Talk:Californios

Page move
This article should probably bemoved to Californio - singular - as that is the Wiki standard.


 * A more accurate title would be "List of Californios". gK [[User talk:GK|&iquest;?]] 03:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * That's my fault - that list is a scratchpad and it has too many Yankees on it anyway. The article is still a stub. Other topics that the article might cover include the lifestyles of old California, the land grants and ranchos, Native American/Californio relations, the settlement of property claims after admission to the Union - anything that isn't covered by History of California article. I've been doing some California history articles and trying to add both the Indian tribe and the rancho or mission that the area belonged too. These are topics that are common to much of California history, so having one article to refer to in sub-histories would be useful. I'll go ahead and move the article to Californio, and leave the plural redirect. Willmcw 08:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * All that you've suggested should go into this article sounds like, to me, something that would be more appropriate for the Alta California article. The rancho information is probably something that should be added to articles on different California cities if they are early cities or have some direct connection to one of the ranchos (e.g. the Rancho Los Cerritos historical site in Long Beach, California). gK [[User talk:GK|&iquest;?]] 09:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * You are right - that Alta California article should take most of this Californio info. I'd forgotten about it. The problem with ranchos is that some were so large that many cities were carved from even a single one. That is certainly true with Rancho los Cerritos. Maybe a Rancho article could handle some lists of major ranchos, with sublists of the places now built on them. It's not an urgent issue. Willmcw 19:21, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Your're right. A Ranchos of California article is probably the way to go, although there is still some stuff that can be put into the existing city articles. For example, mentioning that the City of Cerritos, California is named after Rancho Los Cerritos, which explains why a basically flat city is named Little Hills. A Rancho article may take some offline digging. I once tried to find a good comprehensive list of the California Ranchos online, and although I found some fairly good info for certain regions, I couldn't find anything that covered all of California. gK [[User talk:GK|&iquest;?]] 04:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

FYI, I've started collecting Rancho info and putting it in the Alta California article. Once it becomes useful it might split off into its own article. -Willmcw 00:26, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added some information about the revolt of the Californios against the Americans in 1846-1848. I've called the section "Californio Independence" because there wasn't, as far as I can tell, a conscious attempt to create a "Republic de los Californios", but the Californios had been abandoned by Mexico. I've also added similarly worded paragraphs to the California Republic article, and the List of extinct states. Argyriou 22:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

- I dont care how u edit it really... as long as it gets done, i'm needing it for my homework... from:newguy298

I think this article has too many discrepencies, too much esoteric opinion and in general, a poor discription of a Californio. For those of you who believe that their was not a Spanish cultural lifestyle within the Rancheros, you don't know what you're writing, or talking about. Let me ask you (rhetoricaly) how could Juan Antonio Carrillo defeat 203 US Marines, killing 14 of them, with only 50 men? Do any of you "authors" know what a Lancer was, or how that tradition carried on in California, but not in Mexico? my advantage is that not only am I educated, I am also a decendant of Spanish Californios...(DonDeigo 22:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC))


 * Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).  The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. Argyriou (talk) 22:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Californios and La Raza: removed edit in question
I apologize for not properly researched the claims, but there's a grain of truth in what made Californios, Hispanos, Chicanos and Mexicanos apart and similar in terms of culture, ethnicity and national identity. Here's an edit on the growing consciousness of "La Raza" and Californios are "indigenous" people of California by means of indigenous, Mexican Indian and Spanish roots.

