Unpublished chapter from Jimmy Smith! 5-14-02

In cleaning out my email files, I came upon one of the great emails I received from the late Jimmy Smith ('The Grinning Gargoyle Spills the Beans and other yarns of Baja California').

This was a chapter that never made it into his book... It is not fully edited, but I think you will enjoy a look at some of Baja's great treasure stories.



From: Jim Smith <jimsmithmx...>
To: David <Boojum1...>
Subject: Re: Grinning Gargoyle Book Reviews
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 10:43 AM

Dear David,
Below, please find a chapter that the editor kicked out of my manuscript
when the book was published. I thought you might find this interesting.

==========================================================

Free Enterprise and The Society of Jesus

The goals of the Spanish crown and those of the Jesuits seem to have
been at cross purposes from the inception of the first mission in 1697. The
crown's primary interest lay in the expansion of the Spanish empire and the
royal fifth of any profit garnered within that empire. The Jesuits seem to
have wanted to create an absolute theocracy inhabited solely by the Padres,
their soldiers, their servants and the indigenous neophytes.
The original agreement between the crown and the Jesuits stipulated that all
expenses would be borne by the pious fund generated by the Padres and at no
expense to the crown. However, Salvatierra and Picolo had hardly established
a beachhead in Loreto before solicitations were made for funds to pay the
soldiers' salaries were instituted. A Royal Cedula granting 6000 pesos
annually for maintenance of the military was issued on 27 July 1701 This
Cedula, decreed by the newly inaugurated Burbon King, Filepe V, ordered that
the military commandante would make policy decisions pertaining to military
thus destroying the absolute authority of the priests. The Jesuits chose to
ignore this order and as a result the commandante, Capt. Antonio Garcia de
Mendoza along with 17 soldiers resigned and returned to the mainland.

Throughout New Spain the military had enjoyed the privilege of supplementing
their income in commercial ventures: mining, ranching, trading and pearling.
This was prohibited by the California Jesuits and was probably a major
factor leading to the soldiers' decision to resign.

Estaban
Rodriguez, a Portuguez corporal was considerably more sympathetic to the
Jesuit line of thinking. He was elevated to commander of California's
military garrison where he remained until his retirement in 1734. It is
interesting to note that when Capt. Rodriguez died in 1746 his estate was
valued at six times as much as his total earnings as a soldier.

Harry Crosby
relates in "Antigua California" that Rodriguez was permitted a herd of
cattle in 1730 and that these cattle were maintained by two soldiers on the
crown's payroll. Rank does have its privileges.

An indian uprising occured at Santiago and spread to the other
Southernmost missions in the summer of 1734 when the resident priests
decreed that the Pericues must limit themselves to a single wife. Pericue
shamans (many of them women) had lost quite a lot face in their conflits
with the priests and it is certain that these medicin men (persons?) stirred
the pot considerably. Padre Lorenzo Carranco S.J. was murdered at the
Santiago mission as was Padre Nicolas Tamaral S.J. at San Jose del Cabo. The
missions of Santiago, San Jose del Cabo, La Paz and Todos Santos were
abandoned by the priests, soldiers and neophytes. The neophytes retreated to
Espiritu Santo Island while the Spaniards went to Mission Dolores.

An appeal for troops to quell rebellion was dispatched to the viceroy,
Archbishop Juan Antonio Vizarron (apparently of some order other than Jesuit
as he was notorious for his hatred of the Society of Jesus) went unheeded
for a time.

The Bark SAN CRISTOBAL, under the command of Captain Mateo Zumalde,
bound for Acapulco from Manilla put into San Jose del Cabo in January 1735.
A longboat manned by 13 crewman was sent ashore to procure fresh water and
supplies. The crewmen were killed by the insurgents. The indians attempted
to capture the ship but were repelled and four of their number fell captives
to the Spanards. Powerful business and political forces were brought into
play by the attack on the Manila galleon forcing the Viceroy to act.

The Jesuits pleaded that Juan Bautista de Anza, their military ally in
Sonora, be sent to their rescue. Instead the viceroy named the governer of
Sinaloa, Manuel Bernardo Huidobro, another noted Jesuit hater, to head the
expeditionary forces.

The Sonora missions sent 100 armed Yaqui and Mayo soldiers along with
some 30 Gente de Razon under the command of Francisco Cortes who had been an
officer at the precidio at Loreto. Several dozen trusted Cochimi were sent
from the Northern Baja California missions.

These forces were marshalled at the Mission Dolores anticipating a
maximum effort military campaign but seem to have been ingored by Huidobro
who brought some 40 of his own troops from Sinaloa. Capt. Estaben Rodrigues
and the Jesuits advocated that the leaders of the rebellion be located and
castigated (probably executed) but Huidobro chose to set off to the South
with his own troops on a pacification program, leaving the rest of the
troops in garrison at Dolores. The Sonora indians asked permission to return
to their homeland and were released as they were creating an economic burden
as garrison soldiers.

