San Joaquin Valley

“ Across the Coast Range of mountains, eastward from San José, is the extensive San Joaquin Valley, noted as the "granary of California," two hundred miles long and thirty to seventy miles wide between the mountain ranges. It produces almost limitless crops of grain, fruits and wines. Through this great valley the San Joaquin River flows northward, and the Sacramento River southward in another valley as spacious, and uniting, they go out westward to San Francisco Bay. ”

“ In spite of occasional skepticism, and here and there active opposition, the San Joaquin Valley received the new enterprise cordially. Among the Valley towns from which assurances of support were received may be mentioned Stockton, San José, Fresno, Madera, Modesto, Hanford, Merced, Visalia, Selma, and Bakersfield. ”

“ This is the great San Joaquin valley, the fertile center of California. Of the much spoken of irrigation of California, we see almost nothing; the land is dry and thirsty, the soil is loose, and the engine forces the dust in a cloud before us. Nothing green is seen anywhere except a few scattered trees far, far apart. ”

“ No tongue can tell the relief to simply withdraw scientific observation, and let Nature impress you in the dear old way with all her mystery and glory, with those vague, indescribable emotions which tremble between wonder and sympathy.
Behind me in distance stretched the sere plain where Kaweah’s run saved me. To the west, fading out into warm, blank distance, lay the great valley of San Joaquin, into which, descending by sinking curves, were rounded hills, with sunny, brown slopes softened as to detail by a low, clinging bank of milky air. ”

“ That plain is the valley of the San Joaquin, and those mountains are the great Sierra Nevada. The valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast, level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea, ruffled a little in the middle by the tree fringing of the river and of smaller cross-streams here and there, from the mountains.
Florida is indeed a "land of flowers" but for every flower creature that dwells in its most delightsome places more than a hundred are living here. ”

“ An accurate assessment of aboriginal population in this area is impossible. The best we can do is try to make an intelligent guess. Several methods are available for this purpose—group comparisons, mission figures, area comparisons.
Throughout the plains of the lower San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys the native social units appear to have resembled rather uniformly the political organization of the Yokuts in the central and southern San Joaquin Valley. ”

“ If minor local variation is disregarded, the habitat provided by the Merced and the Kings rivers from the lower foothills out to the center of the valley is in no essential respect different from that characterizing the Mariposa, the Chowchilla, the Fresno, and the San Joaquin throughout its length below the foothills. The native villages were spaced more or less uniformly along the larger rivers. Hence an approximate proportionality should have existed between riverbank distance and the number of inhabitants. ”

“ The passions of the Americans break loose. Innocent Mexicans are shot and hanged; all stragglers driven out.
The San Joaquin valley becomes a theatre of continued conflict.
"Claudio," another dark chief, ravages the Salinas. He is the robber king of the coast. The officers find a union between the coast and inland bandits. Now the manly settlers of the San Joaquin rise in wrath. Texan rangers, old veterans, heroes of Comanche and Sioux battles, all swear to hunt Joaquin Murieta to death. ”

“ During the morning we saw a stately pair of wild pigeons winging their swift flight in and out of some tall pine trees.
Water High in San Joaquin Valley.
The San Joaquin river was very high and had overflowed thousands of acres of land. Our road, slightly elevated, passed for miles through an inland sea. To reach Los Banos, we made a wide detour to the left. We crossed the Pacheco Pass into the Santa Clara valley. ”

“ When we consider that most of the crop, which this year will reach five hundred thousand boxes, comes from the country immediately surrounding Fresno City, and that the San Joaquin valley is 250 miles long by 75 miles wide, almost all the land capable of being highly cultivated and of producing abundant crops of one thing or another, then alone can we realize what the future has in store for this wonderful valley, an agricultural empire in the very center of California. ”

“ How much a single river will reclaim, only give it time enough, can be vaguely guessed. Thousands of acres in the San Joaquin Valley have been placed beyond the need of further irrigation. The whole valley was once a desert. ”

“ It is geographical courtesy merely, to treat of intramontane California as a valley; it is in reality a vast, rolling plain. Several little kingdoms of Europe could be tucked away in it. North and south it has no natural line of demarcation other than the rivers meeting for their single assault upon the sea, but its diversity deserves the double name. They make, the Sacramento rushing from the wooded north and the sluggish San Joaquin, one of the most interesting waterways of the world. I should say they made, for of the San Joaquin one must be able to speak in the past also, to understand it. ”

“ The tallest is two hundred and seventy-two feet, ten exceed two hundred and fifty feet, and three are over ninety feet in circumference, while twenty are over sixty feet. Many of the finest have been marred by fires. There are eight groves of these Big Trees in California, these being the chief.
YOSEMITE VALLEY.
Into the San Joaquin flows Merced River, coming from the eastward down out of the Sierras through the famous Yosemite Valley. Most of its waters are diverted by irrigation canals leading for many miles over the floor of the broad San Joaquin Valley. ”

