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Dirt (Part 3)

The policy imposed by the Missions was that the Indians should work, tend the fields and care for the animals. This was a concept that they didn’t like or understand. (Locally, the Indians never had permanent settlements in the valley and their gods Eagle, Hummingbird and Coyote lived in the mountains—Eagle on Mt. Diablo and Hummingbird on Mt. Umunhum.) The Missions also separated the unmarried Indian men and women at night, another concept they didn’t like.

In the dry summers of the early 1800s, Mission Santa Clara’s Franciscan fathers needed water for the fields, so they sent a detachment of Indians down to the confluence of Los Gatos and Guadalupe creeks—where the San Jose Arena stands today—to dig a canal, or water ditch. The “acequia,” was three “varas” wide by one and one-half deep, or nine feet by four and one-half feet. The ditch ran on the northeast side of what is today’s Alameda, making five distinct turns on its course to the Mission Santa Clara fields. It was a navigable body of water, deep enough for small boats to travel upon. In order to keep the Indians working, soldier guards were posted near them.

In the early days, there were artesian wells to irrigate the fields. All types of crops were introduced by the Mission fathers: apricots, peaches, mission figs, olives, wheat and vegetables. In 1821, Mexico declared its independence from Spain and the Missions were secularized—that is, the Mission lands were taken and given to the local ranchos. The original intent was to give the land to the Indians, but they didn’t want it. There was one exception in this area. Land was given to “Roberto,” who built an adobe on what is now Lincoln Avenue. But he kept the grant for only two years and then he sold it.

Gold was discovered in California in 1848 and the world stormed here. Among the early seekers were Frenchman Louis Pellier and Swiss immigrant Giochino Yocco. As partners, these two men sought their fortune in the northern mines near Redding, but they were unsuccessful. Gold mining was cold, hard work and only one in every five miners made expenses. Giving up, Pellier and Yocco traveled to San Francisco where they were surprised to find that apples were selling for a dollar apiece. Pellier had experience as a farmer in France, so they came to San Jose together, acquired property west of Market Street and south of St. John Street, and started City Gardens Nursery where they planted apricot, pear and peach cuttings.

Louis’s younger brother, Pierre, joined him, but soon became lonesome for his fiancée back in France. Louis sent him back to get married and return with prune, pear and grape cuttings. This was the start of the great fruit industry that thrived in the modest climate and rich soil. The dominant orchard tree was the French prune, or “Petite Prun d’Angen.” It could be harvested, dipped in a lye solution, and dried in the sun. Vineyards ringed the foothills to the east, south and west. The fruit industry boomed and canneries prospered. And the sun shone!

Dirt (Part 2)

The Spaniards—a mixture of Spanish, Basque and Indians—were the first Europeans to settle here in the Santa Clara Valley. Captain Juan de Anza, a Basque, led what I believe is the greatest migration in local history. He left the garrison town of Tabac, in what is now southern Arizona, in the dead of winter 1775-76, with 241 men, women and children. They were to arrive in California with 242; one woman died during childbirth and two were born on the harrowing, three month, overland journey. Because water was so scarce in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts that the party had to cross, de Anza split the party into two divisions so that the limited waterholes would have a chance to recharge.

Why were the Spaniards in California? The answer is twofold. In 1496, Pope Alexander IV divided the world into two parts because of conflict between Spain and Portugal who were trying to get to the riches of China and the Orient. With dominion over the Philippines, Spanish galleons sailed from Manila loaded with silks, spices and treasures by the Great Circle Route, eventually coming down the west coast on the Humboldt Current to Acapulco. The goods were then transported across Mexico and shipped onward to Spain.

It was a dangerous journey. The sailors often suffered from scurvy, and pirates, like Sir Francis Drake, tried to intercept the galleons off the west coast. The Spanish administration proposed that the Manila galleons put in at California ports to restock with fresh vegetables, but usually the captains preferred to continue, being so close to their destination. Another threat was the Russians who came down from Alaska and established Fort Ross in northern California.

In order to reduce the threats, the Spanish colonized lower and central California. Catholic priests were sent to convert the local Indians, attempting to educate them to become Mexican citizens and eventually take ownership over the lands. Unfortunately, the task proved too difficult as the Indians had no concept of land “ownership” and didn’t want it.

Before the Spanish came, the Indians were living quite well on acorn mush, acorns being plentiful in the Llano de Robles, plain of the oaks. There were fish in the streams—salmon, trout and steelhead—and lots of small and large frogs and birds. The streams ran year round and the weather was mild, so the Indians didn’t need to build permanent shelters, like their counterparts in the northwest and southwest.

In order to put their plan for the Indians in place, the mission system was introduced by the Spanish, bringing the concepts of permanent settlement and agriculture to the Native Americans. Next week, I’ll tell how the dirt under our feet became the foundation of this new agricultural economy.

Dirt (Part I)

For the next few weeks, I am going to write about “dirt.” Not political dirt, not Hollywood dirt, just plain dirt—the kind we have underneath us, some of the best dirt in the world.

How did we get this dirt? Unfortunately, we are sitting on top of the intersection of two great tectonic plates: the North American Plate to the east and the Pacific Plate to the west. These masses are floating atop liquid magma and bump up against each other right where we live. Where they meet, they have developed faults due to the Pacific Plate moving northward faster than the North American Plate.

The Hayward fault, extending south along the east bay to Milpitas, is considered to be the most dangerous fault. On the other side of the bay of our valley lies the San Andreas Fault, extending from the Sea of Cortez, dividing the Baja Peninsula from mainland Mexico, and running through California to the north of us where it continues under the Pacific Ocean. It was the San Andreas Fault that gave us the great quake of 1906. In 1868, there was a major quake along the Hayward Fault. Andrew Hill, the famous local artist, lived through both and said he felt the Hayward quake was more severe.

Over the eons, these faults pushed up the mountain ranges bordering our valley: the Diablo (or Mt. Hamilton) Range to the east and the Santa Cruz Range to the west. Between the two, winter rains carried topsoil down the slopes and created our fertile valley, the “Valley of Heart’s Delight.” A huge basin of fresh water, and aquifer, developed deep underground—water that would later irrigate our crops and quench our thirst.

The Indians first arrived about 12,000 years ago, settling in the lowlands where life was relatively easy and food plentiful. Because the climate was so mild, they never built permanent shelters like the Indians in the Northwest, Alaska and the Southwest. These local Indians had three major gods: Eagle, Coyote and Humming Bird. Mt. Umunhum was named by these Indians, and while we don’t pronounce the “h” in Umunhum, we should because the flutter of the bird’s wings is the same to us as it was to them.

The Indians had a legend that the Golden Gate was created by a great earthquake, and that before the quake, the Santa Clara Valley was submerged and part of San Francisco Bay, with the bay’s outlet at Moss Landing. This makes sense to me. Here in the south valley, Coyote Creek flows northward, while directly on the opposite side of the valley, near Morgan Hill, the Pajaro River flows south and then west to meet the Pacific Ocean near Watsonville. There, at Moss Landing, the river enters the Pacific at the undersea Monterey Canyon. This ancient canyon is as deep as the Sierras are high, nearly 9000 feet deep where it intersects a line running between the cities of Santa Cruz and Monterey. Those two streams, the Coyote and the Pajaro, carried the silt that made our valley’s rich soil.