Diary of Captain Gaspar de Portolá

May 11, 1769, to January 24, 1770

PUBLICATIONS OF THE
ACADEMY OF PACIFIC COAST HISTORY

VOL. I NO. 3
DIARY OF GASPAR DE PORTOLÁ
DURING THE CALIFORNIA
EXPEDITION OF 1769-1770
EDITED BY DONALD EUGENE SMITH
Assistant Professor of History and Geography
University of California
AND FREDERICK J. TEGGART
Curator of the Academy of Pacific Coast History

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
OCTOBER, 1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY THE ACADEMY OF PACIFIC COAST HISTORY

 

INTRODUCTION.

The document here printed for the first time contains the diary of Captain Gaspar de Portolá from May 11, 1769, to January 24, 1770, during which period he was in command of the expedition to San Diego and Monterey.

The manuscript from which the present text has been prepared came into the possession of the University of California with the Bancroft Collection in 1905. It had been previously acquired by Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft from M. Alphonse Pinart, who, it may be presumed from the autograph note on the cover, had obtained it in the City of Mexico on October 10, 1881.

The Diario proper occupies thirty-six pages and is a contemporary copy, but, as there is no certification at the end, the exact date of the transcript cannot be determined. The diary, as originally prepared by Portolá was accompanied by the reports of three councils of war, mentioned under the dates of October '71 November '71 and December 10, 1769. The certification, it may be assumed, would have been made at the end of the appended documents which are lacking in the present copy. This defect has been partly repaired by the substitution of the report of the first meeting, in another contemporary hand, which occupy six pages.

In printing the manuscript, the aim has been to follow the original with every possible care. Consequently the spelling and punctuation are given as they appear; but the copyist has not been followed in his use of capitals, in his adoption of tt or t, or in his practice of running several words together. Abbreviations have been expanded and the original form of the words indicated in footnotes; such other additions as have been made to the text are enclosed in brackets. The manuscript has suffered from being trimmed both at the top and bottom; as a consequence, some words, in a few instances complete lines, have been lost.

Where such lucunæ occur they are marked in the text by three periods (. . .). Brackets have been used freely in the translation where the sense has required the insertion of words or phrases not directly implied in the original.

As a contribution to the biography of the first governor of California and the author of this diary, a memorandum which gives some hitherto unpublished details in regard to his services. The text of this document follows that of the copy obtained in Mexico by Dr. D. E. Smith; in printing, the usage in regard to capitals has not been followed and the abbreviations have been expanded.

F. J. T.

DIARY OF THE JOURNEY THAT DON GASPAR DE PORTOLÁ, CAPTAIN OF DRAGOONS IN THE ESPAÑA REGIMENT, GOVERNOR OF THE CALIFORNIAS, MADE BY LAND TO THE PORTS OF SAN DIEGO AND MONTEREY, SITUATED IN 33° AND 37' [NORTH LATITUDE], HAVING BEEN APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THIS EXPEDITION BY THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS DON JOSEPH DE GALVEZ, IN VIRTUE OF THE VICEREGAL POWERS WHICH HAD BEEN GRANTED TO HIM BY HIS EXCELLENCY, [THE VICEROY]. THE EXPEDITION WAS COMPOSED OF THIRTY-SEVEN SOLDIERS IN LEATHER JACKETS WITH THEIR CAPTAIN, DON FERNANDO DE RIVERA; THIS OFFICER WAS SENT IN ADVANCE WITH TWENTY-SEVEN SOLDIERS AND THE GOVERNOR [FOLLOWED] WITH TEN MEN AND A SERGEANT.