<>

What do others think of Californio legends and myths ingrained into the "La Raza" and "Aztlan" movements in recent years? 209.247.21.247 13:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Face it
The "Californios" were all mass-murdered, it was a holocaust. How would they vanish from the face of the Earth so quickly after 1848? I have heard about Cajuns, I have heard about Creoles, I have heard about Melungeons, but I have never heard about any sub-national American ethnic group related to the Hispanic people who inhabited California prior than the Mexican-American war. We can easily think non-White Californios mixed with the new Mexican immigrants and vanished in such proccess -but as for White Californios? I don't think White Californios vanished through marriage with White Americans. White Americans hated Catholic people and they didn't even consider Spaniards White back in that day, then they would not be associating themselves with White Californios; as well the White Californios would not marry non-White Hispanics themselves either. So, even if non-White Californios disappeared through intermarriage with recent Mexican immigrants, the White Californios should still exist as an isolated minority till the day of today because they would not have had chance to marry outside their group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrasmentium (talk • contribs) 18:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you really think these were all mass-murdered?, first of all, how many were these, maybe all were exiled but killed would have led to asignificant historiography in the subject. Additionally some stayed as wine landers I think, but yet there are no many sources on the topic. -- Andersmusician  VOTE  18:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * At least two prominent Californio families still exist, the Marquez family of Pacific Palisades, CA who owned Rancho Boca de Santa Monica and the Machado family who owned Rancho La Ballona comprising a large portion of what is now a large part of the Los Angeles Westside:. According to ,"It can be conservatively estimated that there are between 320,000 and half-a-million descendants of Californios alive today". As for Patrasmentium's comment: it is true there was tremendous prejudice against even white Californios and white Latinos in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which fostered the massive fraud that economically devastated the Californio community ; however one must remember the shortage of women during the early American period of California, particularly of white women. Marriage between an Anglo male and Californio female seems to have been far more common than the reverse.  71.116.244.127 (talk) 04:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: As a direct descendent of the Grijalva, Yorba, Avila, Verdugo, Sepulveda, and Ruiz families, I am living proof that there was no such "mass murder" (an absurd concept). Also as a family genealogist and Californio historian, I can assure you that there are thousands and thousands of descendents from this pioneer Spanish/Mexican families living in California today. There are more than 2000 known descendents of one Catalan soldier, Jose Antonio Yorba, alone. Caucasian male pioneers (who came to California before 1849) all married Hispanic descendents of the Spanish soldados de cuero (leather jackets), not Mexican-born pobladores (civilian settlers).

Spanish vs Mexican
The term Californio appears to belong only to the Spanish settlers, not the Mexican ones. Leonard Pitt, in his book The decline of the Californios: a social history of the Spanish-speaking Californians, 1846-1890, writes "As Californio influence waned in Los Angeles, immigrant Mexicans assured the continuance of Spanish-American culture. Pitt contrasts Mexican communities with native-born Californio ones. Rosaura Sánchez in her book Telling identities: the Californio testimonios writes about conflict involving Mexicans who insulted the Californios. Sanchez puts Mexicans in the category of foreigners, in the eyes of the Californios. Barbara L. Voss wrote in The archaeology of ethnogenesis: race and sexuality in colonial San Francisco that the Californios consolidated their culture in the face of mass immigration from Anglos and Mexicans in the late 1830s and the 1840s. These authors make it clear that the term Californio does not include Mexican immigrants to California. Binksternet (talk) 00:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There were never very many Spanish-born immigrants to Alta California, other than the Franciscan missionaries (who had no descendants to speak of). Even before Mexican independence, most Spanish colonists sent to California were Mexican-born. The children of those colonists became the Californios. I've found no evidence of any "mass immigration" from anywhere until the Gold Rush began in 1848. WCCasey (talk) 22:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about neutrality
I have some concerns about the neutrality of this article. It seems heavily biased against non-hispanic Americans. For example, while the article states that the laws created by the U.S. 'effectively encourage squatting', it states further down that a majority of Californio claims (604/813) were upheld in U.S. courts. It also claims that the Act of March 3, 1851, was in contradiction of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but it only states that the treaty required protection of property rights. The Act of March 3, 1851, according to this article, does not appear to deny property rights in any way, merely demanding that title be presented in order for those rights to be recognized. As I understand it, the sparse population of the region would suggest that much land would in fact fall under public domain. The article also repeatedly refers to non-hispanic Californians as 'invaders'. The fact is that many of these people were legal residents of the territory, some naturalized Mexican citizens, who were themselves unhappy with Mexican authority and took the opportunity to liberate themselves. As stated in the article, the Californios themselves attempted to gain independence on more than one occasion (see wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_California#Political_division_and_permanent_separation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Js117 (talk • contribs) 12:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This article definately has a biased tinge, the sources they have used are in themselves biased and not historical.--Hunnydaisy (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I respectfully disagree with the two editors above regarding the neutrality of the article. The comment above that "The Act of March 3, 1851...does not appear to deny property rights in any way, merely demanding that title be presented in order for those rights to be recognized" does not mention the fact (from the article) that the Act placed a 2-year time limit on the filing of claims. That was not in the Treaty of 1848, and was a severe hardship for non-English-speaking, cash-poor Californios unfamiliar with the U.S. legal and governmental system. Yes, most of the claims were eventually honored, but in most cases not for 10-25 years, by which time many of the original Californio rancho owners were perilously in debt or had already gone broke pursuing their claims. To pay legal fees, they sold or granted much of their land to lawyers and other creditors. For a typical story, see Rancho Sausal Redondo. Regarding "public domain": virtually all of the agricultural land within about 50 miles of one of the 21 Missions was contained in the rancho grants. Only northern, interior, mountainous and desert non-native-tribal areas were available to become public domain. WCCasey (talk) 23:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think more than two years is enough time for editors to deal with the stated neutrality concerns, so I removed the POV tag from the article. WCCasey (talk) 04:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding a recent deletion
An edit made by GeorgeLouis on September 4, 2012, removed the text "(primarily U.S. and British)" from the end of the sentence "Neither were the significant numbers of non-Spanish speaking California-born children of resident foreigners.", which ends the first paragraph in the article. The reason given was "(No source. Also, there were people of all nationalities, many French and Germans.)"

