C. Michael McAdams : Selected Works

Editor’s Note: This complete work is comprised of eleven chapters and a bibliography. The first installment, entered in April 2000, includes the first six chapters. The remaining chapters will be added periodically. For technical reasons Croatian, Spanish, and other diacritical marks found in the original text have been omitted.

The transliteration of Croatian words and names into English is often difficult even for a skilled linguist. For the Croatian immigrant, sometimes illiterate in his or her own language, the task was often impossible. Thus one finds such names as John Brown among early Dalmatian pioneers. In this study the writer has attempted to retain the spelling used by the individual concerned. This sometimes leads, as in the case of the Kirigin family, to more than one spelling of the same name. In cases where several spellings have been recorded for the same name, as in the case of Father Konscak, the original Croatian has been used. In the case of Spanish personal names, the original has been used.

While the writer has used the accepted American English spellings for Croatian place names, the original usage in the names of organizations and publications has not been altered. Therefore the reader will find the writer's use of "Yugoslav" and "Croatian" throughout the text while "Jugoslav" and even "Krovatish" have been retained in organizational names and references to publications.

                  Croatian Ethnicity
                  Era of The Croatian National Kings
                  The Personal Union
                  The Yugoslav Experiment
                  The Second Yugoslavia

                  Migrations
                  America: Legends or Lost History
                  Croatian Settlements
                  The Causes of Emigration

                  California
                  Ivan Ratkaj, S. J..
                  Father Ferdinand Konscak
                  Legacy of The Missionaries..

                  California, The Neglected Empire
                  John Dominis
                  Matias Sabich

     V.     THE "49ers"
                  Sutter's Mill
                  The Gold Rush...
                  The Mother Lode
                  Sutter Creek
                  Jackson
                  Nevada: The Silver State....

                  San Francisco....
                  Oakland
                  North Coast Cities
                  San Jose and The Santa Clara Valley
                  Watsonville and The Paharo Valley
                  Uvas Valley

                  Los Angeles
                  The Vincent Thomas Bridge
                  The New Los Angeles
                  Post-World War II Immigration
                  Hollywood
                  San Diego

                  The Valley
                  Stockton
                  Sacramento
                  Roseville
                  Fresno and The South San Joaquin Valley

                  Industrialists
                  Educators
                  Elected Officials

                  Organizations
                  The Slavonic Mutual and Benevolent Society
                  The Croatian Fraternal Union
                  The Croatian Catholic Union
                  The Slavonic Alliance
                  Los Angeles Clubs

                  Other Organizations.
                  The Church
                  The Church of the Nativity
                  Saint Anthony's Church
                  The San Jose Mission
                  The Croatian Press in California

California has been called a state of mind. More than a geo-graphical locale, it seems to embody the nation, the continent and the world. It is often difficult for Californians and usually impossible for non-Californians to determine what is real and what is unreal in America's most populous state. In fact, there is no stereotype of California and no stereotypical Californian.

California's only constant is its diversity. The snow never melts on Mount Whitney, the continental United States’ highest point. It over-looks Death Valley, the continent's lowest point where snow never falls. The world's tallest trees, cleanest air, and most beautiful shoreline share the state with one of the world's largest, most polluted man-made concrete megalopolis: Los Angeles.

Geographical diversity is only one aspect of California’s uniqueness. The state has one of the most racially and ethnically diverse populations of any political subdivision on earth. One-half of the population of San Francisco consists of foreign-born or first generation Americans. Los Angeles is the second largest Mexican city in the world, and has a Jewish population larger than any city in Israel. Solvang is entirely Danish, and Locke has few non-Chinese residents. Almost everywhere Anglo-Saxons are a minority.

Perhaps in a republic, the population can be reflected in its elected officials. California's governor is a former Jesuit, Anglo-Saxon, Zen Buddhist. The Lieutenant Governor is a West Indian-born Black. The Secretary of State is Chinese, the Speaker of the Assembly is a native of Auckland, New Zealand, and the state's newest United States Senator is a Canadian-born Japanese-American. The reflection is kaleidoscopic, but so is California's population.

This study will examine a single prism of that multifaceted image: The Croatians of California. Like any prism, when held to the light for closer examination, even this fragment explodes into a rain-bow of variation. The major colors of the spectrum are evident. It would be simple to observe that the Croatian people are divided into those who call themselves, for whatever reasons, Croatian, Slavonian, Slav, Yugoslav, Dalmatian, or just American. But even that stratifi-cation falls far short of capturing the diversity that is seen upon closer inspection.

Like all Californians, the Croatians of the state are, first and foremost, individuals. Unlike their Eastern cousins, there were no coal mines or steel mills to unionize them as the exploited against the exploiter. There were no neighborhoods to hold them to introspection as in the East. Even the galvanizing slur "hunkey" and anti-Catholic prejudices were less evident in California. A saying of 1849, reserved for Eastern dandies and European petty nobility said: "Equality comes when you step off the boat."

Into this great equalizer came men and women from every nation and state. Some succeeded, many failed. The individuals whose lives are explored in this study share only a common ethnic heritage. Their lives and legacies are as diverse as the empire they built in a new world called California.

Before the Croatian contribution to California can be explored, the more basic question of who the Croatian people are and where they came from must be dealt with. In the context of recent history, the Croatians come from a region of the Balkan peninsula now known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and specifically from the political subdivisions known as the Socialist Republics of Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. These entities roughly reflect the more natural boundaries that have evolved over centuries to form the regions of Istria, Croatia (proper), Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Additionally, large numbers of Croatians have for years called the western Vojvodina region, the Sanjak region, and Burgenland, Austria their natural home.

The Croatians belong to a linguistic group which includes Slovenes, Serbs, Macedonians, and Bulgarians. This grouping is called South Slavic and led to the formation of a South Slav (Yugo- Slav) state based upon similarity of language. Theories concerning the true origins of the Croatian people are spurred by the word "Hrvati" (Croatian) which has been found in Russia, Afghanistan, and Iran. [1] A group of nineteenth century intellectuals conceived the idea that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were descended from the Illyrians of ancient times, while others maintained that all were of purely Slavic stock.[2] More recently, the theory has been that the Croatians, like many European peoples, are of Iranian Sarmatian or Iranian-Alanic stock. While this theory may well be correct, there is little doubt that the Croatian people were in fact a very racially mixed nation from their earliest recorded history. The early Croatians mixed with Goths, Huns, and other great tribes prior to being Slavicized through the adoption of the Slavic language.

Today Croatian ethnicity is determined by language, religion and attachment to the Croatian national homeland rather than by race. If one looks at even the most famous Croatian names, the clear influence of Hungarian, Rumanian, Albanian, Turkish, German, and even French can be seen. Some very loose generalizations can be made concerning the physical appearance of Croatians from a particular region, but such observations are often based upon elements of diet and climate rather than racial characteristics.

It is thought that the Croatian tribes migrated from present-day Iran, via Russia, to Galacia where they established their first territorial state, known as Great Croatia or White Croatia.[3] They were invited to invade the Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia by Emperor Heraclius who was unable to defend the regions from attacks by the Avars and Slavs. This invitation was issued between 610 A.D. and 641 A.D., perhaps during the Slavic siege of Byzantium in 626. The occupation was complete by 678 when the Croatians sent a delegation to the Court of Constantinople. The Papacy established contact with the Croatians at the same time and converted the tribes to Christianity through a treaty with Pope Agatho in 680.[4]

A loose confederation of duchies, ruled by "Bans," began to take the shape of a unified state between 800 and 925. By 887 the Croatians had become powerful enough to defeat Venice at sea and exact a yearly tribute for the next 150 years for the right to navigate the Adriatic Sea.[5]

In 925 the Banus Tomislav united Pannonian, Dalmatian, and Byzantine Dalmatian Croatia into a single state of 100,000 square kilometers and over two million people. During Tomislav's reign, the Croatian Kingdom was capable of fielding 100,000 infantrymen, 60,000 cavalrymen and a navy of 180 ships.[6]

The Croatian Kingdom grew to its greatest size and power under the leadership of King Petar Kresimir, but declined rapidly with the death of King Stephen II, last of the Trpimirovic dynasty in 1091. A court faction joined the widow of a former king in offering the crown to Ladislav, King of Hungary. Ladislav accepted but many Croat-ians did not. Following a civil war, a compromise was reached in 1102 under which Croatia remained an independent kingdom which recognized the Hungarian ruler as sovereign. This personal union, known as the "Pacta Conventa," would exist in one form or another until l9l8.[7]

From 1102 until 1527 the Hungarians attempted to rule over Croatia which was often in revolt or under attack from other powers. The crown passed from one nation to another and at times two or more kings claimed to rule over Croatia simultaneously. The Turks invaded Croatia in 1415 and had conquered all of Bosnia by 1463.

When the Hungarian-Croatian King Louis II died after the ill-fated battle of Mohacz in 1527, the Croatian nobility elected King Ferdinand of Habsburg as King of Croatia. The Habsburgs promised to uphold the laws of Croatia and respect her sovereignty, but soon the Croatian national homeland became little more than the front lines of the Habsburg defenses and her citizens respected only as soldiers.

By 1779 Croatia was considered little more than a colonial territory and Maria Theresa abolished the Royal Council for Croatia which had the effect of giving Croatia to Hungary. The Hungarians immediately imposed the Hungarian language in an attempt to "Magyarize" Croatia. This action led to the Illyrian Movement first conceptualized by Count Janko Draskovic in 1832 and refined by Ljudevit Gaj in later years.[8] This movement advanced the concept of unification of all Croatian lands as well as Carniola and Styria into a single "Illyria" with a common language to be known as "Illyrian." What began as a movement toward linguistic unification soon turned political. When the Hungarians forbade the use of the term "Illyrian" in 1843, the movement took the name Popular Party. But progress was made and by 1849 Croatian had been declared the official language of the country and of parliament_,where Latin had previously been used. Cultural suppression continued however, but the seeds of Croatian nationalism had been planted.

World War I proved to be the breaking point for the strained and over-extended Austro-Hungarian Empire. Most of the Slavic peoples under its domain took advantage of the situation to prepare for their bid for freedom. Some Croatian groups wanted to form an independent

Croatian kingdom while others saw a continued Habsburg dynasty with Croatia elevated to the status of equal partner in the Empire.

A third group, The Yugoslav Committee, differed from all others in a number of ways. Most of the prime movers in the move-ment were outside the country and out of touch with the heartbeat of the Croatian nation. The Committee called for the joining of Croatia and all other South Slavic nations into a single state to be known as Yugoslavia or "Land of the Southern Slavs." Although those who support-ed the concept were sincere men, few had given any thought to the practicality of organizing such a state.

As the war drew to a close in 1918 and the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, revolts broke out in every corner of the falling monarchy. The leadership of the Croatian and Slovenian peoples declared their independence on October 18, 1918. The Croatian "Sabor" (Parliament) declared that "All political relations.. .between the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia... and the Kingdom of Hungary as well as the Empire of Austria ... are dissolved." [9] But independence was short lived. Italy attacked after an armistice had been called, taking the key Croatian ports and sinking Croatia's only battleship. Serbia occupied the remainder of Croatia and Slovenia aided by French, American and British forces.

