1.2: Calafia and the First People to See Her

The fabled "Isle of California" was first described in the 16^th century Spanish romance novel, Las Sergas de Esplandián. This mystical island was to be found in the South Seas, placed next to the Terrestrial Paradise, or the Garden of Eden. Calafia was the Queen of the Island, the ruler of many beautiful Amazonian women with griffins, and countless treasures. Calafia and her people may be a narrative legend; however, the idea of her island is probably the mistake of early explorers mis-identified the Baja California Peninsula as a massive island, these are the stories in which legends are made.

Figure 1.3: The Mythical Queen Calafia, From Which California Earned its Name. mage is in the public domain.

For more than two hundred years, there was a difference of opinion as to whether this land which we now know as Lower California was an island or a part of the mainland. In a book published in London in 1725 entitled, Map of The World, California is described and mapped as a large island extending north to the Straits of Anián, today known as Puget Sound in Washington state.

In that book, all that is known of California is given in one paragraph, a part of which reads as follows:

"This island was formerly esteemed a peninsula, but now found to be entirely surrounded with water. Its north part was discovered by Sir Francis Drake, Anno 1577, and by him called New Albion, where, erecting a pillar, he fastened thereto the arms of England. The inland parts were afterward searched into and are found to be only a dry, barren, cold country. Europeans were discouraged from sending colonies to the same so that it still remains in the hands of the natives."

After the establishment, of the first of the missions, in 1769, within the boundaries of the present State, the northern portion of that indefinite area to which the name California had been given came to be known as New, or Upper California, while the older known peninsula was called Old, or Lower California.

It was not until after the war with Mexican-America War of 1846-1848, that the boundaries of Upper California became clearly defined, although on the north the forty-second parallel had been previously recognized by the Adams-Onís Treaty with Spain in 1818, as separating it from the Oregon territory.

As one result of the Mexican War, California came into possession of Lower as well as Upper California, but a treaty of peace finally established the southern boundary of the present State near the thirty-second parallel, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The original draft of the treaty included the mouth of the Colorado River in the United States and should have been ratified as it was, for it would have avoided disputes as to the use of the river and saved an arbitrary boundary line across its great and fertile delta. The land that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the United States became all or part of nine states: California (1850), Nevada (1864), Utah (1896), and Arizona (1912), as well as, depending upon interpretation, the entire state of Texas (1845), which then included part of Kansas (1861); Colorado (1876); Wyoming (1890); Oklahoma (1907); and New Mexico (1912).

The eastern boundary of California, during Mexican rule, was quite indefinite. It was held, on the one hand, that the summit of the Sierra Nevada or Snowy Mountains was the eastern limit, while on the other, the country as far east as Colorado was included in the territory. The line as finally established, however, followed a middle course, including a strip of the desert country east of the Sierra which geographically belongs to Nevada.

The only natural features, then, which sharply separated California from the adjacent regions are the Pacific Ocean upon the west, and the Colorado river upon the southeast. The coastal region and the Great, or Central Valley with its tributary slopes are so isolated by mountains and deserts that with the primitive means of travel in the early days they were extremely difficult to reach.

The influence of the waterways upon the discovery and settlement of California was much less than is usually the case with new countries. The Colorado River was practically useless because of the great canyon in which it is buried throughout most of its course. In addition, its lower portion is shallow and its mouth is in such a remote and inaccessible region that it was almost unused in the early days. No other streams were available for those attempting to cross the continent. Although, for some years before Fremont's explorations, it was erroneously supposed, and this error crept into the maps of that time, that a great river known as the Buenaventura rose in a lake in the Rocky Mountains and flowed westerly into San Francisco Bay. Fremont attempted to find this supposed river when caught in the deserts of northern Nevada with winter coming on, and nearly perished in the snows of the Sierra Nevada range which was found to lie directly across the path of the imaginary stream.

With California hemmed in by mountains and deserts upon the land side, it would surely seem that in the Pacific Ocean, which borders it for such a long distance, we would find an easy way of approach the coast. However, the records of the various exploring expeditions which visited the Pacific coast of North America show that they were repeatedly driven southward by the northwesterly winds and storms. Time and again the expeditions sent north from Mexico were beaten back and disabled. Parties traveling by land made better time and encountered fewer difficulties than those upon the ocean. The difficulty of exploring the coast by sea caused both Drake and Visciano to sail past the entrance to San Francisco Bay without seeing it, due to the thick fog, and led to its interesting discovery by a land expedition under Portola.