Remembering a Founding Mother of San Francisco: Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda

Descendants of Juana Briones pose before the reconstruction of her adobe-filled wall at the California Historical Society, San Francisco, January 26, 2014 

California Historical Society

More than a dozen men and women gathered in January 2014 at the opening of an exhibition at the California Historical Society. Some of them had never met before. But they all had something special in common: their ancestor, a Californio woman of Spanish, indigenous, and African descent named Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda (1802–1889), recognized by one historian as “the most prominent woman of provincial California.” They had come to the learn about her and her legacy at the exhibition Juana Briones y su California ~ Pionera, Fundadora, Curandera (pioneer, founder, healer).

These descendants are standing in front of the exhibition’s centerpiece—a segment of a wall from Juana’s homesite in Palo Alto dating to the 1840s. The wall is a rare example of post-and-beam construction, insulated with unformed adobe mud. It is one of the few historic artifacts salvaged from Juana’s Rancho la Purísima Concepción. Deconstruction of her home containing this remnant of the original wall began in May 2011. A few months later, when demolition ended, a rare structure and significant piece of California history was lost.

Wall segment from Juana Briones’s Palo Alto homesite on display, Juana Briones y su California, 2014 Preservation work by Gil Sanchez, FAIA

California Historical Society

Today the wall is in storage with the City of Palo Alto, awaiting a new home at the Palo Alto History Museum, whose historic building will be reconstructed in the near future.

But the commitment to tell the story of the house and its owner was not. In 2014, CHS honored the contributions of Juana Briones—rancher, farmer, businesswoman, healer, landowner—with a bilingual exhibition at its San Francisco headquarters and online. Uniquely, the exhibition reconstructed Juana’s life in 19th-century California) during California’s transformative Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. periods—all in the absence of any known personal objects of hers.

From the wall remnant, historic seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts, accounts of early travelers to the Bay Area, legal papers, maps, and deeds, an image emerged of this potent, resourceful, and creative woman who convincingly still represents the spirit and promise of our state.

The photo essay below, drawn from the exhibition, commemorates Juana—who died on December 3, 1889—as part of an ongoing effort to keep her history and spirit alive.

Artist unknown, Las castas, c. 1700s

Courtesy of CONACLTA-INAH-MEX

Reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologie e Historia

Widespread diversity characterized 18th-century Mexico, the home of Juana’s parents and grandparents, who were of Spanish, African, and probably Indian descent. Socio-racial designations, as represented in this painting, were part of the Spanish Empire’s casta system, an elaborate hierarchy of identities based on racial mixing, family lineage, economic position, and other factors. In missionized Alta California (Upper California, or roughly what we now know as the State of California), these social distinctions were replaced by a new hierarchy between the Hispanic colonial settlers and Native Californians. 

Map of Juan Batista de Anza’s Route to Alta California in 1775–76

Courtesy National Park Service

Juana’s mother, Ysidora Tapia, traveled with Juan Batista de Anza to Alta California in 1775–76 from Mexico to San Francisco, where de Anza founded the Presidio of San Francisco. Juana was born in Villa de Branciforte (present-day Santa Cruz) in 1802.

Adobe House at El Polín Spring, The Presidio, San Francisco, 2013

California Historical Society, photograph by Rebeca Méndez 

After her mother’s death, Juana (age 10) moved with her family to the Presidio de San Francisco and then to El Polín Spring, a settlement adjacent to the Presidio. An adobe foundation was discovered in 2003 by a Stanford University archaeological team in partnership with the Presidio Archaeology Lab. It is believed to be one of two houses occupied by the Briones family. The foundation was later reburied to preserve the site. This reconstructed foundation is part of an interpretive exhibit at The Presidio in San Francisco.    

San Francisco de Asis Mission, Marriage Record, Apolinario Miranda and Juana Briones, 

May 14, 1820

Courtesy of the Mission Dolores Museum

At the age of eighteen, Juana married 26-year-old Presidio soldier Apolinario Miranda at Mission Dolores. Although the couple had eleven biological children together, their marriage was marked by domestic abuse and legal strife. Seeking to live separately from her abusive husband and strike out on her own, Juana moved in the late 1830s to Yerba Buena, a flourishing town and soon to become a hub for international commerce.