On December 1, 1918 Serbian Prince Alexander Karageorgevic announced that all of the occupied lands would be joined with Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ("Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata I Slovenaca" or "SHS"). Although no Croatian had voted for such a union, the Yugoslav Committee was cited as the true voice of the Croatian nation.

The new state was little more than an expanded Serbian Kingdom. Alexander dissolved the ancient Croatian "Sabor" and convened a provisional "Skupstina" (Serbian Parliament) to rule. They in turn voted all of the existing Serbian laws into effect for the entire nation, voiding all others. Almost immediately rioting broke out in Croatia but the unarmed civilians had little chance against the occupation army.

During the inner-war period the Croatian Peasant Party, led by Stjepan Radic, became the voice of the Croatian nation. Radic and his followers were arrested again and again as the government attempted to break the will of Croatian nationalists. Despite police state tactics, the Peasant Party won the majority of the votes in Croatia in every election held. Once elected, most delegates were jailed. When Radic was finally allowed to attend Parliament and chose to do so in 1928, Serbian newspapers called for his murder. On June 20, 1928, a Serbian deputy opened fire on the Croatian delegation on the floor of the Parliament. Two were killed outright while two more were seriously wounded. Stjepan Radic, a pacifist, died of his wounds on August 8th of that year. King Alexander followed this blow by declaring himself absolute dictator, abolishing all political parties, freedom of speech and of the press and all civil liberties on January 6, 1929. Those Croatian leaders who were not arrested outright fled the country. One, a Parliamentary Deputy from Zagreb, was Dr. Ante Pavelic who vowed to form a revolutionary organization and destroy Yugoslavia by whatever means necessary.

Rather than stop nationalism in Croatia, the Karageorgevic dictatorship fueled it. Alexander was assassinated by Macedonian and Croatian nationalists in 1934 and the crown went to his eleven year-old son who ruled with a Regency Council headed by Prince Paul. Governments came and went as Yugoslavia slid toward civil and world war. When it became obvious that Croatia could no longer be held by force, part of the Croatian national homeland became a semi-autonomous "Banovina" in 1939, linked to Yugoslavia only by a common postal system, army, and foreign policy.

When Germany invaded Yugoslavia the Croatians used the opportunity to establish an independent Croatian state on April 10, 1941. The state was headed by exile leader Ante Pavelic, but was occupied from the beginning by German and Italian forces. Almost immediately war broke out between the Croatians and remnants of the Royal Yugoslav Army, now known as the Chetniks. When the end came in 1945 it was Josip Tito’s Partisan army that enjoyed the support of the Allies and became the ruling force in post-war Yugoslavia.[11]

The new Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia [12] was formed as a confederation of "constituent republics." Croatia was divided into the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Other Croatian lands were given to an autonomous region attached to Serbia. The immediate post-war period was one of harsh reprisals exacted from the Croatian population. Thousands fled to the West to escape concentration camps. [13]

The Croatians became second-class citizens just as in Royalist Yugoslavia for the first twenty years of communist rule. But 1966 saw the beginning of a period that has come to be called "The Croatian Spring." The leadership of the Communist Party in Croatia began to move toward liberalization and leaders began to speak at mass rallies stressing the national and ethnic identity of the Croatian people. Newspapers and literary publications appeared overnight in such abundance that some began to refer to it as a national revival or renaissance in Croatia. [14]

But the "Croatian Spring" turned to winter in December 1971 as Marshal Tito called for a nation-wide purge of liberal elements. Before it was over, the entire leadership of the Croatian Communist Party had been purged and, according the International League for the Rights of Man, over 16,000 were arrested.[15]

The great purge of 1972 changed forever the history of Croatia and sealed the fate of the Yugoslav concept. It also had a profound effect on Western Europe, Australia, and North America as thousands of young Croatians fled their homeland. They brought with them new blood, new ideas and new politics to change such established emigre outposts as California.

[1] Stephen Gazi, A History of Croatia (New York: Philosophical Library, 1973), pp. 11-12.

[2] Stanko Guldescu, "Political History to 1526," in Croatia Land, People, Culture, ed. Francis H. Eterovich, 2vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 1:76.

[3] Ivo 0mrcanin, Diplomatic and Political History of Croatia (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1972), pp. 19-20.

[4] Philip Lukas, "A Geopolitical Analysis of Croatian" in The Croatian Nation, ed. Antun Bonifacic and Clement Mihanovich, (Chicago: "Croatia" Cultural Publishing Center, 1955), p. 88.

[8] Ljudevit Gaj and his movement are well described by Elinor Despalatovic in her book Ljudevit Gaj and The Illyrian Movement (Boulder, Colorado: East European Quarterly; New York: distributed by Columbia University Press, 1975).

[11] One of the many works which attempts to deal with the complex questions of alliances in war-time Yugoslavia is Walter W. Roberts' Tito, Mihailovic and The Allies 1941-1945 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973).

[13] See John Prcela and Stanko Guldescu, eds., Operation Slaughterhouse (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1970).

[l4] Bogdan Raditsa, "Nationalism in Croatia Since 1964," in Nation-alism in the USSR & Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev & Kosygin, ed. George W. Simmonds (Detroit: University of Detroit Press, 1977), p. 463.

[15] International League for the Rights of Man,"Report on Repressions in Yugoslavia" (New York: ILRM, 1972). (Mimeograph).

"The man went first, then, often, the wife followed with the children. As eight or ten-year-old boys and girls, we dreamed of Bremen, Hamburg, Trieste, and great steam-ers; while New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Montana, Minne-sota, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Dakota, Nebraska and California were familiar names to most of us. Our fathers were there, and our older brothers, uncles, cousins and neighbors..."

Just as the America has long been the "promised land" for much of the rest of the world, California has become the "promised land" of America. Of the millions of immigrants who have come to America's shores, hundreds of thousands were Croatian. Why such a small nation gave-up so many of her sons and daughters can be best answered by exploring all migrations in Croatian history. America is only one of the many destinations of Croatian mass migration over the centuries.

The strategic location of Croatia and the reputation earned by Croatian men as excellent soldiers and sailors has been perhaps the greatest curse of the nation. For a thousand years the Croatian people have found themselves conscripted into foreign armies and their land a battlefield for greater powers. This led to very early contact with the outside world for the Croatians who found themselves in the service of the Moors in Spain, the Turks in the Middle East, or Napoleon in Russia. [17]

Dalmatian Croatians, especially the residents of the city-state of Ragusa, now known as Dubrovnik, gained an outstanding reputation as sailors and navigators. [18] They crewed ships sailing under any number of European flags and were among the first Europeans to settle in some distant lands. [19] One manifestation of their fame is the word Argosy, still found in the English language. It is today a word synonymous with adventure and exploration, but its original meaning was "A Ragusan ship." [20]

Like many great Croatians, the most famous of Dalmatia's explorers is to this day usually identified as having been of other than Croatian nationality. His name was Marco Polo "The Venetian," a native of the island of Korcula, at that time a part of the Venetian Republic. [21]

His exploration of China and the Far East between 1269 and 1295 introduced the west to such fantastic new ideas that he was dismissed in his own lifetime as a lunatic. [22]

While there can be no doubt that Croatian sailors were to be found in every port and on ships flying every flag of Europe from the early middle ages on, there is debate as to whether Croatians were in fact on board Columbus' ships when he "discovered" America and on his later voyages. During the past half-century nearly every nationality has given claim to having had at least one of its number on board one of those three tiny ships. Those who have not made such a claim have usually noted that their explorers were in America years before Columbus. In recent times the question has become less than academic as more is learned of the many pre-Columbian explorers and settlers who came prior to 1492, including the first settlers whom we now call American Indians. Nevertheless, such well-known Croatian historians as Ferdo Sisic and Josip Horvat have stated without question that Croatians were present on October 12, 1492 when Columbus first set foot on what he thought to be the Indies.[23] Charles Kamber stated that the sailors came from Dubrovnik and Sibenik and the Slovenian writer Louis Adamic went so far as to state that Ragusan ships were probably visiting America before Columbus.[24]

Another theory that has long fascinated historians concerns the Croatan Indians of North Carolina and the Lost Colony of Roanoke. According to a number of histories of the region, there seems to be little doubt that the first settlers of Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated Roanoke enterprise were met by light-skinned, auburn-haired Indians who claimed to be descendants of white men who had shipwrecked on that coast years before. The Indians were called Croatans and there were Croatian ships lost on that coast during those times. Whether they were in fact part Croatian can never be known. [25]

Although there were many such individual or small-scale contacts with the Americas, whether confirmed or legendary, actual Croatian settlements in America did not appear until the early part of the nineteenth century. Several writers and historians have attempted to prove that a Croatian colony was founded at Ebenezer, near Savannah, Georgia during the first decade of the eighteenth century. [26] The claim has been disputed and finally disproved by Dr. George J. Prpic and Croatian Fraternal Union President John Badovinac. [27]

During the early 1800s Croatians from the Dalmatian littoral began immigration to Louisiana, especially the New Orleans region. Although many Croatians may have settled in that city prior to 1820, it is that year that Frank M. Lovrich cites as the start of mass defections by Croatians from their ships in the harbor of New Orleans. [28] By 1830 the Croatians had spread throughout the Delta region and Louisiana had become the focal point for Dalmatians coming to the New World. Many would go on to California via Panama or even around the Horn from the Crescent City.

From 1850 until the end of the Civil War there was a large influx of Croatians into the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania. That same year saw the establishment of Croatian colonies in St. Louis, Missouri and by 1886 Cleveland, Ohio would have a well-established community. By 1850 over 16,000 Dalmatians had come to the United States and during the 1870s the number increased at a rate of over one thousand per year. [29] But the nineteenth century represented only a trickle compared to the wave of the early twentieth century.

By 1914 it was estimated that six thousand persons yearly were leaving Dalmatia for the United States and the United States government estimated that 335,543 immigrants from Croatian and Slovenian lands were admitted to the country during the first decade of the century. [30] The peak may have been reached in 1912 and 1913 when the total immigration from Croatia, then over 800,000 grew by 50,000 in one twelve-month period. [31]

After the Second World War some 40,000 new Croatian immigrants came to the United States while an equal or greater number went to Australia, Canada, Argentina, and Western Europe. l920s immigration laws reduced the number of Croatian immigrants to the United States far below the early 1900s norm until 1968 when the American quota system was abolished.

The lifting of travel restrictions in Yugoslavia during the "Croatian Spring" of 1966 to 1971 and the removal of the quota system made for a new surge of immigration during the late 1960s. When the "Spring" ended with the purge of 1972 the numbers of immigrants increased as thousands of young Croatians fled the country.

The causes of the many migrations in Croatian history are multifaceted and for the most part beyond the scope of this study. At any point in time there were many reasons for vast numbers of Croatians to abandon their homeland. On the surface, these causes seem dissimilar, but they are closely related. Risking generalization, it can be said that the major factors in Croatian emigration have been 1) the economic hardships which continue to afflict the Croatian nation; 2) political and social repression or the sudden liberation therefrom; and 3) war.