Huidobro and his command arrived at Santiago in March 1736 and sat up
his shop of appeasement. His gifts and offers of pardon achieved the reverse
of the desired effect making the insurgent Pericue more insolent than
before. By October Huidobro was forced to employ the tactics advocated by
Rodriguez and the Jesuits. After several brutal skirmishes the rebellion was
quelled. Several of the leaders were killed in combat while others were
captured and executed thus ending the rebellion.

Huidobro's defiance to the absolute Jesuit authority probably was
unthinkable amoung the gente de razon as this was the first such act since
Garcia de Mendoza in 1701. It is very possible that this defiance inspired
Baja California's first entrepreneur. Manuel
Ocio, a soldier in Rodriguez's command, adheared to the well known rules of
achieving financial success. He married the boss's (Rodriguez's) daughter in
1733, served with merit in the 1735 indian rebellion and while on post at
San Ignacio pulled a sham on the Cochimia akin to the $24 purchase of
Manhattan Island. Storms in the Sea of Cortez in 1741 washed a vast quantity
of pearl oysters onto the beaches. Wandering Cochimia Indians gathered
pearls to be delivered to the priest in San Ignacio. These indians were
intercepted by Ocio. One account states he traded for 128 pounds of pearls
at the rate of one iron knife for a double handfull of pearls. (Rush
Limbaugh would have loved this guy).

Details of Ocio's severance from the Jesuit army are conjecture. While the
padres were probably somewhat miffed at the loss of the pearls, conversely
Mr.Ocio would have been eager for discharge to engage in more lucrative
endeavors. One fact is known: his military service was terminated. Ocio
traveled to Guadalajara where he marketed the pearls and presumably paid
the quinta real (royal fifth) in taxes as evidenced by his possesion of a
concession for pearling from the viceroy when he returned to the penninsula.
He allegedly shipped 275 pounds of pearls in 1744.
Ocio's pearling operations in California expanded rapidly as did his
business and political relationships in Guadalajara. Rumors of Jesuit silver
mines in California had been rampant for a number of years prompting these
business and political associates to encourage Osio to enter the mining
game.

A soldier,
Ignacio Rojas discovered silver at Santa Ana in 1720. Padre Ignacio Maria
Napoli was in the process of establishing a mission in Santa Ana in 1723
when one of the new structures collapsed in a storm killing a number of
neophytes. The indians construed this to be a plot and forced Padre Napoli
to abandon the project. If Padre Napoli's objective was saving souls rather
than mining silver, Santa Ana seems to be a rather curious site to found a
mission.

Ocio inaugurated his silver mining operations in Santa Ana in late 1748. Since
the Jesuits refused to let him use indigenous labor, he was forced to import
labor from the Mexico mainland. The Padres had previously carefully screened
the character of all people coming onto the penninsula. Osio was hiring
miners and historically few miners have been candidates for sainthood. There
was a constant conflict between the Santa Ana mining operation and the
Society of Jesus. Ocio's company store brought in merchandise much coveted
by the neophytes. Ocio grazed his herds on land claimed by the Jesuits. The
S.J. filed complaints while old Manuel paid taxes.
Diaries kept by Serra indicate that many objects of silver were taken from
the missions by he and Partolo and carried North to be used in the
Franciscan missions after the Jesuites were expelled in 1767. It would be
most fascinating to know the source of these silver objects.

While no
silversmiths were carried on the Jesuit missionary payrolls, it seems
reasonable to believe that they would have been concealed since the Jesuits
denied any activity in silver mining. Baegart' Observations page 150
"Traiding with the miners was on a different basis. They paid for their
purchases in plain, uncoined silver, for they had nothing else. When short
of silver , they bought on credit until they were rich again. Most of the
silver vessels in the churches were made from such silver." Baegert also
bemoans on page 127 "Where did these treasures come from, such as silver
vessels, alters and paintings, since there are no painters, goldsmiths or
sculptors and is not even a skillful taylor in California? Answer:
Everything is imported from the city of Mexico." It must also be
considered that some of the Mexican mainland contributors to the pious fund
were in the silver game and could have been the source of those silver
objects.

Pearls are not mentioned in Serra's inventory in either free form
or inlaid. This is most curious as indians frequently found pearl bearing
oysters on the beach after summer storms. Indian children were noted playing
a game (marbles?) with pearls. It seems reasonable to believe the padres
would accumulate a few.

