sink the Spanish galleons on their own they played hell on the crew, lighter crafted rigging and the lighter ships in the fleet.
Spanish soldiers attempting to go ashore on San Francisco and Oakland were met by several charges of spear and musket wielding Californians on the sea walls surrounding the bayside. The melees were fierce as the Spanish pushed ashore, superior firepower managing to get them through the initial defenses before being beaten back by Californian counter-attacks. Suffering several losses and surprises the Spanish fleet momentarily pulled back toward the Golden Gate, recessing their situation the Spanish attacked again trying to break through the Californian defenses. The Battle of San Francisco Bay went on for days, as the Spanish went from one end of the bay to the other attempting to break through. However, as time went on the Spanish realized they had missed their chance.
Reinforcements were pouring into the city, and not just Californians. Kal’llan and Mal’llan soldiers and even a group of British volunteers had entered the city to assist the Confederacy. In the end the Spanish fleet had no choice but to return to San Diego as supplies and morale plummeted. Still, the casualties of this conflict were in the thousands not just for the Spanish but also for the Californians as well, large sections of the cities around the Bay had been severely damaged with civilian casualties extremely high. It would take some time before the dead could be reclaimed from the waters.
The attack on San Francisco Bay however bloody for the Californians would mark the end of Spanish conquests on California proper. Events in Europe and in New Spain would very quickly unravel for the Spanish and grant them reprieve from any future attacks by the Spanish except for raids along the mutual boundaries around the San Diego bay area.
For Spain, revolution would quickly spread first to their Bourbon ally, France and then to their colonies in the New World as Spanish loses emboldened groups within New Spain. The rise of Napoleon would lead to the occupation of Spain itself and give rise to independent movements in New Spain. When revolution finally claimed Mexico, the Californians would occupy Santa Barbra county as well as shore up their eastern borders on the opposite side of the Sierra Mountains. Spanish forces in San Diego would surrender to the new Mexican government, faced with the possibility of invasion by the Californians.
With that the threat of Spanish invasion was finally ended for the Californians, however the threat of invasion would not end for them. While the new Mexican government was friendly to the Californians, having had common cause, the suggestion that Mexico should finish what Spain could not end was floated in the more aggressive elitist circles.