Such generalizations do not take into consideration such factors as the sea-going nature of the Dalmatians, the completion of the Karlstadt to Rijeka railroad in 1873 or the get-rich-quick lure of the California goldfields. Each of these and a dozen other factors had its effect on the migration of the Croatian people. It has been, however, tragedy and not adventure that has served as the prime catalyst in scattering this tiny nation over so much of the globe.

[16] Louis Adamic, My America (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1938), pp. 125-126.

[17] A concise history of the problem is George J. Prpic's Tragedies and Migrations in Croatian History (Toronto: H.P., 1973).

[18] The definitive work on Dubrovnik is Francis W. Carter's Dubrovnik (Ragusa) A Classic City State (New York: Seminar, 1972).

[21] Basil and Steven Pandzic, A Review of Croatian History (Chicago: "Croatia" Cultural Publishing Center, 1954), p. 73.

[22] Manuel Komroff, ed., The Travels of Marco Polo (The Venetian) (Garden City: Garden City Publishing, 1930), pp. xxiv-xv.

[23] George J. Prpic, The Croatian Immigrants in America (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971), p. 26.

[24] Charles Kamber, "Croats in America," Croatian Review, July 1959, p. 1; Louis Adamic, The Native's Return, (New York: Harper & Bros., 1934), 152.

[25] George J. Prpic, "Early Croatian Contacts With America and the Mystery of The Croatans," Journal of Croatian Studies I (1960): 14-24, passim.

[26] E.g. Gerald Govorchin, Americans from Yugoslavia, (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1961), pp. 35-38.

[27] George J. Prpic, "The Croatian Immigrants and the Americans from Yugoslavia," Journal of Croatian Studies III-IV (1962-1963): p. 166; John Badovinac, "A New Look at the Tale of a ‘Lost Colony in the State of Georgia," Zajednicar, 14 January 1974.

[28] Frank M. Lovrich, "Croatians in Louisiana," Journal of Croatian Studies VII-VIII (1966-1967): 40, 66-67.

[29] George J. Prpic, "The Croatian Immigrants in the United States of America," in Croatia Land, People, Culture, ed. Francis Eterovich, 2 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 2:396.

[30] Vladislav R. Savic, South-Eastern Europe, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1918), p. 163; and United States Senate, Immigration Commission, Emigration Conditions in Europe, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911), pp. 274-276.

[31] Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1921), p. 198; and Prpic, "Croatian Immigrants in U.S.A.," in Croatia, 2:399.

"Know then, that, on the right hand of the Indies, there is an island called California, very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise. Their island was the strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky shores. Their arms were all of gold...For, in the whole island there was no metal but gold."

The name California was first applied by Hernando Cortez, referring to the mythical domain of Queen Calafia in the novel Las Sergas de Esplandian. [33] The cities of gold found by the Spanish in South and Central America sent them on a relentless search northward seeking the Seven Cities of Cibola, described in Indian folklore as cities of gold. The search brought them to the tip of what was thought to be a large island, now called Baja ("bah-ha" or "Lower") California.

The search for gold was only a part of the Spanish undertaking in the New World and it would be priests, not conquistadores, who would claim most of the credit for bringing civilization of the European mold to California. In 1664 Spain allowed foreign missionaries to come to the New World for the first time.

The first Croatian missionary and the first documented Croatian in the Americas was Baron Juan Maria Ratkay, or in Croatian, Ivan Ratkaj. A scion of a Croatian-Hungarian noble family, Ratkaj's family had given Croatia a number of priests and missionaries. Among them were Nikola Ratkaj (1601-1662), who served India and Tibet as the first Croatian missionary in modern times, and Juraj Ratkaj (1612-1666), one of Croatia's earliest historians.[34]

Ivan Ratkaj was born on May 22, 1647, probably at Veliki Tabor in northern Croatia. He entered the Jesuit Order on November 13, 1664 and was ordained in 1676. On June 12, 1678 he left Genoa with eighteen other Jesuits for Spain and then the New World. With him was Father Francisco Kino who became one of the greatest explorers of Spanish Mexico. After years of preparation and several aborted starts, they finally arrived at the Mexican port of Vera Cruz on September 15, 1680 after an eventful voyage of sixty-five days. [35]

Unlike many of the Spanish missionaries and explorers, Ratkaj soon came to the conclusion that the native population consisted of bright, skillful, and quick learning Indians. It was, unfortunately, an opinion not shared by most of his peers. On November 18, 1680, he left Mexico City for his first mission assignment with the Tarahumara Indians in what is now the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Ratkaj was accompanied by Father Joseph Neuman who had been with him since leaving Europe. With them went a troop of muleteers, servants, guides, and enough provisions to last the journey. [36]

On Christmas Day, 1680, they met other travelers and a military escort at the city of Durango. They were entering hostile Indian territory but Ratkaj had noted that they were in greater danger from Spanish deserters than Indians for much of the trek. On February 1, 1681, the Jesuit band reached the mission of San Ignacio Coyachic from which Neuman was sent to his final post at Sisoquichic and Ratkaj was dispatched to Yepomera on February 2. [37]

Ratkaj found thirteen missions abandoned for lack of priests, harsh climate, poor food and hostile Indians. Only months before his arrival twenty-one missions had been destroyed and four hundred Spaniards, including a number of priests, had been killed in a revolt of the Cacique Pope Indians of San Juan Mission in New Mexico. [38] The entire history of the early Jesuit missionary system in Northern Mexico was one of bloodshed and massacres. There were, in total, only 131 Spanish soldiers guarding the entire region and its Spanish subjects. [39]

Although many details of Ratkaj's missionary activities are lacking, he was recorded to have baptized forty Indians during his first month of service. He taught religion to the native children, gave them needed skills and wanted very much to serve in the harsh Baja region to his west. Had he done so he might have become the first Croatian to set foot in what is now the U.S. state of California. But that honor awaited another missionary in later years.

Ratkaj died at his mission on December 26, 1683. According to Peter M. Dunne, "Father Ratkay ...had died of poison at Carichic through the anger of his Indians" [40]

Ratkaj's death marked not the end, but the beginning of Croatian missionary work in North America and an almost continuous Croatian presence in the American West for the next three hundred years. Ratkaj was followed by another Croatian Jesuit, Ferdinand Konscak, known in Spanish as Fernando Consag.

Konscak was born in Varazdin, very near Ratkaj's birthplace, on December 3, 1703. His father wished him to become an officer of the Imperial Army. Instead, Ferdinand entered into the Society of Jesus novitate at Treutchin, Slovakia in 1719. Manuel Servin described Konscak as "A zealous perfectionist ... a model seminarian, who distinguished himself in piety and in his studies, especially mathematics." [4l] He was ordained at Graz, Styria and taught for a brief period at the Jesuit College in Zagreb, capital of Croatia and in Buda, Hungary from 1726 to 1728. [42] Konscak arrived in Mexico in 1730 at the beginning of one of the most eventful and turbulent periods of New Spain's history.

In 1734 a massive Indian revolt brougict missionary activity to a standstill in the Baja region. Missions at Nuestra Senora del Pilar, Santiago de los Caras, San Jose del Cabo and Todos Santos were taken by the Indians with the loss of many lives including two Jesuit fathers. This blow was followed by epidemics in 1742, 1744, and 1748 which killed as much as eighty per-cent of the native population in some areas. [43] Finally, political problems beset the Jesuits as the military took over control of the region and the new Spanish Viceroy, Juan Antonio de Vizarron y Eguiarreta displayed open hostility toward the Jesuit Order. [44]

It was into this dismal scene that the young priest entered in 1730. Konscak arrived at the northernmost mission in Baja California, San Ignacio de Kadakaaman in 1733 and spent the next five years travelling between various northern missions. Thereafter, for most of the following twenty-two years of his life, his home would be the San Ignacio mission.[45] Konscak was a zealous missionary and pioneer who went about his work of baptizing, teaching, farming, and building with vigor. He was also expected to be a specialist of all trades and the chief administrator for the fortified city-states called missions. In his priestly duties, Servin described Father Fernando as "truly charitable, if not saintly." [46]

But it was not as an administrator or as the baptizer of thousands of Indians that Konscak would be remembered in every major history of Mexico and California. While he was each of these and more, he was also an explorer. Peter Dunne wrote: "With Eusebio Francisco Kino of Pimeria Alta and Juan de Ugarte his predecessor in California, Consag must rank among the earliest and greatest explorers." [47]

In 1774 Philip V decreed that the missions in California should be pushed northward to join those of isolated Sonora. But at that time there was still some question as to whether California was an island or a peninsula, the former making such a linking of the missions impossible. The Jesuit Proven cial asked the King for a royal decree authorizing the exploration of northern Baja California. Visitor Juan Antonio Balthasar chose Konscak to explore California and determine its exact nature. [48]

Konscak set out from San Carlos, near Mission San Ignacio on June 9, 1746 with "a party of Yaquis, Californians, and soldiers in four open boats." The party reached the mouth of the Colorado River in mid-July and attempted to explore it but strong currents stopped their progress, causing the loss of one boat. They began their return trip on July 25 down the coast of Baja California, carefully charting every detail of the coast. [49]

Konscak proved beyond any doubt that California was not an island. His charts and diaries were so accurate that they served as the basis for all maps of the region well into the nineteenth century. Historian Hubert H. Bancroft called the feat "perhaps the most important event of the period," while another California historian noted: "His voyage tolled the death knell of the old belief that California was an island, which belief had persisted in the popular mind up to that time." [50]

In 1748 Konscak was appointed Visitator of all California missions. He continued his missionary work and the exploration of new sites and vital water sources for new missions. To this end Konscak organized his second major expedition in 1751 to find a suitable location for the future Mission Santa Gertrudis. This undertaking was launched from La Piedad on May 22, 1751 according to Konscak's diary. He was accompanied by a number of Indians and soldiers led by Captain Don Fernando de Rivera y Moncada who would later become governor of Alta California. [51]

Konscak's party travelled west, over the mountains, toward the Pacific. They reached the ocean at a point Konscak reckoned to be 29 degrees 47' north latitude. They then turned inland, again reaching the Pacific Ocean at a point north of Sebastian Vizaino Bay, perhaps near present-day Punta Prieta. It is probable that he reached a point north of the thirty degree parallel, penetrating the peninsula farther than any white man before him. Finding no suitable mission site, the party returned on July 8, 1751 and the Santa Gertrudis mission was established at a point only twenty-nine miles from San Ignacio. [52]

Having explored much of the western shore of the peninsula, Konscak again turned toward the east in his third major exploration which took place in 1753. This undertaking led the missionary- explorer as far north as thirty-one degrees latitude. He continued his shorter expeditions of one to three hundred miles even after his appointment as Superior of all California missions. [53]

Father Ferdinand Konscak died on September 10, 1759 at the age of fifty-six. In 1767 King Charles III expelled the Jesuits, changing forever the path of missionary history in California. It would be the brown-robed Franciscans who would eventually colonize Alta (upper) California and many of the sacrifices and accomplishments of the Jesuit fathers would be forgotten. Konscak' s only monument today is a small group of islands in the Gulf of California which bear his name. [54] In his own time, as well as in many California and Mexican historical circles today, Konscak, the linguist, builder, mathematician, geologist, cartographer, explorer, and priest was and is recognized as one of the great figures of North America's history. It was he who laid the groundwork for the eventual exploration and colonization of Alta California. A contemporary, Francisco Javier Clavijero wrote: "The name of Consag deserves to be placed among those that have become illustrious in California." [55]

The full impact of Croatian-born priests in the exploration and settlement of California can never be completely measured. Croatian names were often Germanized or Latinized in the transition from the Old World to the New. Konscak, for example, was also known as Consag, Consago, Konsak, and Konshak in his own time and historians have added new variations, as well as Bohemian, Austrian, or Hungarian for nationality, despite Dunne's indisputable statement: "This able missionary "was born in 1703 in Varazdin, in Croatia." [56]

How many of the Jesuit and Franciscan priests who built the missions in Baja and Alta California were Croatians can never be known. The relationship of the Croatian people to the Roman Catholic Church and the number of "Austrian," "Hungarian," and "Bohemian" fathers noted in history cannot be discounted. There can be little doubt that some, if not many, were sons of Croatia. But like most men of their orders, they sought no recognition for themselves. History has taken the names and nationalities of many of these founders of California from us, leaving only their religion and the missions they built. Perhaps it is as they would have wished.

