Rejecting Portolá is denying California history
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By Miguel Pérez
Monterey, Ca. – He was the Spanish military officer who led the first overland expedition from Baja to Alta California, bringing with him the soldiers and Franciscan friars who established the first Spanish forts and missions here. He was Captain Gaspar de Portolá, the first governor of Las Californias and founder both San Diego and Monterey. He discovered San Francisco Bay! Yet, as you travel through California, you find that some of the monuments recognizing his great achievements have been defaced or removed. So why is he controversial? Critics say he represents a colonial past they would rather forget. Simple as that! |
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They don't produce many details of alleged atrocities committed by Portolá, perhaps because they don’t exist. Instead, their opposition to his monuments seems to be solely based on their refusal to honor any figure of Spanish colonialism, which they say led to the "oppression, dispossession, and devastation" of California's indigenous people.
But wouldn’t colonialism eventually come to California anyway, if not by the Spanish, by others? Would some Californians be so eager to erase their colonial past if other Europeans had arrived first? I wonder! |
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If you follow museum exhibits and historical park markers, sometimes California's Hispanic history can seem a little contradictory and/or controversial, especially when you are on a road trip! Depending on where you are, a historic figure can be either a hero or a villain. Their monuments can either be there or "no longer there!" Just finding them can be an adventure. You must do your own checking. At least I do!
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In San Francisco, I climbed to the 1,200-foot summit of Sweeney Ridge to get to the “San Francisco Bay Discovery Site,” only to find that the monument recognizing Portolá's great discovery had been vandalized and his name had been chiseled off. I also learned that in the nearby City of Pacifica a Portolá statue was removed in 2024 by local politicians trying to erase their own history. So I didn't bother to go there. Why should I recognize them if they don't recognize their own Hispanic history?
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But in Monterey, I was pleased to find two Portolá monuments and even a hotel named after him. (See photos). There is a Portolá statue outside the Portolá Hotel and Spa and, at a nearby park, a plaque marking the spot where he founded the Monterey Presidio. The plaque is at the Lower Presidio State Historic Park, already reviewed in a previous part of this series, in an area with monuments also recognizing Father Junípero Serra and explorer Sebastian Vizcaíno.
So, let’s rewind back to their time! Even before heading to Alta California in 1769, Portolá and Serra had planned to establish presidios and missions in San Diego and Monterey, based on scant descriptions of those two harbors visited and named by Vizcaíno (1602) 167 years earlier, and first sighted by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (1542) some 227 years earlier. Yet that's all they had to go on! |
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Portolá was the recently appointed governor of Las Californias and Serra was the president of the Franciscan missions. Following orders from the Spanish monarchy, Serra's quest was to bring Christianity to the natives of Alta California and Portolá's goal was to establish Spanish forts and towns to prevent Russian and English encroachment into territory already claimed by Spain.
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Their overland expedition began in Loreto, Baja California, in March of 1769. The number of participants is not very clear. I have seen reports of between 64 and 150 people, including soldiers, friars, a military engineer, a surgeon, muleteers and Indian neophytes. Traveling at a pace of 5-10 miles per day, with dozens of mules to carry provisions, they covered some 250 miles across Baja California to reach San Diego Bay on June 29, 1769.
The expedition also had a sea component: Three ships designated to follow and supply the land march, with at least another 150 sailors and soldiers. They started even earlier and further south, from La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, in January and February of 1769. |
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But the sea journey was battered by violent storms and decease, primarily scurvy, and more than half of its crew died before or shortly after dropping anchor in San Diego Bay. Only two of the ships, the San Carlos and the San Antonio, reached San Diego in late April and May of 1769, with considerably diminished crews. The third ship, The San José, was lost at sea with its entire crew.
While the land expedition was slower and more arduous, it suffered only a few casualties due to accidents. But the survivors of the sea component, who had already arrived in San Diego, were devastated by illnesses. |
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In this country, we are lucky if schools have taught us at least some details about Portolá's and Serra's accomplishments. We may know they established the first Spanish/Native American settlements in what we now know as the State of California. But you may not know that just to get here, they suffered many hardships and immense losses. Of the estimated 219 to 280 people who began the expedition either by land or sea, less than half of them survived the first leg of the expedition – just to get to San Diego! (See map).
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Yet, upon arriving, Portolá established the first Spanish presidio in San Diego and Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá on Presidio Hill on July 16, 1769.
Only a couple of weeks after reaching San Diego and reorganizing the survivors of the land and sea expeditions, Portolá left a contingency in San Diego, including Serra, and set out on another march to find the Monterey Bay named and described in Vizcaíno's reports to the Spanish crown 167 years earlier. Amazingly, his overland expedition inadvertently passed by Monterey Bay, but failed to identify it as the one Vizcaíno had described. They kept marching north until they hiked up to Sweeney Ridge – as I did! lol – to discover the much bigger San Francisco Bay, which had not been discovered by sea! ´Si señor! Despite two centuries of Spanish sailing near San Francisco Bay, for trade between Asia and Mexico, that huge bay had remained invisible, shrouded by the fog that often covers its entrance. |
Portolá Monument, outside of the Portolá Hotel and the Monterey State Historic Park.
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But Portolá didn't try to settle in San Francisco. He still had a mission to complete. He had to find Monterey! And so, in early 1770, he returned south to San Diego to organize another northbound overland expedition, this time with 28 people, including chaplain and diarist, who Juan Crespí, who also named some landmarks and whose writings gave historians enough details to reconstruct the entire expedition.