“ When you have learned these things it is not difficult to understand how one hundred men in the great Sacramento Valley have come to own over 17,000,000 acres, while in the San Joaquin Valley it is no uncommon thing for one man's name to stand for 100,000 acres. This grabbing of large tracts has discouraged immigration to California more than any other single factor. A family living on a small holding in a vast plain, with hardly a house in sight, will in time become a very lonely family indeed, and will in a few years be glad to sell out to the land king whose domain is adjacent. ”

“ A large hotel has been built by the State, the trails have been purchased and made free, and the management is now said by travelers to be quite good. There is no reason why still further improvements should not be made. A branch railroad from the San Joaquin Valley could enter the Yosemite by way of the South Fork, or by the Valley of the Merced river. ”

“ The latter river is about two leagues distant from the camp at Santa Rita. In the rainy season this river and its adjacent land may be impassable, according to the vestiges left by immense overflows of water. On the route taken two large stream beds were encountered the waters of which supply the San Joaquin River. On all sides tremendous tule swamps present themselves, which can be very miry in wet years. ”

“ In this village two old men and two old women were made Christians. In the middle of the mountain range is the source of a big river which separates into two branches, one to the other side of the range, the other being the San Joaquin. That portion of the expedition which went down the river found nothing but bad lands, with little grass and saline in places. It might be possible to found a mission on this river where there are good level areas and an abundance of timber, but it lacks firewood and grazing in this region. ”

“ From Stockton the two companies of bandits fled southward up the San Joaquin valley and brought more than fifty thousand dollars in gold-dust to Arroyo Cantoova. Then Murieta took seventy men and rode back to make his final raid on the placer camps. Three-Fingered Jack went by his side: the only human being whose companionship he shared. ”

“ FIG. 12.—SAN JOAQUIN RIVER EMERGING UPON THE PLAIN OF THE GREAT VALLEY In shaping the Sierra Nevada mountains Nature had a grand opportunity. Here she produced the Yosemite Valley, which has a setting of cliffs and waterfalls that attract people from all over the world. Hetch-Hetchy Valley at the north of the Yosemite, and Tehipite and King's River cañons at the south, are interesting places, but not so majestic and inspiring as the Yosemite.
Nature never seems satisfied with her work. After she has created a piece of wonderful scenery she proceeds to destroy it. ”

“ These were San Joaquin River natives, not from the delta and marsh region. On the other hand they were less remote from Spanish influence and attack than the tribes which extended up the lateral streams. Hence the proportion of baptisms was probably intermediate between the value of 50 per cent assumed for the very exposed bay and delta people and that of 10 per cent ascribed to the Cosumnes. An estimate of 25 per cent would be reasonable, yielding a population value of 1,800. The two methods of calculation coincide, and the result, 1,800 inhabitants, may be allowed for the area. ”

“ The demography of the central valley is rendered still more complex by the fact that the contact with the white race took place in a series of steps rather than by a single overwhelming invasion. In central Mexico, or to a somewhat lesser degree in northwestern California, aboriginal life continued relatively untouched until there occurred a rapid and catastrophic occupation of the entire territory. As a result, the population was affected in a uniform manner throughout and a sufficiently clear line can be drawn between aboriginal and postcontact conditions. ”

“ Arriving at the San Joaquin River we entered the village Cheneche and found it without inhabitants. We kept on down the river and at about three leagues we came upon foot tracks at the edge of a thicket. A corporal with four soldiers went to examine the place and in the middle [of the thicket] they found a blind old man and an old woman. They [the soldiers] returned to report and were ordered to bring them [the Indians] back for questioning; but they could not find the latter. ”

“ Hence the village populations and distributions as reported in good faith to Gifford or Merriam must have been subjected in some measure to the disruptive effect of the white man. The great disturbance in the valley itself, which was manifested by the entire extinction of whole Yokuts and Plains Miwok tribes, must have had repercussions in the near-by hills through disease, kidnaping, and minor dislocation of food supply, even though the actual territory of the natives was not physically invaded by the newcomers. ”

“ Two leagues downstream from rancheria no. 1, or about 3 leagues below the mouth of the canyon would have put him at a point roughly 5 to 6 miles east-northeast of Bakersfield, not at the site of the city, as is supposed by Coues (1900, p. 299) . On May 8 he went 3 leagues south-southwest, then turned and traveled 6 leagues southeast and east to the Tehachapi. These distances and directions plotted on the map place him just at the mouth of Tejon Creek. ”