[32]Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, Las Serges de Esplandian [The Deeds of Esplandian] (Seville: 1510), quoted in Titus Fey Cronise, The Natural Wealth of California (San Francisco:Bancroft, 1868), p. 2.

[33] R. Coke Wood and Leon Bush, California History (San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1963), p. 2.

[34] George J. Prpic, "Rev. Juan M. Ratkay, S.J., First Croatian Missionary in America (1647-1683)," Radovi Hrvatskoga Povijesnog Instituta u Rimu III-IV (1971): 183-185.

[35] Both Peter M. Dunne in Early Jesuit Missions in Tarahumara (Berkeley: University of California, 19)48), p. 139, and his mentor H. E. Bolton in Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1936), p. 68, state that Ratkaj arrived at Vera Cruz on September 25, 1680. Prpic, in his "Rev. Juan M. Ratkay," p. 197, disputes their findings and sets Ratkaj's arrival date at September 15, 1680.

[39] The definitive work on the region during that era is Peter M. Dunne's Pioneer Jesuits in Northern Mexico (Berkeley: University of California, 1944).

[4l] Manuel P. Servin, Introduction to The Apostolic Life of Fernando Consag, Explorer of Lower California by Francisco Zevallos (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1968), pp. 20-21.

[42] George J. Prpic, "Rev. Ferdinand Konscak S.J. a Croatian Missionary in California," Croatia Press XIII (1959): 3.

[43] Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Missions and Missionaries of California (San Francisco: James Barry, 1908), pp. 246-251 passim, 271.

[44] Peter M. Dunne, Black Robes in Lower California (Berkeley: University of Calfiornia, 1952), pp. 295-6.

[46] Servin, Introduction to Apostolic Life, p. 30. Dunne, Black Robes, p. 33)4.

[48] Adam S. Eterovich, Dalmatians from Croatia and Montenegrin Serbs in the West and South 1800-1900 (San Francisco: R & E Research, 1971), p. 79.

[49] Hubert H. Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (San Francisco: Bancroft, 1886) pp. 463-4.

[50] Margaret Romer, "From Boulder to the Gulf," The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly XXXIV (March 1952): 38.

For a number of reasons Alta California was largely ignored by the government of New Spain for most of its existence. Centuries elapsed from its first exploration in 1542 until the first settle-ment in 1769. It was in that year that San Diego was established virtually on the border of Baja California. Twenty more Spanish missions followed from San Diego de Alcala to San Francisco Solano. The royal highway, El Camino Real, which connected them is today known as U.S. Highway 101.

Despite the mission activity, after fifty years of coloniza-tion there were only 3,270 Spaniards in all of California in 1820. Foreigners were not allowed to trade with the colony but the Russians ignored such restrictions, establishing outposts as far south as Fort Ross during the first half of the nineteenth century.

It was this remoteness from the mother country and the fact that the colonists were ignored in favor of such lands as the Philippines which brought silk and spices from Indonesia and Asia, that led the population to revolt in 1810. Although the revolution failed, the seeds of change were planted. In 1821 a successful revolution was carried out by General Augustin de Iturbide who crowned himself emperor. He was also overthrown in 1824, leading to the foundation of the Republic of Mexico.

The period of Mexican rule in California has been described by one of the greatest current historians as "one of plots, counter-plots and small-scale civil wars." Dr. R. Coke

Wood, has called the Mexican rulers "arrogant, tactless, self-seeking and incompetent." [57] Californians were as unhappy under Mexican rule as they had been under that of Spain. Nine Mexican governors came and went in the space of fifteen years. Graft and speculation were rampant and California served primarily as a pie to be divided by the wealthy of Mexico proper.

Perhaps the only efficient governments in Mexican California were those of the missions. But in 1833 the Mexican congress passed the Act of Secularization which began the process of taking the missions from the Franciscans who had built them. [58] The government opened over eight million acres to colonization and between 1830 and 1846 over eight hundred land grants were confirmed. By the time the United States acquired California most of the desirable land west of the coastal ranges and in the Great Central Valley had been claimed.

Although most of the settlers were Mexican, hundreds, perhaps thousands, were not. Anglo-Americans, French-Canadians and Russians were to be found throughout the region and as early as 1836 Monterey was troubled with a number of "ex-sailors and the like, men without passports, yet who were not permitted to forget that Mexico was a land where foreigners were required by law to account for themselves." [59]

The Mexican fear of foreigners was no casual matter. It was during that same year, 1836, that Texas wrested independence from Mexico entirely through the efforts of its non-Mexican population. The number of Croatians among these "ex-sailors" is unknown, but it is a fact that many Spanish ships of the period were crewed or navigated by Dalmatians and that Ragusan argosies called at California ports during the Mexican era.

One well-known sea captain of the time was John Dominis, a native of Dalmatia. Dominis was sailing the California and Oregon coasts as early as 1831 commanding the brig Owyhyee (Hawaii). Dominis had worked his way up from cabin boy on the Owyhyee and had circumnavigated the globe at least once prior to 1830. He was engaged in the hunting of sea otters off the California and Oregon coasts, managing to run afoul of the British who controlled Oregon, the Mexicans who controlled California, and the Russians who were stealing from both. [60]

Dominis established himself in Hawaii in 1837 where he built the mansion that now serves as the governor’s residence. The fate of the mansion was no accident. Dominis’ son, John Owen Dominis, born in New York in 1832, became Governor of Oahu, private secretary to Kings Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V, Governor of Maui, aide to three other Hawaiian kings and Commander-in-Chief of the Hawaiian Army. In 1862 he married Princess Lydia who, in 1891, became Queen Liliuokalani. As Prince-Consort Dominis was so powerful in Hawaiian politics and had such influence on affairs of the crown that his death in 1891 led to the abolition of the monarchy only two years later. His father, Captain John Dominis disappeared under mysterious circumstances at sea while on a diplomatic mission to China in 1846. [61]

In conjunction with the Act of Secularization of 1833, a bill known as the Farias Bill to Colonize California provided for an active effort to settle the great northern region of the Mexican Republic. Provisions of the bill included Article 16 which read: "All foreigners who become colonists in the Californias who observe the constitution and laws of the Republic will be Mexican citizens as soon as they build their own houses and begin to cultivate their lands." [62]

One of the first outgrowths of the new movement toward colonization was the Gomez Farias Colony. In February 1834 signs began to appear in Mexico City inviting men, women and families to join a colonial adventure to settle California. Adults were to be given four reals and children two reals per day during the waiting period and journey. [63]

Among the three hundred or so colonists who left Mexico on August 1, 18314 was a trader named Matias Sabich (1798-1852) who was in all probability California’s first Croatian settler although his nationality cannot be firmly established. Like most Croatians of the time, he was listed in later census records as an Austrian. [64] However, the name Sabich is Croatian and his son, Francisco, born in Los Angeles in 1842, later employed and worked with Croatians which would tend to confirm his Croatian background. [65]

Sabich married Josefa Franco Coronel, a member of one of the leading families in Mexican and early American California. Her brother Don Antonio Franco Coronel, was one of the first mayors of Los Angeles and Ygnacio Coronel founded the city’s first school. Matias fathered two sons, Mattias and Francisco and he became a well- known and apparently wealthy member of the community. In the early fifties Sabich loaned Solomon Lazard, a dry goods dealer, thirty thousand dollars for "so long that they began to think he would never come back for it." When he did recover the loan, after Lazard had become one of the largest merchants in Los Angeles, Sabich accepted no interest on the sizable sum. [66]

Sabich’s wife died in Los Angeles and is buried at San Gabrial mission. Matias Sabich died in route to Europe in 1852 with his two sons. They went on to receive their education in England and France returning to California to become outstanding leaders of the Los Angeles community.

Interestingly, another member of the Gomez Farias Colony was one Charles Baric, a twenty-seven year-old school teacher who was listed as French. [67] Ante Bakulich of the island of Hvar also settled in California in 1835 but evidently was not connected with an organized colonization effort.

Mexican rule ended in California with the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846 which soon became the Mexican War. That war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, leaving California firmly in the hands of the new transcontinental power, the United States of America.

[58] Irving Richman, California Under Spain and Mexico (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1912), pp. 248-264 passim.

[60] Hubert H. Bancroft, History of Oregon, (San Francisco: The History Company, 1886), p. 140.

[6l] T. Z. Gasinski, "Captain John Dominis and His Son Governor John Owen Dominis-Hawaii’s Croatian Connection," Journal of Croatian Studies XVII (1976): 22-23, 25-28.

[62] Al1an C. Hutchinson, Frontier Settlement in Mexican California (New Haven: Yale, 1969), pp. 114-115.

[64] Adam S. Eterovich, "Jugoslav Census of Population for California l850-l880," Balkan and Eastern European American Genealogical and Historical Society Quarterly [BEEAGHS Quarterly] V (March 68): 184.

[66] Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930),pp. 105, 171.

"God has blessed California with gold;
Gold has exalted the land far and wide:
Its rivers and brooks roll with treasures untold
Its rocks conceal gold veins in their inside
But from whatever you have had your fill
You no longer-derive any joyous thrill ..."

"And you my brothers in Croatian parts,
Keep on dancing, sing from your fullest hearts;
Our wine is foaming, see it sparkle, my dear
Let jokes be made-let everybody cheer,
Propose a toast to too many a son
Who lacks our wine beneath a foreign sun.....

The Bear Flag Revolt, in fact nothing less than the American conquest of California, at first had little effect on the remote, quiet lifestyle of what would soon be America's thirty-first state. Although the near-perfect harbor of San Francisco had sprouted a budding town, there were still few people in the great inland regions of California. As of December 1847 the population of the Sacramento Valley was said to consist of: "289 white people and 1479 tame Indians, besides 21,000 wild Indians." [69]

The Valley had some sixty houses, a tannery, six mills, and a few thousand head of livestock. Most of this activity revolved around an outpost named New Helvetica (New Switzerland) and its proprietor John Augustus Sutter. By the age of forty-five, Sutter had been a German, Swiss, Mexican, and American citizen. He built a fort, which still stands, and planned the first city in California's Great Central Valley, Sutterville. It is now a part of the state capital of Sacramento. It was at Sutter's Mill on the American River near Coloma that an employee, James W. Marshall, discovered gold on January 24, 1848. Both Sutter and Marshall would die virtual paupers, but California would never be the same for their realization of the dream that first brought explorers looking for cities of gold.