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And again they were followed by a ship, The San Antonio, taking Serra, an army surgeon, a military engineer/cartographer, several more soldiers and supplies to build a new mission in Monterey.
When they met again and finally identified the bay described by Vizcaíno, and even the oak tree where his missionaries had prayed, Serra celebrated Mass and Portolá claimed the land for Spain. (See: Monterey knows how to embrace its rich Spanish history). |
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And so, in Vizcaíno's Monterey, on June 3, 1770, Portola built another Spanish fort, the Monterey Presidio, and Serra established another Franciscan mission, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.
Although Portolá missed Monterey Bay in his initial roundtrip travels from San Diego to San Francisco, he discovered and named many other California landmarks along the way. A few years later, in 1776, another Spanish expedition led by explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, followed most of Portolá’s trail, to established the Presidio of San Francisco, as reported in a previous part of this series. (See: Juan Bautista de Anza still rides in San Francisco). Sixteen of California’s 21 Spanish missions are on Portolá’s trail. Quite fittingly, there are countless landmarks named Portolá all over California. |
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There is a City of Portolá, a town called Portolá Valley, a Portolá District in San Francisco. There are several schools, numerous neighborhood and streets, and even a parkway that bears his name and follows some of his route. The SS Gaspar de Portolá was one of our World War II liberty ships.
Even at the Pioneer Monument in the San Francisco Civic Center, although a portion of the monument honoring the state's "Early Days" has been removed, Portola's name remains! (See photo). |
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Yet, despite his indisputable accomplishments, there are people who believe Portola’s memory should be erased. The 9-foot bronze statue of Portola that was removed by the City of Pacifica in January of 2024 was a gift from the Catalan government to the State of California in 1988. Its ungracious removal was the result of community activism against recognizing Spanish colonization. (See photos).
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But a replica of that impressive statue is still standing in Arties, Catalonia, in the small square outside the Parador de Arties Hotel, which was the original home of Portolá’s noble family. (See photos).
There are several other monuments for Portolá in Spain, especially in his native Catalonia, where the entire region claims his as a native son. There is a monument for Portolá at the Parc de Montjuic in Barcelona, and another monument in Castellnou de Montsec, Sant Esteve de la Sarga. (See photos below). |
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But if you are reading this in the United States, you might be surprised to learn that at least two Portolá monuments have been vandalized in Spain too.
On Columbus Day, October 12, 2022, when some people were fighting against statues in the United States, vandals poured red paint over Portolá monuments in Balaguer, his hometown, and in Llevia. The vandals were reportedly members far-left and/or Marxist youth organizations affiliated with the Catalan pro-independence movement. They denounce Spain's colonization of the Americas, and using radical measures they try convince local Spanish public officials to remove monuments of Portolá and other Spaniards who came to colonize the Americas. They are usually a tiny but radical, loud and impactful minority. In Spain, as in California, sometimes they intimidate politicians into erasing the past! And sometimes – just to shut them up – politicians let them have their way. The monument in Llevia, already recovered from the vandals' amputation of Portolá's right arm in 2017, was once again restored after the 2022 paint attack and retained in its place. However, the one in Balaguer is apparently still missing. Balaguer city officials had the statue "temporarily" removed for cleaning and restoration. But although they said it would be reinstalled, my Google Maps searches found that as of August of 2024, only the pedestal remained where the Portolá statue once stood. (See photo). |
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Ironically, in reverse of the Pacifica statue donated by Spain ungratefully removed, this one was a gift from California to Balaguer to commemorate the bicentennial of the 1769-70 Portolá expedition. Another classless gesture? I'm not sure.
Internet searches on the Balaguer statue are contradictory. Some tell me that Portolá is standing there again, and some searches conclude that his statue remains in storage, apparently due to some political haggling over its suitability. |
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(If you are reading this in Spain, please write me in social media and help us determine the status of the Balaguer statue).
In the Spanish media, the vandals were reported to be “anti-racist activists” who, like the protestors in California, see Portolá not as a man who accomplished great things, but as symbol of racist injustices committed against Native Americans, even long after he was gone from California. As if that single man was responsible for all the injustices that may have occurred. He is unfairly blamed because he laid the foundation for Spanish rule, leading to the displacement of the natives, and even for his association with Father Serra, who is blamed for alleged abuse and exploitation – instead of guidance and enlightenment – of Native Americans. |
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Yet Serra is widely considered the apostle and father of California, canonized by Pope Francis in 2015, credited for opening the first nine of California's 21 Franciscan missions that gave better lives to thousands of natives.
And Portolá was not an ambitious conqueror. He went back to present-day Mexico once he completed his assignment and left Alta California never to return. In 1776, he was appointed governor of Puebla. In 1784, he returned to Spain, where he served as commander of various military outposts until he died in 1786. To mark the 20oth anniversary of his death, Spain issued a commemorative stamp with his name an image on November 8, 1986. Yet, monuments commemorating his 1769-70 expedition still evoke passionate feelings on two continents. |
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As if that single man was responsible for all the injustices that may have occurred. It's like blaming Columbus for things that occurred for centuries after he died. Of course, had it not been Portolá and Columbus we would know two other names for people who would have accomplished their feats.
Since that statue was also a gift, should we also call its removal ungracious?
Since that statue was also a gift, should we also call its removal ungracious?
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