Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco when in the Spanish Las Californias Province of New Spain, and then after 1822 in the Mexican territory of Alta California, until the Mexican American War ended with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when California became a territory of the United States. It was located near the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, as a pueblo to support the Presidio of San Francisco and the Mission San Francisco de Asís.
Contents |
Name
The name of the town was taken from the plant with the same name that grew around the settlement that was adjacent to the Mission San Francisco de Asís, "Mission Dolores". The plant's common name, Yerba buena, the same in English and Spanish, is an alternate form of the Spanish hierba buena (meaning "good herb"). The herb, a native plant, was given its name by the pioneer missionary botanists of Las Californias when they settled the Ohlone peoples area where the plant was part of the habitat.
The earliest report of the use of the name Yerba Buena comes from the log of George Vancouver, who in 1792 sailed his ship HMS Discovery into San Francisco Bay and anchored "about a league below the presidio in a place they called Yerba Buena".[1]
History
A Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà, arriving on November 2, 1769, was the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay, claiming it for Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Seven years later a Spanish mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), was established, and a small settlement with an associated military fort was built in what is now the Presidio.[2] In order to build the mission a group of settlers were led to San Francisco Bay in June 1776, by the Spanish officer José Joaquín Moraga. For housing they built a pueblo and named it Yerba Buena. A supply ship arrived about two months later and the settlers began building the mission.[2] The Yerba Buena pueblo was apparently not located at the future site of the town of Yerba Buena, which was founded much later, in 1835.
Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the territory of Alta California became part of Mexico. In 1835, Englishman William A. Richardson erected the first significant homestead outside the immediate vicinity of the Mission Dolores, near the boat anchorage of Yerba Buena Cove.[1] Over the years Yerba Buena Cove was filled-in; the site of the town of Yerba Buena was on the shore, but today is centered around Portsmouth Square.[3][4] Together with Mission Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, which was named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers.
In early 1841 James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), operating on the Pacific coast from Fort Vancouver, went to Yerba Buena to establish an HBC trading post. A large building on the water's edge was purchased. The HBC post had several purposes. It operated as a wholesale store, selling goods exported from Fort Vancouver such as salmon, lumber, and British manufactures in exchange for hides and tallow. The post improved diplomatic relations between the British HBC and the Mexican government of California, making the HBC's fur trapping expeditions into California's Central Valley politically acceptable. Despite the mercantile potential of the HBC store in Yerba Buena, in 1842 it was ordered to be closed by George Simpson as part of Simpson's general reorganization of the HBC's Columbia District. The HBC store in Yerba Buena was sold in 1846, two years before the California Gold Rush transformed Yerba Buena into the major city of North America's west coast.[5]
On July 7, 1846, US Navy Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States during the Mexican-American War, and US Navy Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant Henry Bulls Watson of the USS Portsmouth arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later by raising the American flag over the town plaza, which is now Portsmouth Square in honor of the ship.[1] Henry Bulls Watson was placed in command of the garrison there. On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon migrants from the East coast arrived on the ship Brooklyn, led by Sam Brannan. In August 1846, Lt. Washington Allon Bartlett was named alcalde of Yerba Buena.[6] On January 30, 1847, Lt. Bartlett's proclamation changing the name Yerba Buena to San Francisco took effect.[7] The city and the rest of Alta California officially became a United States military territory in 1848 by the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. California was admitted for statehood to the United States on September 9, 1850. The State soon chartered San Francisco as both a City and a County.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Hoover, Mildred Brooke; Douglas E. Kyle (2002). Historic Spots in California. Stanford University Press. pp. 353–355. ISBN 9780804744829. http://books.google.com/books?id=AYMPR6xAj50C.
- ^ a b White, Tekla (2007). San Francisco Bay Area Missions. Lerner Publications. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9780822509004. http://books.google.com/books?id=nZb1wBb-UNkC.
- ^ "San Francisco - From the 1820s to the Gold Rush". The Virtual Museum of the City. http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/early.html. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Yerba Buena Cove (historical)
- ^ Mackie, Richard Somerset (1997). Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific 1793-1843. Vancouver: University of British Columbia (UBC) Press. pp. 176–180. ISBN 0-7748-0613-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=VKXgJw6K088C.
- ^ "First Municipal Elections Held in San Francisco". The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist10/cowan.html. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
- ^ "Yerba Buena Renamed San Francisco". The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist/name.html. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
External links
- Yerba Buena Cove, map from 1851-1852 showing Yerba Buena Cove
- View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, in 1846-7 before the discovery of gold, American Memory Map Collections, Library of Congress; a panoramic map of Yerba Buena Cove and early San Francisco
Coordinates: 37°47′35″N 122°23′47″W / 37.79306°N 122.39639°W