C. M. Waseurtz, Rough Sketch of a Kitchen and Dining Room on a Farm in California, 1842–43

Courtesy of the Society of California Pioneers

This drawing provides a glimpse into domestic life in Mexican California in the 1840s. Juana and other Californios lived in small adobe houses with gabled, tiled roofs. Waseurt’s drawing shows a comal (griddle) for cooking tortillas; a pot for cooking atole (gruel), bean dishes, and meat stews; and an open fire for roasting meat.

William Henry Thomes, On Land and Sea, or, California in the Years 1843, ’44, and ’45 

(Boston: DeWolfe, Fiske, 1884)

California Historical Society

One of the first non-native residents of Yerba Buena (renamed San Francisco in 1847), Juana was legendary for her friendship with the sailors whose ships arrived there to trade for hides and tallow, whale oil, and other commodities. She sold them goods from her North Beach home, treated their illnesses and wounds, and bravely harbored deserters. 

One such visitor to San Francisco in the 1840s was William Henry Thomes, who wrote a semi-fictional account of his travels when he was a young sailor, includes anecdotes about the “rich widow” “Senora Abarono” and her Yerba Buena farm, including his opinion that “If the men had some of the energy of that buxom, dark-faced lady, California would have been a prosperous State, even before it was annexed to this country, and we would have had to fight harder than we did to get possession.”

Fritz Wikersheim, Entrance to San Francisco Bay Taken from Telegraph Hill, California, 1845–51

Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

In Yerba Buena, Juana quickly identified and seized an opportunity that would forge her reputation there as an astute businesswoman and entrepreneur. By 1837, she had built an adobe house in present-day North Beach and established a dairy farm that supplied milk to sailors, merchants, and other visitors. This artist’s rendering shows the northern tip of the San Francisco peninsula, the bay, and Marin. The settlement pictured is Yerba Buena (present-day North Beach). Footpaths to the presidio cross the northern tip of Russian Hill behind. The corral and home shown in the flatland may be Juana’s residence.

Briones Family Chest, undated

Courtesy of the Bolinas Museum; photograph by Rebeca Méndez

During this time, Juana served as a curandera (healer) at Mission Dolores, the Presidio, and Yerba Buena. According to a Briones family descendant, this painted Chinese chest belonged to Juana’s niece in Bolinas. Legend has it that sailors gave Juana a red-lacquered Chinese chest as a token of their gratitude after she cured one of their shipmates.

  

Doctor’s Bag Belonging to Pablo Briones, 19th century

Courtesy of the Bolinas Museum; photograph by Rebeca Méndez

According to a Briones family descendant, this medicine bag belonged to Juana’s nephew Pablo Briones, who worked as a doctor in Bolinas. Juana may have inspired and trained Pablo. The family tradition of curanderismo (folk healing) was also carried on by Juana’s sister Guadalupe Briones de Miramontes’ daughter Carmen Miramontes, a midwife in Half Moon Bay.

Aerial View of Juana’s Homesite in Santa Clara County, 1923

Courtesy Special Collections, Stanford University

In 1844 Juana purchased Rancho la Purísima Concepción in Santa Clara County from two Ohlone Indians with the money she had earned in Yerba Buena. After Apolinario’s death in 1847, she left Yerba Buena and moved to the rancho. Little did she know that this property would provide a place of physical and economic refuge during the frenetic years following the discovery of gold in California in 1848. This aerial photograph shows the site of Juana’s home in the 1923. By this time, previous additions had altered the original structure, but it is still easy to see Juana’s strategic location for her home on the crest of a hill. During her lifetime, there would have been fewer big trees, allowing Juana an unobstructed view of her ranch lands.

Plat of the Rancho La Purísima Concepción, Finally Confirmed to Juana Briones [Santa Clara Co., Calif.] as Located by the U.S. Surveyor General, 1863

Land Case Map E-281

Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago in 1848 ending the Mexican-American War, California was ceded to the United States. Landowners like Juana were now forced to prove their land claims in American courts. Juana was involved in litigation for two decades, defending her claims to her properties. 

