From Chumash to Hard Cash

By: Ben Marcus | October 20, 2009 | Local

CHAPTER ONE: TAPIA

It is said that the young Jose Tapia rode his horse along an old Indian trail through a beautiful canyon in the late afternoon and looked down upon a lagoon and a beach.
— The Chain of Title, from The Malibu Story, 1985

IT IS SAID

On Feb. 22, 1776, Jose Bartoleme Tapia was living the fantasy of countless 11-year-old Mexican boys. He was on horseback, surrounded by soldiers and padres, swords and plowshares — new things and adventure — moving north through heathen country with the Anza expedition. Jose Bartoleme was one of an expedition of more than 200 soldiers, padres, peasants and farmers who left from Culiacan, Mexico, on a mission from God — to populate Alta California and fend off probes by the Muscovites and the British.

This was February of 1776, only a few months before a pack of American rebels on the Atlantic side of the continent would sign a declaration of independence dissolving the political bands tying America to England. The Atlantic and the Pacific were still separated by the tyrannies of distance — a perilous, multi-month sailing trip around the Horn braving storms and pirates and death by shipwreck, or an equally perilous multi-month cross-country trip braving storms and heathens and death by exposure. Spain had invested more than 200 years of blood and sweat equity into their interests on the West Coast. More than two centuries after Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first set foot in California — possibly at Malibu — Spain had renewed its interest in the West Coast and sent Junipero Serra and then Juan Batista de Anza on colonizing missions to protect Spanish interests in Alta California.

Eleven-year-old Jose was the eldest son of Felipe Santiago Tapia — formerly of Culiacan — who had responded to “Go north, middle-aged man, and colonize” by packing up his wife and nine children. To distinguish himself from his brothers Juan José, José Cristoval, José Francisco and José Victor, Jose called himself Jose Bartoleme.

They were on a mission from God and King. And that is why Jose Bartoleme rode along, happily surrounded by men with swords and men with crosses. It was the adventure of a lifetime.

On Feb. 22, 1776, de Anza wrote a synopsis of the day in his diary:

“Having moved our train, at eight o’clock in the morning we continued on our way. Going mainly to the west, over better footing than yesterday and by the trail mentioned, we made seven leagues in as many hours, traveling until three in the afternoon, and reaching the site of Agua Escondida, where camp was made for the night.”

De Anza’s “train” consisted of 17 soldiers and their families, six members of de Anza’s private company, horses, cattle and several missionaries. One of the missionaries was Padre Pedro Font, a Franciscan who served as chaplain on the expedition. Padre Font carried a pen and not a sword, and he had the leisure to record more details in his personal diary. The expanded diary of Pedro Font explains a bit more about the progress of the de Anza expedition on Feb. 22:

“We set out from the Puertezuelo at eight o’clock in the morning, and at half past three in the afternoon halted at the place called Agua Escondida, having traveled some ten leagues, about seven to the west by north, and the rest to the west-southwest. A little after leaving the campsite we entered a very spacious valley called Santa Ysabel, in the middle of which is the place called Los Nogales. This is a small spring of water, like a little lake, which rises in the middle of the plain and near which there are small walnut trees. At about seven leagues we came to the foot of the sierra which, together with the one which yesterday we passed through by the Puertezuelo and which today ran at our left, and the one which from the other side of San Gabriel runs in front of the Sierra Nevada and has been at our right, forms this valley, which ends here. We entered by a canyon which has little water, and then we went for about two leagues, ascending and descending ridges, to the camp site, which likewise is a valley, with little water and plentiful live oaks, formed by various hills of a spur of a range which extends from the Sierra Madre and runs to the sea. On the way we saw some heathen, although few, and these naked and unarmed; but they did not wish to come near.”

Understanding that a Spanish league is about 2.6 miles, and Puertezuelo is now Griffith Park, and Agua Escondida is somewhere in Malibu Creek State Park, the Anza expedition made good time, covering 10 x 2.6, or 26 miles, from 8 a.m. to 3 or 3:30 p.m. But that was the pace of the time, and the California missions were placed every 30 miles, as that is the amount of ground a horse or man could comfortably cover on foot in a day’s travel.

It’s possible that Pedro Font and Jose Bartoleme were part of an advance guard that moved ahead of the rest to scout for hostile heathens and find a camp. If they arrived at 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon — or maybe a little sooner — young Jose Bartoleme would have had the leisure and about two or maybe three hours of sunlight to follow that creek along the bottom of a steep desert valley that lead to the sea.

Tapia was only 11 years old when, it is said, he made this ride out to the sea from deep in the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s unlikely he was allowed to go alone in an area that was known for mountain lions, bear, rattlesnakes and heathens. The Chumash were a benign Indian tribe, but it’s unlikely El Capitan or young Tapia’s parents would have let their son make that adventure alone.

 

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