Father Francisco Paolu, a Francisan who came at the time of the
expulsion, wrote that a man versed in such matters had informed him that
Ocio's Santa Ana mines were of little value and that they had never paid
their way. Viniegra (secretary left in charge of the mines after Galvez
purchased them from Ocio) confessed that no metal was ever refined from the
Santa Ana mines, but that the bars of silver and pearls sent to the viceroy
(in taxes?) in Mexico City by Galvez had been taken from missions after the
Jesuits left.(excerpted from C. Pepper PP 123)

In 1759, the year Carlos III ascended to the throne, an anti-Jesuit chief
minister of Portugal had successfully uprooted the entire Jusuit
organization in that country and confiscated the order's wealth for the
crown. France was involved in a long court proceeding that was leading
toward an end to Jesuit influence in that country (Crosby PP 373) An
expulsion order was excercised in New Spain and arrests were made on 25 June
1767 but the envoy did not arrive at San Bernabe until 30 Nov 1767 (5 months
and 5 days later)

Crosby relates that when Gaspar de Partolo brought the
news to padre Ignacio Tirsch it was received with calm and resignation,
leading one to believe the Jesuits might have had some forewarning of the
impending expulsion.

Lost
Jesuit mission treasure ledgends abound in Baja California. Nights around
campfires with local people are incomplete without some tale concerning a
misplaced fortune in silver, pearls and gold. The most often told goes
something like this: The Jesuits in Spain learned of Charles III's impending
expulsion order shortly after it was formulated. Jesuit thumping had become
a pastime in the royal houses of Europe and Mexican Jesuits had rightly
anticipated an expulsion and confiscation of their treasure. A secret
mission was constructed in a remote place and the Baja California Jesuit
wealth was concealed therein.

Local theory has it that news of the expulsion
was received calmly by the resident fathers since they had been anticipating
this news for some time. Names of these lost missions vary with the
individual yarn spinner. The most popular are Santa Isabel, Santa Clara and
Santa Magdelena.
While modern scholars either deny these stories or ignore them, popular
writers have a ball with them.

Amoung these accounts is the legend of a bar of gold bearing a Maltese
cross that was claimed for the church by a Dominican priest at the San Borja
Mission. This bar of gold was in posession of an indian who reported that he
had found it on the beach at Bahia de Los Angeles several years previously.
Locals conclude this object was overlooked or dropped in the surf while
being loaded onto a boat for shipment to the mainland by the Jesuits shortly
before they were expelled. (Aschmann PP25 When, in 1774 , an Indian found a
good-sized ingot of minted gold on the beach at Bahia de los Angeles, the
missionary promptly reported it to the royal officals. It was decided that
the bar had been lost by someone engaged in illegal operations and was
therefore forfeit to the crown. The Dominicals accepted this judgement
withour argument. (Ms. AGn-kP1 211:1-9) They appear to have been glad to
lose the gold rather than arouse suspicion that they posessed a secret
mine.)

Another campfire tale relates that Manuel Ocio had burried some 500
pounds of pearls around the Santa Ana mine. These pearls were to be shipped
to Spain. Tragically, Manuel was murdered by two Yaqui miners who he
intercepted burgling his warehouse. These pearls have not been found.

========================================================

This is some great stuff from a great writer of historical stories... More will be posted here on Nomad!

Photos of Manuel Ocio's rancho and mine ruins have been taken by Jack Swords: http://vivabaja.com/swords on page 6-8

[Edited on 1-24-2007 by David K]

You bet Frank! I want to share my treasures with you guys...

It was interesting that Don Jimmy cited Choral Pepper in that chapter...

In the 1960's, Pepper published Desert Magazine and traveled to Baja with the Erle Stanley Gardner expeditions.

As you may know, Choral is the one who gave Jimmy that nick name because when he walked into Erle Stanley Gardner's group camp near San Ignacio. Choral thought he looked like a "grinning gargoyle"... It wasn't meant as a complement, either!

40 years later, I had the pleasure to bring them together via the Internet, while Jimmy and Choral were each working on their Baja manuscripts. They mended their differences. That's when Choral gave me the nick name 'The Baja Connection'!

Do see http://ChoralPepper.com !






[Edited on 1-25-2007 by David K]

Jimmy Smith was indeed a true Baja treasure...

and his book is definitely worth reading. I enjoyed every one of the stories in it. Once you get reading it, it's hard to put down.

I was fortunate enough to have met Jimmy and he was a real character!!! As I read the book, I could visualize his grin and the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

If you are interested in purchasing his book, the publisher is:

Baja Source, Inc., El Cajon, CA (619) 442-7061


Amo Pescar

[Edited on 1-25-2007 by AmoPescar]

Alot of "Oldtimers" on this page. What a piece of History. Going to file that story in my system for continued reading when I need to getaway from it all
Sort of makes me jealous of missing these memory making times

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajalover Alot of "Oldtimers" on this page. What a piece of History. Going to file that story in my system for continued reading when I need to getaway from it all Sort of makes me jealous of missing these memory making times

Make some of your own memories! Baja is awesome at sticking in your mind!!!

Yep!!!

Jimmy at his favorite historical site, Real de Santa Ana (Manuel Ocio's silver mine & mill)

did the same thing

thx DK.

helluva guy.
so glad i got to spend time with him and Eli.
still need to get to los barriles and meet the rest of his familia.
maybe this spring. work is starting to really put a cramp in my style!!

El gusto es mio!