Establishing rights to Mexican-era land grants required extensive documentation. To support her 1852 claim to Rancho la Purísima Concepción, Juana needed an official survey, as required by the new land laws. In September 1858, U.S. Deputy Surveyor C. C. Tracy conducted a formal survey of the property. This official plat, filed in 1863, is based on Tracy’s and other surveyors’ field notes.

Henry W. Halleck, 1862

California Historical Society

In order to overcome some of the legal challenges of defending land claims, Juana temporarily hired Civil War general and California attorney Henry Wager Halleck, widely considered one of the best lawyers in California. Juana’s ability to negotiate her way through a complex system of laws and obstacles to successfully defend her property, despite being an illiterate woman from a humble background, speaks to her remarkable resolve and ingenuity. Of the sixty-six women who petitioned for and were granted land during the Mexican period, only twenty-two—including Juana—had their grants confirmed and patented by the United States. 

Historical Atlas Map of Santa Clara County, California (detail)

(San Francisco: Thompson & West, 1876)

California Historical Society

By 1876, the original Rancho La Purísima Concepción land grant had been divided into eight parcels. Martin Murphy owned the largest parcel, comprising more than 65 percent of the original rancho. Juana retained the second largest parcel, having divided the rest among her children.

California Bear Flag Belonging to the Briones Family, c. 1850–1900

Courtesy of the Bolinas Museum; photograph by Rebeca Méndez

The California Bear Flag was first flown during the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, in which American insurgents led by John C. Frémont captured Sonoma and proclaimed the Republic of California. This flag was donated to the Bolinas Museum by the granddaughter of Pablo Briones, Juana’s nephew.

Five Generations of Briones Women, before 1901

Courtesy of the Bolinas Museum

We end as we began, with Juana’s descendants. Pictured here are five generations of Briones women, descended from Juana’s older brother Gregorio Briones and his wife, Ramona. Upper left: Ramona Garcia Briones Munos (wife of Gregorio); her daughter Maria del Rosario Briones (Mrs. Francisco Mesa; her daughter, Francisca Nott (Mrs. Samuel Clark); her daughter, Frances Clark (Mrs. Martin McGovern); her daughter, Elsie McGovern.

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

Marie Silva

Acting Director of Library & Archives

Co-curator, Juana Briones y su California

msilva@calhist.org

Sources

• J. N. Bowman, “Prominent Women of Provincial California,” Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly XXXIX, no. 2 (June 1957): 149–66
• Juana Briones y su California, California Historical Society, January 26–June 8, 2014, and online at https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibitions/juana-briones/exhibit/
• Anne Petersen, “Exhibition Review: Juana Briones y su California ~ Pionera, Fundadora, Curandera,” The Public Historian 36, no. 4 (November 2014): 100–7
• Sam Whiting, “Juana Briones exhibit built around wall from her final home,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 2014

This Day on September 9, 1850: California Joins the Union

Grand Admission Celebration, Portsmouth Square, October 29, 1850

California Historical Society

In our high-speed information age, celebrations are instantaneous. But the celebrants in the image above were 50 days late to the party. Only 11 days earlier, on October 18, 1850, news of California’s admission to the Union had arrived in San Francisco with the Pacific Mail steamship Oregon. It had taken 40 days for the news to travel from Washington, D.C., where, on September 9, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed a bill into law proclaiming California the Union’s 31st state.

View of San Francisco, 1850

Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

The celebrations on October 29 formalized those held earlier. As the 1855 Annals of San Francisco described:

When, on the 18th instant, the mail steamer “Oregon” was entering the bay, she fired repeated preconcerted signal guns which warned the citizens of the glorious news. Immediately the whole of the inhabitants were afoot, and grew half wild with excitement until they heard definitely that the tidings were as they had expected. Business of almost every description was instantly suspended, the courts adjourned in the midst of their work, and men rushed from every house into the streets and towards the wharves, to hail the harbinger of the welcome news. When the steamer rounded Clark’s Point and came in front of the city, her masts literally covered with flags and signals, a universal shout arose from ten thousand voices on the wharves, in the streets, upon the hills, house-tops, and the world of shipping in the bay. . . . Flags of every nation were run up on a thousand masts and peaks and staffs, and a couple of large guns placed upon the plaza [Portsmouth Square] were constantly discharged. At night every public thoroughfare was crowded with the rejoicing populace. Almost every large building, all the public saloons and places of amusement were brilliantly illuminated—music from a hundred bands assisted the excitement—numerous balls and parties were hastily got up—bonfires blazed upon the hills, and rockets were incessantly thrown into the air, until the dawn of the following day.