When word of the find at Sutter's Mill reached San Francisco the city became a ghost town. Eight to ten thousand settlers-turned- miners joined the initial rush, deserting every part of the state. By May three-quarters of the houses in San Francisco were empty, business had ceased, and real estate prices plummeted. [70] The harbor became a graveyard of ships as nearly every single officer and crewman of every incoming ship, civilian or military, rushed to the gold country. According to Adam S. Eterovich, a "Slavonian" known only as "Sailor Man" was present at Sutter's Mill on that day in 1848. [71] Whoever "Sailor Man" was, he would soon be lost in a wave of humanity in California. Of the hundreds abandoning their ships during those first months of the rush, many were Croatian.

The following year, 1849, saw the beginning of the eastern and European reaction to the news of the strike as hundreds of thousands of people from every point on the globe descended on California. They were called "49ers." Within months companies had been formed to bring pioneers from the eastern United States and from Europe. The famous Massachusetts Company alone dispatched one hundred and twenty-four mining companies on board sixty-four ships during 1849 alone. [72] Of this number, only one ship, the brig Ann, made a second trip. The other sixty-three were abandoned in San Francisco harbor. By 1851 San Francisco would begin filling the ships with rock and sand and building streets on top of them.

Croatian ships landing in San Francisco in 1849 included the Fanica and Captain Stjepan Splivalo's bark Santa Teresa. The following year saw the arrival of the brigs Arone and Ljepa Zaritza, while such ships as the Dalmatia, Adriatic, and Lopud would be among those arriving between 1850 and 1865. [73] The Dalmatia first arrived in San Francisco on August 28, 1850 with a cargo of heavy industrial goods and forty-six passengers. Like many ships from the coasts of Dalmatia and Italy, the Dalmatia's first American port-of-call was New Orleans. From there it was 292 days to San Francisco via Cape Horn and Peru, stopping to buy, sell, load, and unload her cargo along the way. [74]

One of the few ships to actually leave San Francisco during the rush was the Belgrade which returned Captain Baker of one of the less fortunate Massachusetts Company colonies back to Panama. She was typical of the coastal ships of the time, described as: "Two hundred and fifty-six tons [she had] brought out the Narragansett and Sacramento Mining Company from Cherryfield, Maine, and now employed in the California and Panama trade. The Belgrade was a poor sailor and scantily provisioned and the fifty or sixty passengers aboard, gloomy from their California experience, proved unpleasant companions." [75]

They would be even more gloomy before reaching Panama. The Belgrade was nearly lost on the voyage which began on September 10, 1850. She put into Acapulco on October 12, after five weeks at sea. Most of her passengers and crew abandoned her for the overland route or small coastal steamers. [76]

The 311-ton brig Splendido of Rijeka sailed from Antwerp with a cargo of textiles early in 1852. Captain Ivo Visin guided his ship toward South America through seas so heavy as to break the main mast. The Splendido arrived in Montevideo after four months and six days at sea. Visin sailed from there to Valparaiso where he took on a new cargo for San Francisco. When he arrived at the Golden Gate, he suffered the same fate as most sea captains of the time: "Apart from a brave 18-year-old lad from Prcanj named Fridrigo Belavita, the entire crew deserted him leaving behind the message that they were ‘tired of this dog's life’ and intended to stay in California to dig for gold." [77]

But San Francisco was not the final destination of the thousands disembarking there. It was simply a jumping-off place for the gold country. When the California Constitutional Convention adopted a Great Seal for the State of California on October 11, 1849, it depicted a harbor filled with ships, a miner with pick, rocker, and pan with the motto "Eureka"-"I have found it." [78]

What they had found was the greatest deposit of gold in recorded history: The Mother Lode.

The Mother Lode was a deposit of gold over one hundred miles long and from three to six miles deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills. To reach this area, the gold seekers, who had already come overland from the eastern United States via Panama or around the Horn, had to traverse more inhospitable territory. For some this meant Death Valley, one of the narrow passages through the Sierra Nevada, or for others a boat or overland trip to Stockton or Sacramento.

Most of the Croatian miners found themselves in the rich gold mining counties of Nevada, El Dorado, Placer, Calaveras, and Amador. While many of the boom towns disappeared after the gold rush, some of the Croatian's early haunts still prosper, especially in Amador County. Although the town of Comanche is now at the bottom of a man-made lake of the same name, Jackson and Sutter Creek are living monuments to the days when each had a greater population than Los Angeles.

The earliest recorded Croatian pioneer in Amador County was John Sponza who was an American citizen who voted in 1853. Antonio Ilich voted in the election of 1856 and a half-dozen other Croatian-Americans would be listed in 1859. [79] One was Lawrence Kirigin whose

anglicized name, Chargin, would become well known throughout northern California as that of a great pioneer family.

Many Croatians settled in the town of Sutter Creek. It was there that the first Croatian Hall in America was built by a branch of the Slavonic Illyrian Mutual and Benevolent Society of San Francisco in 1874. [80] When the famous Croatian pioneer John V. Tadich arrived in San Francisco in 1871, he reported that most of his party went to Sutter Creek which was already well established as a center of Croatian activity. This group included Mr. and Mrs. John Kusanovich who became well-known public figures in the Sutter Creek community. [8l]

There are a few reminders of the Croatian population in Amador and Calaveras counties today, but the names of nineteenth century mining companies leave little doubt that such a presence was once felt. Concerns such as the Adriatic Gold and Silver Mining Company of 1878, the Illyrian Gold and Silver Mining Company of 1863, the Slavonian Gold and Silver Mining Company of 1863 and a joint venture known as the Serbian and Slavonian Mining Company of 1876, testify to the large scale involvement of the South Slavic community in the Mother Lode. [82]

Serbian miners tended to settle in Jackson and the city has remained a Serbian stronghold boasting America's oldest Serbian Orthodox church as a major landmark. Like many towns in the Mother Lode region, Jackson burned to the ground on several occasions and today only one known Croatian-built structure of historical value remains: the Pierovich boarding house. The white wood-frame structure built by Andrew Pierovich (1850-1919) and his wife Josephine (1866- 1890), still stands on Broadway in the old mining town, though it is condemned and scheduled for destruction. The Pierovichs are only two of the many Croatian names to be found in Jackson’s Catholic Cemetery. Near them lies Joseph Simchich (1837-1905), a sailor who came to California in 18514 via China and his Irish-born wife, Sarah McCue. [83]

One of the greatest mines in Jackson was the Argonaut, claimed in 1850 with the main shaft being started in April 1896. By 1917 the shaft had reached 4300 feet and was producing the highest grade ore in the Mother Lode. The Argonaut was working on the 4800 foot level on the morning of August 22, 1922 when tragedy struck.

"Shift boss Clarence Bradshaw, Steve Pasalich and Michael Jago came to the surface. As they climbed, almost falling out of the skip, it was immediately apparent that all three were on the verge of collapse. Before Bradshaw could speak he dropped in his tracks; however, he was soon revived and told the blood-curdling story of fire raging deep in the mine." [84]

Forty-seven miners were trapped on the lower levels of the Argonaut. The next morning hundreds of friends, family members, rescue workers, and curiosity seekers assembled at the top of the mine.

"Quiet sobbing mingled with the chatter of strange tongues since over half the unfortunate miners were foreign-born. The work force in the mines then consisted mainly of Slavs, Italians, Poles, and Cornishmen." [85]

Rescue workers sealed the main shaft to kill the flames and dug for three weeks through the near-by Kennedy shaft. When they broke through at 4350 feet they found a newly made bulkhead. The trapped miners had attempted to block the flow of gas. Workers said that it was well built for the circumstances, the cracks having been filled with miner's shirts and pants. A second bulkhead concealed the bodies of two miners, but the desperate attempt to stop the killing gas had failed. Behind a third, unfinished bulkhead the bodies of forty-four men were found with the words "gas too strong 3AM" scratched on the wall in carbide. [86] The forty-seventh body was not found until almost a year later How near any of the men came to surviving the twenty-two day ordeal was a question left for the living to ponder. Among the dead were Rade Gegovich, age 36, Jevto Kovac, 42, Jovo Maslesa, 32, and Mihailo Vujovich, 29, all of Hercegovina, and Elija Pavlovich, age 40 of Dalmatia. Nine other "Slavs" and two "Austrians" were buried at the city's Catholic and Orthodox cemeteries. [87]

On August 22, 1977, a monument was placed in Jackson to the memory of the forty-seven miners of the Argonaut disaster. It serves not only as a memorial to those who died, but to those Croatian and Serbian miners whose labors contributed to the history of the Mother Lode and to the building of California.

[68], August Senoa, "California Gold-Croatian Wine," trans. Branko Brusar, Croatian Times, August 1977, p. 7.

[71] Adam S. Eterovich, Jugoslavs in the Wild West 1840 to 1880 (San Francisco: Author, 1968), p. 282.

[72] Octavius Thorndike Howe, Argonauts of ‘49 (Cambridge: Harvard Press, 19214), pp. 187-221.

[73] Joseph Splivalo, "Captain Stjepan Splivalo, a California Pioneer," Review [Jugoslovenska Revija], November 1975, p. 34.; Adam S. Eterovich, A Guide and Bibliography to Research on Yugoslavs in the United States and Canada, (San Francisco: R & E Research, 1975), p. 81.

[74] Louis Rasmussen, San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists, 4 vols. (Coloma: San Francisco Historic Record & Genealogical Bulletin, 165-170), 11:27.

[77] Djordje Martinovic, "Sailing Around the World," Review [Jugoslovenska Revija], January 1974, pp. 34-35.

[78] James D. Driscoll, ed., California's Legislature 1976 (Sacramento: California Office of State Printing, 1976), p. 11.

[80] Thompson & West, History of Amador County (Oakland: Thompson and West, 1881),

[81] John V. Tadich, "The Jugoslav Colony of San Francisco On My Arrival in 1871," in The Slavonic Pioneers of California, ed. Vjekoslav Meler (San Francisco: Slavonic Pioneers of Ca., 1932), pp. 141-142.

[82] Adam S. Eterovich, Yugoslav Survey of California, Nevada, Arizona and The South 1830-1900 (San Francisco: R & E, 1971), p.57.

[83] Croatian men, usually single upon arrival in America, often married Irish or Mexican women due to their Roman Catholicism. See Adam S. Eterovich's Jugoslav California Marriages (SF: Author, 1968).

[84] Jack R. Wagner, Gold Mines of California (Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1970), p. 95.

[85] Ibid., p. 97. The term "Slavs" has been and is still used throughout the Mother Lode to denote South Slavs.

[86] J. L. Sargent, ed., Amador County History (Jackson: Amador Women's Club, 1927), p. 63.

Although there may never have been more than a thousand Croatians in Nevada at any one time, that number represented a sizeable portion of what is still one of the least populated states in the nation. The Nevada experience-the true "Wild West," is well worth exploration if only for its color and uniqueness in Croatian-American history.

