13 Nov A Historian’s Reminder: ‘Our Heritage in California Is Hispanic’

Los Arribeños de San Francisco members Lorna Baird, Marilyn Merlino and Lance Beeson perform at the Californio Rancho Fandango! A celebration of Contra Costa Rancho Heritage at the Concord Heritage Center on Nov. 10. (Ray Saint Germain / Bay City News)

By Aly Brown
Bay City News

Contra Costa County historians recently hosted an educational celebration of the state’s rich Hispanic history — a needed lesson, one local historian says, in the modern climate.

A driving motivation behind the event was to recruit descendants of the California rancho period.

Put on by the Contra Costa History Alliance and the Contra Costa County Historical Society, Sunday’s Californio Rancho Fandango event in Concord featured oral histories, period music by a band called Los Arribeños de San Francisco, and a presentation on the Contra Costa County Rancho Project. The project is the work of historical researchers from more than a dozen local organizations to compile data on early families and land grants established in Contra Costa before California became part of America.

“Our heritage in California is Hispanic,” said Carol Jensen, a member of the Contra Costa County Historical Society and a Rancho Project researcher. “We are New Spain slash Alta California, and our initial citizens in California were initially Mexican citizens who elected to become United States of America citizens as a result of the provision of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The point is California’s history is Hispanic and Mexican history.”

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. By its terms, Mexico ceded present-day California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming, and relinquished all claims to Texas. California would become an official state in 1850, though many of its historic families remained, along with the land grants — or parcels of land given by the Spanish, and later Mexican, governments to individuals as an incentive to develop settlements.

LeighAnn Davis, Contra Costa County Historical Society executive director, said the fandango refers to the type of historic parties the rancho families would have held or attended.

“It’s been one of the more enduring parts of the culture that has been able to survive,” Davis said.

Sunday’s Fandango event was an opportunity to bring history alive through music and dance and hopefully meet more descendants of this era.

She said they have successfully connected with five families, including a sixth-generation member of the Welch family. Through the Rancho Project, Davis said, the team of researchers had learned that William Welch was an Irishman and a conscript of the British military who later became indentured to work on a ship.

“Somehow, he made his way from Ireland by way of Australia to Fort Ross, and he escapes, and he comes down to Contra Costa County. And while he’s here in California, which is Mexico at the time, he naturalizes as a Mexican and gets his rancho and marries into the Galindo family,” Davis shared. “I think his story is really interesting because it shows the contest of empires that was taking place out here. The people didn’t move across the border. The ownership of the border moved.”

Jensen and Davis will provide a presentation on the research project in New York City in January at the national convention of the American Historical Association. Davis urged possible rancho descendants to come forward and share their stories.

“There are so many things tied back to these families — the names of our towns are names after the ranchos. There are streets named after these individuals. Parts of our culture, the way we celebrate rodeos and farming are directly tied to rancho culture,” she said. “People talk about how the Californios, or the rancheros, lost a lot of power with class warfare once this became the United States. And so when we see these cultural expressions that still exist today, it’s a little bit of a resistance to that loss of status — that continuity of their culture.”

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