California Learns It’s the 31st State, October 18, 1850

Courtesy of Friends of the California Archives 

The official celebration of statehood followed two weeks later. As the Annals reported:

For the past fifteen days the papers have been full of announcements and notices and the walls have been plastered with enormous posters. . . . No effort has been spared to make it a success and two thousand persons have subscribed for the dinner and ball at one hundred francs each. At sunrise the cannon was fired off, and the celebration inaugurated. Shouts and noises were heard from every quarter of the city, interspersed with shots from guns and pistols. While this was going on the various organizations assembled, banners in hand, and formed a large procession which was to parade the streets.

At the end of the procession rode a chariot, drawn by six horses, with 30 children wearing bonnets, including 6-year-old Mary Eliza Davis (1845–1929), the “Queen of the 1850 Admission Day Parade,” the first Anglo-American child born in San Francisco.

Francis Marryatt (artist), Admission Day in San Francisco, 1850

Courtesy of Library of Congress

Child’s Cap Worn by Mary Eliza Davis on October 29, 1850

California Historical Society

At the celebration, the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote, “a new star was added to the flag which floated from the mast in the center of the plaza, and every species of amusement and parade was made to attest the satisfaction of the citizens of the first American state on the Pacific coast.” There were a number of designs for the 31-star flag, which became the official United States flag on July 4, 1851.

U.S. 31 Stars Flag Commemorating California's Admission into the Union, September 9, 1850

Courtesy of Zaricor Flag Collection

Of special note at the celebration was an ode written for the occasion by Elizabeth Maria Bonney Wills, whose family came from New England to San Francisco earlier that year. Distributed among other printed pieces to the crowds from a typographical press mounted on a float, it was sung in Portsmouth Square as part of the ceremonies.

Ode Sung at San Francisco October 29, 1850, at the Celebration on Hearing of the Admission of California into the Union as a State, 1850

California Historical Society; photo by Cheryl Maslin

Wills’s inspiring ode closed with her sentiment:

In the Band of the Union, oh, long may it be

The hope of th’ oppressed, and the shield of the free.

Hers was a sentiment that remained contested for hundreds of year. As the black journalist Delilah Beasely chronicled:

Was this to be a free State in every sense of the word? . . . . At first, it was not, for a good many slaves were brought in to the State. On April 1, 1850, an advertisement appeared in the Jackson Mississippian referring to California, the Southern Slave Colony and inviting citizens of slave-holding States, wishing to go to California, to send their names, number of slaves, time of contemplate departure, etc., to the Southern Slave Colony, of Jackson, Mississippi. The design was to settle in the richest parts of the State and to secure an uninterrupted enjoyment of slave property. The colony was to comprise about 5,000 white persons and 10,000 slaves. 

In 1852 Peachy of San Joaquin introduced a resolution to allow fifty southern families to immigrate in to California with their slaves. Some of them came without permission but on finding that they could not legally hold their slaves, they sent a part of them back while others became free.

Nevertheless, admittance to the Union was undeniably a cornerstone in the state’s growth and prosperity. Today Admission Day is a legal state holiday.

California Counties Maps, c. 1850 and c. 1880

Courtesy of California State Association of Counties

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

Sources

• Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the Pacific States of North America, vol. VI, California, 1848–1859 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1888)

• Delilah L. Beasley, The Journal of Negro History 3, no. 1 (Jan., 1918)

• California in Time: The Fight over Slavery through the Civil War. California Department of Parks and Recreation; http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=27748  

• Katherine H. Chandler, “San Francisco at Statehood,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 9, 1900

• Ernest de Massey, A Frenchman in the Gold Rush; the Journal of Ernest de Massey, Argonaut of 1849, trans. Marguerite Eyer Wilbur (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1927)

• H. R. 5419, “State Admission Day Recognition Act of 2006,” The Lincoln Highway

• National Museum & Archives; http://www.lincoln-highway-museum.org/HR-5419/HR-5419-Index.html