Most Nevada Croatians came via California. In fact, most early Croatian pioneers in the Silver State had been residents of California in the years prior to the silver boom of 1859. One of the

earliest was a California prospector named Cenovitch. [88] Unfortunately, he is remembered only as being one of the victims of an Indian massacre at Pyramid Lake during the early l860s. Others in the massacred mining party included Gaventi (listed as Austrian), Knezwetz (Knezevich), Kuezerwitch, Cuesavick, Cesvick, Shasterich, and Anderson. It would appear that the South Slavic influence in the Pyramid Lake region was quite evident or that the few who were there had exceptional misfortune. [89]

It is difficult, if not impossible, to locate a true Croatian settlement in pre-1900 Nevada. Like pioneers, miners, and settlers of every nationality, the Croatians moved from camp to camp, mine to mine, and from one job to another. The Nevada landscape required rugged individuals and those who came to the state did so as individuals, not as Croatians. In 1860 the majority of the Croatians in the state were located in or around Virginia City. All were single and all were male.

Early advertisements in such newspapers as the Territorial Enterprise noted a number of Croatian enterprises, notably the Milatovich Association store which eventually moved to Reno. Adam S. Eterovich lists over forty South Slavic merchants, most of whom were Dalmatians, on C Street in Virginia City between 1860 and 1885. [90] In later years many of these names can be found in other towns and camps as Croatian merchants followed the "strike and bust" trail of mining across Nevada. One such man was Marco Medina, a native of Budva. John Tadich referred to him in his memoirs of early visits to the Comstock Lode. [91] He started out as the owner and operator of the San Francisco Fruit Store in Virginia City. By 1868, he owned and operated his own silver mine and in 1869 joined the rush to White Fine County in eastern Nevada where he established himself in the mining and merchandising business. The White Pine rush was short lived but thousands had gone there during the brief two-year boom. The over sixty Croatians in the county constituted the largest single concentration of Croatians in Nevada up until that time. By 1880 there were fewer than two thousand people in the entire county and no trace of the Croatians remained.

Throughout the late nineteenth century, Croatian activity was recorded in Esmeralda County and especially the Silver Peak district. One of the better known Croatians of the region was John Chiatovich, a Dalmatian. Like most Nevada Croatians, he came from San Francisco looking for silver and found it in the cash register rather than the ground. He established a mercantile business in the town of Silver Peak and by 1869 had made enough money to buy an existing mine. As other miners withdrew, he acquired a beautiful ranch in Fish Lake Valley. By 1904 his Mary Mine was described as one of the best operations in the area. In later years he built a ten-stamp mill at Silver Peak and opened the first cyanide plant in the western United States. [92] When he died in 1907, he left a large family and many friends whom he had assisted in coming to America and many Croatian names can be found in Esmeralda County even today.

In other parts of Nevada every county and almost every town at one time or another had some Croatian residents. In 1894, John Gregovich, a native of Pastrovich, was elected to the Nevada State Senate where he served two terms. A number of other Croatians became prominent civic and governmental leaders during Nevada's first half-century. But most miners and businessmen left the state as quickly as they had come when the main silver centers gave out. By 1900 there were fewer than 43,000 people in the entire state, only 1300 more than a single county in 1880. What little community may have existed among the Croatians had disappeared by the turn of the century.

The early twentieth century saw several new strikes in Nevada which in turn drew new immigrants to the western fields. The Croatians who came after 1900 differed from their earlier kinsmen. They came from the interior of Croatia for the most part, rather than the Dalmatian coast. They were, for the most part, simple people who worked as unskilled laborers. Few prospered in business as had many of the earlier settlers. Unlike the civic leaders of the 1870s, the later Croatian's name was recorded only in the annals of mine deaths, shootings and saloon brawls. Finally, the second wave differed in the very important aspect of ethnic awareness. Most had strong regional pride and found themselves at odds with the established Dalmatians. Unlike the early days of the Mother Lode where Croatians and Serbians worked side-by-side in the gold fields, the new Croatians were often virtually at war with local Serbian miners, as well as Chinese, Irish, Italians or any other group who competed with them in the field of cheap labor for the mines.

In some instances it was the early Croatian settlers who were the worst abusers of the new arrivals. A major dispute broke out in the city of Tonopah in 1907 when both the Tonopah Daily Sun and the Tonopah Bonanza charged that George Davidovich was "importing" large numbers of "Slav foreigners" to work the mines. The local newspapers saw this as a threat to "American" miners and noted that "the employment of non-English speaking foreigners is bad for Tonopah.." [93]

In 1914 the Nevada Legislature went so far as to pass a law making it mandatory for miners to speak and read English. It was struck down by the Nevada Supreme Court within a month. [94]

As the backbone of the mining industry, the Croatians, Serbs, Italians and Greeks did join forces to strive for better working conditions in the mines and all were persecuted during the early years of the labor movement. Despite membership in various unions, it was not until the 1930s that any real changes took place in the mines due to the New Deal's NLRB intervention in labor strife.

By 1930 the second silver boom had died in Nevada and for the first time in Nevada's history emigration exceeded immigration. Many Croatians and Serbs returned to what they hoped would be an improved life in a new country known as Yugoslavia.

Most of the Croatians who remained severed all ties with their past as the inner-war period saw a wave of isolationism sweep America. According to the last census there were 175 foreign born "Yugoslavs" in Nevada and perhaps a thousand second and third generation Croatians scattered throughout the state. The yearly Yugoslav reunion in Reno and the White Pine Slavic Club, both sparsely attended, are the only visible reminder of the Croatian presence in Nevada and the South Slavic contribution to the Silver State.

[88] Lenore Marie Kosso, "Yugoslavs of Nevada" (MA thesis, University of Nevada at Reno, 1974), p. 21.

[89 Hubert H. Bancroft, Bancroft's Works, vol. XXV: Nevada (San Francisco: The History Company, 1890), pp. 207-212.

[90] Adam S. Eterovich, Jugoslavs in Nevada 1859-1900 (San Fran-cisco: R & E Research, 1973),pp. 98-99.

[93] Kosso, "Yugoslavs of Nevada," p. 52, citing Tonopah Daily Sun, 7 August 1907, p. 1.

[94] Kosso, "Yugoslavs of Nevada," p. 52, citing Tonopah Daily Sun, 8 March 1915, p. 1.

One year after the gold rush began, San Francisco had gone from ghost town to one of the busiest ports in the world. It was through this port that most Croatians entered California, whether directly from Europe or via New Orleans. When they returned from the gold fields, rich or poor, the city was their first choice for new homes and businesses.

While many Croatian miners, like those of every nationality, went "bust" in the fields, there were other reasons for the retreat from the Mother Lode back to the cities and farms. Not the least of these reasons was the Foreign Miner's Tax. The massive influx of foreigners into the state caused concern among American miners. In 1850, for example, thirty-six thousand immigrants entered the port of San Francisco. Half had come directly from foreign ports and many of those coming from American ports, such as New York or New Orleans, may have only been in the country a matter of days or weeks.[95] In 1852 there were some 66,988 immigrants, including 20,000 Chinese, fourteen of whom were women.[96] From 1853 through 1855, 117,141 more arrived at the port and an untold number came overland. With an estimated population of 264,435 in 1852, California had over 27,000 Chinese and thousands of other foreign-born laborers willing to work long hours for low wages.

In the first of many laws that would discriminate against the foreigner in California, especially Orientals, the Foreign Miner's Tax was instituted in 1854 against 109,140 miners of other than American citizenship. The tax was progressive, becoming higher each year. The first result was to drive thousands of Chinese from the gold fields to the cities and often back to China. They were soon followed by others, the Croatians included.[97]

Settling in the waterfront district, the Croatians established themselves in San Francisco's infamous Barbary Coast. Named after the pirate-infested shores of North Africa, the district was described as a collection of "shabby little dens, with rough, hangdog fellows loung-ing about their doorways; fellows with their features concealed by slouched hats; fellows who always had a way of sliding out of sight when you looked at them.."[98]

Among the earliest Croatians in the area was Nikola Barovich who arrived from Janjina, Dalmatia via Cape Horn in 1849 on board the Dalmatian ship "Fanica." He soon opened a saloon in the heart of what would become the nearest thing to a Croatian district in the city: Davis Street. He would later own saloons in Sonora and the Nevada Territory and was one of the early members of the Committee of Vigilance organized in 1851 to bring order to the lawless city.[99]

By 1859 there were over fifty Croatian businesses on Davis Street, mostly saloons, and by the early 1860s they had been joined by Croatian-owned coffee houses, restaurants and fruit vendors. Other merchants entered such diverse trades as broom-making and furniture selling. Between 1850 and 1900 some one thousand Croatian enterprises flourished in the city.[100]

On November 17, 1857 at 56 Government House on what is now the Embarcadero, the first Croatian or South Slavic organization in the New World was founded by the Croatians of San Francisco. It was called the Slavonic Illyric Mutual and Benevolent Society and was established primarily as a burial insurance organization.[101] In 1861 a Slavonic Plot was established in a Catholic cemetery for the Croatian pioneers of the city, also a New World first.[102]

In 1870 the Croatian population of the city exceeded three thousand and the business directory for that year listed over 140 South Slavic businesses, most of which were Dalmatian-owned.[103]

While most of the Croatian businesses remained clustered around the northeastern corner of the city, the people did not. Croatians began to make their homes in every part of the city and as travel improved, the Bay Area.

According to Adam S. Eterovich, eighteen of the twenty-nine coffee houses in the city in 1869 were Croatian-owned.[104] Perhaps hundreds of Croatian coffee houses, saloons, and restaurants have come and gone in the city's history. Only a few have survived. One is Mayes, founded in 1867 which still operates on Polk Street. Tadich's Grill is the oldest restaurant in San Francisco. It was established in 1849 as a tent on the corner of Leidesdorff and Commercial Streets. In 1882, now a tin shed, it was purchased by John V. Tadich who arrived from his native Starigrad in 1871. Like most Croatians, he settled on Davis Street just north of Pacific. He joined the

Slavonic Illyrian Society and was secretary of that organization from 1879 through 1882.[105] His business flourished under the name Tadich's Grill and the Cold Day Restaurant for many years at several locations. When he retired in 1929 it was located on Clay Street. Today Tadich's Grill is to be found at 240 California Street and is still managed by Joe and Steve Tadich. John Tadich was one of early San Francisco's best-known Croatian pioneers and was an active participant in most Croatian and later Yugoslav affairs. During World War I he was president of the Croatian League and in 1918 he organized the Yugoslav Relief Committee to aid war victims in his homeland.[106]

While the business directories listed restaurateurs, saloon keepers and some fruit vendors, the majority of the Croatian population remained, as had their fathers, people of the sea. Fishermen, pilots, captains, mates, and sailors were professions which had long before earned the sons of Dalmatia a reputation for excellence. Pilots of the San Francisco Bay and San Joaquin and Sacramento Delta waterways had to be among the best of their trade. The fog shrouded rocks of the Golden Gate are tombstones for a graveyard of ships. Captains Mario Marini of Dubrovnik and Vincent Politeo of Starigrad were two of the bay's earliest Dalmatian captains. But best known, even outside the Croatian community, was Captain John Silovich, a Master Mariner from Split. Having studied at the School of Navigation, he became one of the best bar pilots on the bay prior to his retirement in the 1920s.[107]