I agree with the deletion, but not for the reason stated. The overwhelming majority of the non-native, non-Californio residents in California prior to the Gold Rush of 1848 were, in fact, U.S. and British. That information, however, is not really relevant to the subject of the article, and certainly does not belong in the first paragraph. WCCasey (talk) 04:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * There were other Latin Americans (former Spanish colonies like Peru and Chile) to have settled in Spanish-Mexican California. California's climate is similar to that of central Chile. And Peru is a country on the Pacific coast of South America with oceanic navigational routes to California. 67.49.85.100 (talk) 02:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The other Californios
There were Californios in Alta California, but in Baja California (present day Mexico) there are still californios, Californios of Alta California and Baja California were exactly the same. If this article is about californios you should mention something about the Baja California californios. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.219.212 (talk) 05:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But nowadays the demonym of Baja California and Baja California Sur is "Bajacaliforniano".--Isinbill (talk) 16:00, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Re: material removed from infobox
Some editor spent considerable time trying to assemble data on the number of Californios counted in the 1850 US census for California, and I want to acknowledge the effort. There were, however, several problems. The stated criteria were: "U.S. 1850 California Census asks state of birth of all residents and finds about 7,696 residents who say they were born in California. Adding the approximate 200 Hispanics in San Francisco (1846 directory) whose Census records were burned and an unknown (but small as shown in 1852 CA Census recount) number in Contra Costa and Santa Clara county whose census was lost gives less than 9,000 Hispanics state wide."

I removed this material for the following reasons:
 * 1) Simply being born in California prior to 1850 did not make one a Californio. The editor may have taken the additional step of counting only those with "Hispanic" names but, if so, that was not made clear. "Hispanic" was not one of the ethnicity choices at that time, and many names could be misidentified.
 * 2) Many Native Americans in California became Spanish-speakers and Catholics, and were given Hispanic baptismal names by the Spanish missionaries. Those people, however, were not Californios. Their children perhaps could be considered Californios - a possibility not covered in the article. The number of such people still living in 1850, however, was very small.
 * 3) Use of the term "region" is confusing. Census data is collected by county, not by region.
 * 4) The list of "regions" and/or counties was incomplete.
 * 5) One "region" name was missing.
 * 6) The 1850 census is a good data source, but the primary definition of Californio only includes those born before the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. An accurate count from census data, therefore, would have to exclude those born between that date and 1850. It's unclear whether that was done.