• Frank Soulé, John H. Gihon, M.D., and James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco (New York/San Francisco/London: D. Appleton & Company, 1855)

Olympics! July 30, 1932: The Summer Olympics Opens in Los Angeles

(Detail), Official Poster of the Xth Olympiad in Los Angeles, 1932 

Courtesy Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games 

On August 5, the 2016 Summer Olympics officially begins in Rio de Janeiro. Though Los Angeles lost the bid to host this year’s games, California’s City of Angels welcomed the world in the summers of 1932 (X Olympiad) and 1984 (XXIII Olympiad) and won the American candidate city for the 2024 Summer Olympics (XXXIII Olympiad). 

As we anticipate the start of “Rio 2016” (XXXI Olympiad), we look back to the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The times were financially difficult—the world was in the midst of the Great Depression—and Southern California was considered geographically isolated, driving up travel costs. Nevertheless, from July 30 to August 14, the number of tickets sold to visitors eager to watch 1,332 athletes from 37 countries compete in the games totaled about 1.2 million—approximately the same number as the city’s 1930 census. Thousands of children attended the games, made possible by a low price of 50 cents for all events and half-price season tickets. 

Anton Wagner (Photographer), Looking from Wall Street between 8th and 9th Streets, 1932 

California Historical Society 

Color Map of Olympic Events in Southern California, 1932 

Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library 

Los Angeles, Olympic City, 1932 

Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library  

Though participation was the lowest since 1904, the 1932 games brought a number of innovations and distinctive features to Olympics history—including the introduction of the Olympic Village to the games (for male athletes), the first use of the 3-level victory podium to award medals, the largest crowd (about 100,000) to attend the Opening Ceremony, and the largest stadium (Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, renamed Olympic Stadium).  

Olympic Village, Baldwin Hills, 1932 

Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library  

Olympic Fencing Champions on Victory Podium, 1932 

Courtesy of usfencingresults.org 
(Left to right) Heather Guinness (Great Britain, silver), Ellen Preis (Austria, gold), and Erna Bogen (Hungary, bronze); 
(left to right) Joseph Levis (USA, silver), Gustavo Marzi (Italy, gold), and Giulio Gaudini (Italy, bronze)

Opening Day at Olympic Stadium (Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum), July 30, 1932 

Games of the Xth Olympiad, Los Angeles 1932, Official Report, 1933 

The City of Los Angeles rose to the occasion, enlarging the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and establishing a complete transportation system for the athletes and Olympics officials, a traffic control program every day of the events, and a public relations campaign boasting the city’s many attributes. A major thoroughfare in Los Angeles—Tenth Street—was renamed Olympic Boulevard in honor of the games.  

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (Olympic Stadium), c. 1932 

Courtesy of www.lacoliseum.com 

Members of the Japanese Olympic Team Arrive at Olympic Village, 1932 

Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library 

Olympic Games Promotion, 1932 

Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library  

It can be said that the 1932 Olympics helped shape Los Angeles’s metropolitan identity. As Mark Dyreson and Matthew Llewellyn have proposed, “Los Angeles used the 1932 games to put itself on the global map” and “provided the basic template for modern Olympic mega-productions.” 

Children with a Sheep Draped in Olympic Flag, 1932 

California Historical Society Collections at USC Libraries 

Shelly Kale 

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager 

skale@calhist.org 

Sources 

“80 Years Ago This Week: Los Angeles Welcomes (and Transports) the World to the 1932 Summer Olympics,” July 24, 2012; Primary Resources, Metro Transportation Library and Archive, http://metroprimaryresources.info/80-years-ago-this-week-los-angeles-welcomes-and-transports-the-world-to-the-1932-summer-olympics/4156/   

1932 Olympic Games, Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games; www.sccog.org 

Mark Dyreson and Matthew Llewellyn, “Los Angeles Is the Olympic City: The 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 25, no. 14 (2008): 1991–2018 

The Games of the Xth Olympiad, Los Angeles 1932, Official Report (Xth Olympiade Committee of the Games of Los Angeles, U.S.A., 1932, Ltd., 1933) 

“Los Angeles 1932: Highlights of the Game,” https://www.olympic.org/los-angeles-1932