Another famous sea captain of the period was Stjepan Splivalo of Peljasac, Dalmatia. He sailed his two-masted bark "Santa Teresa" from Europe, around the Cape of Africa to India, China and across the Pacific to San Francisco. Like many captains of his time he traded not only in cargo, but in human lives as well. While the thousands of Chinese who were brought to California were not slaves, their legal status was little better than serfdom. Many died in route to America and on one occasion Captain Splivalo lost must of his human cargo as a result of locking his charges in a sealed, unlit hold without food or water for several days to weather a storm. In 1894 Splivalo brought one of the early steam-driven paddle wheelers, the "California," into the Golden Gate. The Mississippi River-type boats would become a common sight on the bay and Delta from 1900 until 1940. In later years Splivalo ran a store in Sutter Creek and later moved to San Jose where his home still stands and he and his wife are buried.[l08] Captain Spivalo's son, Augustus D. Spivalo, was said to have been born on board his father's ship on a trip from Chile to San Francisco.[109] He became a prominent lawyer in San Jose and served one term' in the California State Assembly.[110]

The 1880 to 1900 period saw a new wave of immigrants come to San Francisco, founding new societies, new halls, and their own communities. From that time on there have always been "old-timers" and "newcomers" in the community, often at odds with one another on political matters while united in religion and love of the homeland. In 1919, 1946, and 1971 the "newcomers" became "old-timers" as new groups arrived in America. Still other Croatians would continue to arrive in California from New Orleans, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York. By 1902 a Croatian parish had been established and it is today one of the few churches outside Dubrovnik to celebrate Sveti Vlaho (Saint Blaise) Feast Day, in commemoration of the patron saint of Dubrovnik.[111] The city of San Francisco continued to grow, fueling other nearby settlements. The Croatian community of the city became the center of Croatian activity in northern California and the starting point for other communities in the surrounding counties.

Like the city itself, the Croatian community of Oakland is an offspring of its rival across the bay, San Francisco. The Croatian presence in the city is a direct outgrowth of the powerful earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906 which sent thousands of people across the bay in search of temporary housing. Many never returned to San Francisco.

In 1907, only one year after the great quake, the "Tomislav" Lodge of the Narodne Hrvatske Zajednice was formed by Oakland members of the San Francisco "Zvonimir" Lodge.[112] The lodge continues today as Lodge 121 "Tomislav" of the Croatian Fraternal Union.

In later years many members of the Oakland community worked on the docks of the Port of Oakland while others found employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad. As reflected in the works of Jack London, Oakland became a center for poor working people, especially those of foreign birth, while San Francisco remained the cultural center of the region.

By the mid-1930s there were half a dozen Croatian and Yugoslav societies in Oakland with a Croatian population estimated at between three and four thousand.[113] While there was never a Croatian church in Oakland in name, in 1937 it was recorded that, "there is what may be called a Croatian Church. Although not owned by them, they have services, missions and entertainments in the buildings."[114] The church referred to was St. Patrick's in west Oakland which served the Croatian community well into the 1940s.[115]

Today one Croatian Fraternal Union chapter remains in Oakland while another is found in nearby Richmond. Oakland has become the center of Yugoslav activity in the Bay Area and several Yugoslav organizations are centered there. Oakland is the headquarters of the Slavic-American Society which sponsors the Yugoslav-Academic Association of the Pacific, a Yugoslav-American radio program and other activities.[116]

Stretching north from the Golden Gate are miles of rugged coast, redwood trees and fishing villages. Inland the wine making regions of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendicino counties have sprouted a number of towns and cities. In small numbers, Croatians have moved into each of these areas.

Eureka, the northernmost large city in California, is the home of a small colony of descendants of Dalmatian fishermen who settled there around the turn of the century. A lodge of the Croatian Fraternal Union continues to meet there monthly.[117] To the south is Fort Bragg, a center for the coastal redwood lumber industry. Croatians began to arrive there in 1892 as foresters. During the early years of this century, a number of Croatians worked for the Union Lumber Company and by 1921 there were a sufficient number to open Lodge 17 of the Hrvatske Sveze na Pacificu (Croatian Unity of the Pacific) which survived until the mid-1960s as Lodge 887 of the Croatian Fraternal Union.[118]

In the wine country, Croatian colonies still exist in Santa Rosa, Yountville and Petaluma. Although sizable in number relative to the total population of these towns, there are few organized activities and many of the residents have little or no ethnic awareness. Those who do often are found at Croatian functions in San Francisco or even San Jose.[119]

Many Croatians, particularly those of peasant stock, found life in the country preferable to the city and settled in the rich Santa Clara Valley to the south of San Francisco Bay. A number of Croatian families settled in Santa Clara and became fruit growers.

Among the earliest of these settlers was Marko Ragusin, one of the first pioneers in Sacramento who later moved to San Jose to open a saloon in 1857.[120] Nikola Barovich came to California in 1849 and settled in San Jose in 1882 where he opened the Dalmatia Hotel. One of the pioneer horticulturists was Ante Zarevich who established himself in Cupertino in 1886. He was soon joined by Andrew Lepesh who worked on a fruit ranch and later purchased his own fruit store. A partnership, the Lepesh-Mise grocery, existed well into the mid-1940s.[121]

The parents of two of the San Jose community's most famous residents were also pioneers of the region. Peter and Anne Suzzalo were first listed in 1870. Their son Henry, would become president of the Carnegie Foundation. Mateo and Elizabeth Arnerich settled in San Jose in 1858 as two of the earliest Croatian settlers, gave birth to two sons who would serve in the State Assembly.[122]

By 1930 the Croatians had established over a dozen Croatian and Slavic societies in San Jose and Santa Clara County. The oldest, the Austrian American Benevolent Society was established in 1873. The Napredak Club was formed in 1925 and two years later that group purchased its first hall, an abandoned school. By 1935 they had outgrown the structure and sold shares for a new building on the same site, known as Napredak Park. The building was opened as the New Napredak Hall on April 19, 1936 and continues to serve as a center of activity for the Croatian Fraternal Union and other groups in Santa Clara County.[123] San Jose is also the location of the largest Croatian hall in northern California, the Croatian Catholic Center.

One of the best-known families in the Santa Clara Valley has long been the Chargin family. Although a Lawrence Chirigin (b.1817) was mining gold in California in 1859, most of the Chargins now in California are descendants of a single native of the island of Brac who had no fewer than twenty-one children by at least two wives. It was an elder son of this man, Nick (1890-1970) who came to California in 1901. On the advice of his lawyer, he later changed his name to Chargin. The original Croatian name, Kirigin, was "too Irish" he was told. As in much of the United States at that time, Irish were looked down upon in businesses and the professions.[124]

Nick was followed by his brothers, sisters and cousins, many of whom settled in the San Jose area. The Chargins were active members of both social and ethnic organizations in the Valley. In 1937 Joseph Chargin was President of the Jugoslav Benevolent Society Brac, city postmaster, and a member of a number of groups, including the Slavonic Alliance, of which his wife was vice-president.[125]

Throughout California, Chargin means "law." By 1977 it could be said that fifteen members of the family were active lawyers in California, half that number were retired lawyers and another fifteen lawyers were deceased. Included in that number is Judge Gerald Chargin who was appointed in 1959 and retired in 1976. Judge Anne Chargin serves the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Fresno, while her husband is the Public Defender of San Joaquin County in Stockton. Other Chargins serve on the Public Defender's staff in Los Angeles and Sacramento. [126]

With the gradual demise of the aging Croatian Hall in downtown San Francisco and the movement of most of the Croatian population of that city to south Bay cities, San Jose has become increasingly important as a center of Croatian activity in northern California. The Croatian population of San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley can easily be estimated at well over eight thousand.[127] Indicative of this are the dozens of events held at the various Croatian centers, the presence of no fewer than three Croatian Fraternal Union lodges in the area and the large number of clubs, tamburitza orchestras, and folk dance groups.

One hundred miles south of San Francisco lies the rich Paharo Valley ("Valley of The Birds"). The first white men to see the valley were those of the Portola expedition on October 8, 1769. In 1852 the town of Watsonville was established after a man named Jesse D. Carr planted the first apple orchard in the region.[128]

The apples grew well and by 1860 the town of 460 was primarily engaged in the cultivation of apple trees. A few would take their crop as far as San Jose to sell or exchange for other goods. Although nobody took notice at the time, a revolution took place in 1876 that would forever change the little valley and town. A Croatian from San Jose appeared in the valley. His name was Marco Rabasa and he wanted to buy apples.

"From farm to farm he went, buying a tree here, half a tree there, much to the astonishment of the in-habitants. Buying all they would sell him, he then rented a little shed, bought a horse and a little wagon, and set up a sign and a rubber stamp bearing the following: ‘Mark Rabasa, Apple Dealer.’"[129]

The first commercial apple dealership in the region was established and the Watsonville apple industry was born. Rabasa, born in Dalmatia in 1832, was an American citizen who had come to California via New York. He was an established member of the Croatian community in San Jose and an officer of the Austrian Benevolent Society of that city in 1878.[129]

Rabasa brought other Croatians into his business and soon there was an influx of Croatians into the region. In 1871 Watsonville had a population of 2000 people, none of whom were Croatian. By the turn of the century the town would have the largest concentration of Croatians west of the Mississippi Valley. The progress of the Croatian migration to the area was classically described by Jack London in his book "Valley of The Moon," written around 1910:

"Do you know what they call Pajaro Valley now? New Dalmatia. We're being squeezed out. We Yankees thought we were smart. Well, the Dalmatians came along and showed they were smarter. They were miserable immigrants ... First, they worked at a day's labor in the fruit harvest. Next they began ... buying apples on the trees ... Pretty soon they were renting the orchards on long leases. And now, they are beginning to buy the land. It won't be long before they own the whole valley..."[130]

It wasn't long. Although London's character feared that the Dalmatians would "buy the Americans out," the Croatian inspired business was an economic boom for all the people of the valley, though the Croatians did indeed control the industry and the economy of the valley for years thereafter. The Croatians brought not only the skill of growing apples; "they have way with apples.. .a gift," London's character remarked, but marketing skills as well.