I hope the editor will give this another try, with more explanation, and in the body of the article rather than in the infobox. The data can, of course, be recovered from the earlier revision. WCCasey (talk) 01:28, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The editor who did this was an anonymous editor with an IP number starting with 24.x. This same editor has put unreferenced text into a lot of California topics, creating quite a cleanup job. Here is the article in October 2008 before the anon started expanding it. I do not hold much hope that the IP editor will return to fix the text. Binksternet (talk) 03:03, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Not about California
Hmains makes the point that "(This article is about Californios and their society; it is not about California which is found in other articles.)" I agree that the article is supposed to be about Californios. That's exactly why I changed several instances of "Californio" to "Californian". Those were statements that applied to all Californians of the period - not just those Californians who were also native-born Californios. The alternative (which wouldn't bother me) is to remove about 2/3 of the article. WCCasey (talk) 05:16, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I began revision of the article to focus more on Californios and less on general early California history. I'll work in small chunks so it will be easier to discuss and fix any objections. Thanks, editors. WCCasey (talk) 02:04, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I would not call what you just did 'small chunks'. You removed a good deal of text completely; rewrote other text; and added text.  I have no idea whether the result is factually correct or incorrect.  The article before you touched it had very insufficient citations; unfortunately, your text does not add citations so who is to know where your information is from.  The article before you could have had a great deal of material deleted as 'no reference'; the same is true of your changes/additions.  Others who know this subject area better than me may have other things to say. Hmains (talk) 03:21, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've identified two reasons for removing text from this article. One is that a lot of the text is not about Californios (your original point, Hmains). An example of that was removal of the subsection titled "Ideology of the Criollos". The second type of removal is what, to me, read as derogatory and POV comments about the Californio period in California history. One example was"...government (what little there was)...". Another, which I intend to remove or modify in future, is "...rancho owners often went from rancho to rancho on a large horse bound party circuit. Weddings, christenings, and funerals were all "celebrated" with large gatherings."

I invite editors to place tags after specific text that seems to need sourcing. That will help me (and others) to clean up citation deficiencies. In general, where text is linked to other articles that are sourced, I don't feel that the same sources need to be cited in this article. Also, future edits by me in this article will be smaller (small chunks), making them easier to discuss. WCCasey (talk) 17:36, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Expanded definition?
Since most of what has previously been written in WP about Californios uses an expanded definition that includes many early Californians born elsewhere. Rather than remove a lot of names from Californio lists and categories, I've changed my mind and decided to keep (and better explain) the expanded definition. The essential Californio unit was the family, so I'm thinking that any member of a Californio family is a Californio - unless he/she moved permanently away from California.