"These Adriatic Slavs are long-headed in business. No Market?.. .Make a Market ... Why, those Dalmatians are showing Pajaro apples on the South African market right now..."[131]

By 1909 the Valley was producing 2,560,000 boxes of apples per year and the largest growers, shippers and merchants were Croatians. The Stolich Brothers' concern at Walker and 5th Streets covered nine thousand square feet in 1908. Two blocks down the street, Gurash & Stolich rivaled them for size and production. By 1910 Pajaro was the largest apple producing region in the world and the Croatian-grown and marketed apples could be found in every corner of the world.[132]

One of the early apple barons was Mateo Lettunich, who with his sons Louis and Nick, established one of the largest orchards in the Valley. He began as a dishwasher. By 1910 he controlled over eight hundred acres of apples, packed some 50,000 boxes for export per year and was easily a millionaire with land holdings in excess of three million dollars. Jack London wrote that at least ten of the Croatians had an annual income in excess of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by 1910. [133] Another leader in the Valley apple industry was Luka Scurich, who helped organize and finance the "Apple Annual" in 1910 which became an annual event and the largest apple exposition in the world in later years.[134]

One Croatian-backed marketing innovation was the Watsonville Transportation Company. Because the community had refused to make large land concessions to the Southern Pacific railroad, that firm routed its line through nearby Pajaro in 1871, forcing the apple growers to take their crops to that town for shipping by wagon. In 1903 Robert W. Eaton, F. A. Kilburn and Croatian apple grower Stephen Scurich joined assets to form the Watsonville Transportation Company. The firm constructed a narrow-gauge rail line from Watsonville to Port Rogers where they constructed a 1300 foot warf into the Pacific. In March 1904 they began operations with four flatcars, two boxcars, and two passenger cars on the electrically-powered line. Fruit and passengers were taken by rail to the end of the warf where they were put on board the company owned-ship, the "Kilburn." A modern coastal steamer of 175 feet, the ship had forty-five staterooms and a large cargo hold. Fully laden with apples and officials, she made her first voyage to San Francisco on April 16, 1904.[135]

The line prospered and most of the Croatian growers patronized the service. During its first year of operation the company grossed over fifty thousand dollars. But the same year saw the virtual destruction of the company’s assets as two major storms hit the coast, wiping out the warf, tracks, and cars and damaging the "Kilburn." The Southern Pacific railroad took advantage of this natural blow to reduce their rates to half that of the Watsonville line, effectively killing the company. By 1905 the company had lost most of its business, was unable to repair the warf and could not pay the "Kilburn" out of the repair docks. The company was declared bankrupt in September of that year. What little was left was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1906 and today no trace remains of the little railroad-ship line.[136]

As the Croatian community grew larger and more prosperous, many Croatians moved from the apple industry to other trades. Croatian businessmen were to be found in every part of Watsonville and many who had grown wealthy in the orchards put their money back into the community in business investments. Around the turn of the century Mateo Lettunich commissioned William Weeks, one of the region's best architects, to build a large home in Watsonville. On the same block Weeks designed and built a large home for Lettunich's brother. In 1905 the brothers purchased the city's grandest hotel, the Mansion House, built in 1871. They had the hotel moved to Main Street where it still stands. On the original site they built the four-story Lettunich Building which was completed in 1914 at a cost of over one hundred thousand dollars.[137]

Other historic Croatian buildings were to be found forming the heart of Watsonville. In 1892 the firm of S. Strazicich and N. Bencovich used apple money to purchase the Western Hotel at 208 Main Street. It was the oldest hotel in the Pajaro Valley. They completely refurbished the structure inside and out, renaming it The Morning Star Hotel.[138] A local newspaper carried the news on August 7, 1889 when the Morning Star was opened:

"The ‘Kuhlitz’ House has been painted, and thoroughly cleaned and newly furnished throughout and will here after be known as the Morning Star Hotel. They guaranty that good board and clean beds at reasonable rates may always be had at the Morning Star. First class bar is attached to the hotel where a good free lunch is always to be found. Board and lodging per week 4.50 to 5.00; single meals 25 cents." (sic) [139] The Morning Star burned to the ground in December 1929.

In 1911 George Strazicich purchased the old Sprekles Office Building, moving it to Lake and Walker Streets next to his existing Strazicich Building. The Marinovich Building on the plaza appeared at about the same time as did the Kalich Building on Main Street.[140]

By 1927 the city was ready for its first "modern" hotel. Brothers Mike, Louis and Mitchell Resetar, again using apple dollars, enlisted the services of architect Weeks to design the city's finest hotel ever. When completed the five-story Hotel Resetar boasted one hundred rooms and baths, its own parking garage, two flag poles and the largest electric sign in town. It was also "Earthquake and Fireproof." [141] The building still stands and was sold out of the family in 1969. The Resetars still represent the major cold storage and refrigeration supplier for the Valley's perishable vegetables.

In 1909 the Croatian flavor of the city could be seen by looking at the baseball team. The twelve members of the California Conference Champions included John Novacovich, pitcher; Steve Nemanich, relief pitcher; John Novacovich' (not related), catcher, and Louis Kalich at second base.[142] Today that same flavor can be seen in every part of the city. Building names, street names and company names, all reflect the city's Croatian heritage. A number of Croatian organizations exist including the Slavic American Benevolent Society of Watsonville which was founded in 1898, "Victory" Lodge 352 of the Croatian Fraternal Union and a number of kolo and singing groups.

In 1951 Watsonville elected its first Croatian mayor, Dr. P. B. Marinovich, son of Mr. and Mrs.

F. P. Marinovich of Dalmatia. Dr. Marinovich was born in Watsonville in 1896, attended local schools and took his M.D. at Saint Louis University. He was very active in Slavic affairs and was a contributor to the book Slavonic Pioneers of California, published in 1932.[143] He served as mayor from 1951 through 1953. Another famous native son was Nicholas Alaga, Ph.D., who was born in Watsonville in 1912 and served as a special agent in the United States, Hawaii, and the Philippines with the FBI from 1937 through 1947 and continued his private law practice into the 1970s.[144]

A few miles from Watsonville is a beautiful and secluded region known as the Uvas Valley

("Valley of Gapes"). In a state known for its wine regions, there are few places where wild grapes could be found when the Spanish arrived. One such place was the Uvas Valley which boasted wild grapes, perfect soil, perfect climate, and even artesian wells to facilitate the art of wine making.

The site of the artesian well served as a home to Mexican revolutionary leader Joaquin Solis during the early 1820s.[145] After the revolt of 1829, Solis was banished and in 1842 Governor Alvarado granted the entire rancho of 13,000 acres to Lorenzo Pineda. The land was later broken into smaller holdings, but the house remained as did the ancient winery.[146]

The Uvas Winery was owned by the Bonisio family from 1917 until it was sold to a Croatian businessman from Los Angeles named Bud Matek and a wine master named Nikola Kirigin-Chargin. The Chargin family, known exclusively as lawyers in California, were winemakers in Croatia. Only one of the immigrants, Nikola, continued the trade.

He came to the United States in 1959 with his wife and three sons. A graduate of the University of Zagreb in chemistry and enology, he quickly found work in the wine industry. During the 1960s he became chief enologist and chemist for the San Martin Winery and later the Almaden Winery in California. He then moved to upstate New York where he served the Canandaigua Wine Company before returning to California to become vice-president and chief chemist of the Perrelli-Minetti & Sons concern in Delano.[147]

After a distinguished career which brought gold medals to a number of wineries, Kirigin—Chargin retired to his own small winery in partnership with Matek. The 1977 yield of 35,000 gallons of wine makes Kirigin Cellars one of California's smaller wineries. It is, however, one of the few to have two resident enologists and its products attest to the skill bred on the island of Brac, honed at the University of Zagreb, and transplanted to the fertile soil of California.[148]

[95] Frank Soule, John H. Gihon and James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco (New York: Appleton & Co., 1854), p. 300.

[97] Dorthy H. Huggins, Continuation of the Annals of San Francisco (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1939), pp. 27, 67.

[98] T. A. Barry and B. A. Patten, Men and Memories of San Francisco in The Spring of ‘50 (S.F.: Bancroft, 1873), p. 155.

[101] Anton J. Sambuck, "Slavonic Mutual and Benevolent Society," in Slavonic Pioneers, ed. Meler, p. 38.

[102] Adam S. Eterovich, "Croatian Cemetery Records of San Francisco California 1849-1930," Balkan & East European American Genealogical & Historical Society I (June 1964): 1.

[103] Adam S. Eterovich, "Jugoslavs in San Francisco," BEEAGHS Quarterly V (June 1967):

[110] Don A. Allen, Legislative Source Book (Sacramento: Calif. State Assembly, 1965), p. 347. Tadich, Ibid., erroneously stated that Splivalo was a State Senator.

[111] Hrvatsko Dubrovacko Dructo, Sveti Vlaho Festival (San Fran-cisco, 1972), n.p.

[112] Katica Sabatini, "Jugoslavenska Naseobina U Oaklandu," in Slavonic Pioneers, ed. Meler, p. 80.

[114] Stephen Sestanovich, ed. Slavs in California (Oakland: Slavonic Alliance of California, 1937), p. 98.

[117] Croatian Fraternal Union, 1977 Lodge Directory (Pittsburgh:Croatian Fraternal Union, 1977), p. 1.

[118] Ivan Buzdon, "Hrvatska Kolonija U Mjestu Fort Bragg," in Slavonic Pioneers, ed. Meler,

p. 88; "Adresar Odbornika Odsjeka Hrvatske Bratske Zajednice," Zajedicar, 25 March 1964, p. 5.

[122] Henry Suzzalo and the brothers Arnerich are dealt with in greater detail in Chapter X "Empire Builders" of this study.

[124] Interview with Nikola Kirigin-Chargin, Gilroy, California, 22 February 1978.

[127] Prpic, in Croatian Immigrants, p. 393, estimated 6000 in 1971, just prior to the great influx of 1972. Since that time San Jose has experienced the most phenomenal growth of any major city in North America: 20.5% between 1970 and 1975. During the same period both San Francisco and Oakland lost over seven percent of their population.

[l28] Fred W. Atkinson, 100 Years in The Pajaro Valley From 1769-1868 (Watsonville: Register and Pajaronian Press, 1935), pp. 5, 67.

[129] Marinovich, "Jugoslav Pioneers of the Apple Industry in Watsonville," in Slavonic Pioneers, ed. Meler, p. 52.

[130] Jack London, The Valley of The Moon (New York: Macmillan, 1913), p. 363. Some writers, unfamiliar with California, have taken Valley of the Moon to be synonymous with the Pajaro Valley and have written of the large Croatian settlement there. Although there are some Croatians in the Valley of the Moon (Sonoma Valley), it is far north of the Pajaro Valley in Sonoma County. London's book deals with a number of regions in northern California at the turn of the century and only one is devoted to the Pajaro region. See Chapter XXXXIII "Jack London in Sonoma Valley" in Celeste G. Murphy's The People of The Pueblo (Sonoma: Author, 1937), pp. 261-266.

[132] Betty Lewis, Watsonville Memories That Linger (Fresno: Valley Publishers, 1976), pp. 17, 172-3.

[l38] Morning Star ("Danica") is a typically Croatian name that became famous as the name of a Croatian newspaper advocating the rights of Slavic minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, first published in 1835. Its publication is considered by some to mark the beginning of the Illyrian Movement. "Danica" survives today as the oldest Croatian newspaper in America. See Elinor M. Despalatovic, Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement (NY: East European Quarterly, 1975).

[144] Vladimir Markotic, ed., Biographical Directory of Americans and Canadians of Croatian Descent (Calgary: Research Centere for Can-adian Ethnic Studies, 1973), p. 1.

[145] Phyllis Butler, The Valley of Santa Clara, Historical Build-ings 1792-1920 (San Jose: Junior League of San Jose, 1975), p. 185.

[147] "Kirigin Cellars is New Name of Bonesio Winery in Calif.,"Wines & Vines, (December 1976): 8.

[148] Interview with Nikola Kirigin-Chargin, Gilroy, California, 22 February 1978.

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