One question: should the term Californio be applied to the Franciscan padres who spent large portions of their adult lives at the California missions and died there? (e.g. Serra, Crespi and others) WCCasey (talk) 17:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Let's not wander away from the definitions of Californio that can be found in the literature. I see nobody discussing Crespi as a Californio, however, there are Anglos who acculturated as Californios (Abel Stearns, Benjamin D. "Don Benito" Wilson, John "Don Juan" Temple, William Wolfskill) and other Anglos who did not change the culture they brought with them (Phineas Banning, Joseph Lancaster Brent, Francis Mellon). See A Companion to Los Angeles, page 398. Cheryl Ann Smith-Lintner says that the rancho period of the 1820s was when Californio culture arose, these being the elite gentry, who were often the retired soldiers born elsewhere, and their families. The generation born in California were the explicit form of Californio culture. See Becoming Californio, page 3. Leonard Pitt's classic The Decline of the Californios defines the Californios as the elite ranching class. Binksternet (talk) 19:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree that the padres should not be called Californios. I already added the subsection Californio to mention naturalized foreigners like Stearns. The Franciscan mission historian Zephyrin Engelhardt called the original Spanish-speaking immigrants to Alta California Los Fundadores (the founders). He excluded priests from that group. WCCasey (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The term Californio should be limited to those born of the Mexican citizenry (born or naturalized) immigrant population in the place prior to statehood so as to be able to isolate them from all other groups of people such as civilians that left Mexico for whatever reason and settled, soldiers whose purpose in the place was due to military orders although some stayed when they retired and the padres that were in California as ordered by their authorities. How should the children of the Scottish-born immigrant and naturalized citizen Hugo Reid be classified since he married a native Californian Indian. How should most of the New Mexico born children of John Rowland be classified although his first wife was born there her family among those that migrated from Mexico to settle. And Rowland's co-grantee the English born naturalized citizen William Workman should have his grandchildren classified as since his wife possibly was being a native American Indian from New Mexico and their only child married the American immigrant and naturalized F.P.F. Temple from the adjoining rancho?GinAndChronically (talk) 06:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I think native-Spanish-speaking is also an important part of the definition, as is the cultural distinction - especially because of the later history of Californios after statehood. I haven't seen any source that describes children of naturalized foreigners as Californios, unless one parent was a Californio. I support any editor who wants to create a separate article for any identifiable group of early Californians (or all early Californians, not just Californios). Until that happens, however, I'm fine with separating them into sections within this article. I like being able to find all of those pioneer names in one place. WCCasey (talk) 20:29, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe sources find it irrelevant to say that the Alta California-born children of naturalized foreigners are Californios since they usually are US and of course by 1847 the area is effectively not Mexico. Within 10 years many of those Californios will be effectively separated from their land and those that still had it were severely affected by the drought with the US predominately taking advantage of moving stock north in order to tide over as well as sell to the predominately white market in the north.GinAndChronically (talk) 09:32, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The Los Angeles Time article used to indicate that Californios are Hispanic people native to California contains errors: None of the people the source cited as "Californios" are natives of California, but of Mexico, Guatemala, Arizona and New Mexico, some of them hardly ever even lived in California. The Spanish spelling of the term "Californian" is "Californiano" (not "Californio"). Californios are the descendants of California settlers. Indeed, most of Hispanics have never heard the "Californio" term. Even the people of Baja California, Mexico, call themselves "Bajacalifornianos".--Isinbill (talk) 15:38, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It is not your place to say that the LA Times, a reputable source, misuses the term; the author is entitled to use the term as they define it. It is not our place to prop up or force a singular usage of the term, there are plenty of others that use Californio as a blanket term for Californian Hispanics just like Tejano is used in Texas (though certainly no where near the popularity of Tejano in Texas). This article needs to present all the usages of the term. Also you're partially correct/wrong in regards to Baja. The term Bajacalifornio used to be more popular in usage and has undoubtedly been replaced in widespread usage by Bajacaliforniano, however that does not mean Bajacalifornio (or sometimes Baja Californio) is not used, in both old and recent sources, like Baja Legends: The Historic Characters, Events, and Locations (published 2002) or Familia: Migration and Adaptation in Baja and Alta California, 1880-1975 (published 1987), or in Spanish sources like Historia general de Baja California Sur: Los procesos políticos (published 2002) or Digesto Constitucional Mexicano de Baja California (published 2010) [this last one uses bajacalifornio and bajacaliforniano interchangeably]. Making incorrect assertions like the term isn't used in Baja or statements that reputable sources are using terms incorrectly are both not convincing arguments to me. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 19:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest that the article begin with the following sentence: "Californio is a term often used to designate a Hispanic native or resident of California, especially the Spanish and Mexican settlers and their descendants. This phrase is more unbiased than the one in the article because it refers to the two mainstream understandings of the term (i.e., that a Californio is a Hispanic of California and that he is a descendant of the state's settlers). Moreover, that phrase would help distinguish this article from the article "Hispanics and Latinos in California". Many Hispanics probably consider that both articles are talking about exactly the same topic since, according to the introduction of both articles, they are talking about Hispanics in California. It should not be forgotten that, officially in the USA, a Hispanic is a person from Spain and Hispanic America and his (or her) descendants, while a Latino is a person from Hispanic America, even if some intellectuals include Brazilians as part of the Latinos. On the other hand, for many Hispanics living in the US the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino" are synonymous. That is why the article "Hispanic or Latino Americans" is called "Hispanic or Latino Americans". In addition, most Hispanics today are unfamiliar with the term "Californio" (in Spanish, Californians are "Californianos"), so it is not a mainstream term. My suggested definition of the term "Californio" is also based on the various definitions I have read about that term and which are pointed out in the article.--Isinbill (talk) 00:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I support this suggestion by Isinbill. Jeff in CA (talk) 14:22, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think this is an absolutely fair lead sentence, it gives both a larger expanded definition and the more narrow definition in the same sentence! I'll add it now. Cheers, Cristiano Tomás (talk) 22:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)