Excerpt from
Excerpt from
Santa Cruz The EarlyYears,
by Leon Rowland
The Robles Boys
The Roblesboys were hombres malos (bad boys) , in the estimation of the respectablepeople of Branciforte.
They torearound the countryside on horseback-not always careful whose horses they rode -and caught the girls’ eyes in their velveteen breeches with silver filigreetrimming, their satin jackets, their earrings and silk sashes, which sometimescost the price of a horse and a mare for a single one.
They madetrips over the hills to San Jose, where the frequented the cantinas and thegambling houses, imbibing aguardiente and flinging away pesos as though theywere nothing but reales. A ride offorty miles around the bay to Monterey was nothing in their careless younglives.
They weredisrespectful to the alcalde and his regidores, who sought to restrain them,and brought sorrow on the head of their father, but they made the hearts of themaidens of old Branciforte flutter.
There wereeight of them, but the older ones were more staid. It was Teodoro, Nicolas, Avelino and Fulgencio, the children ofthe later years of old Jose Antonio Robles, the 1797 poblador (originalsettler) from Guadalajara, who ran wild over the countryside and came to a bandend.
Two of themmet violent deaths. Fulgencio was shotby Gil Sanchez, the tithe collector, atthe bidding of Juz de Paz Juan Gonzales, and Brancifortians mostly agreed hedeserved his fate.
Fulgenciorode on horseback right into the adobe of Lawrence Carmichael, while a jovial group of leading Brancifortians wasspending the evening gambling. Montereyauthorities did not agree with Branciforte opinion and Gonzales and Sanchezwere sentenced to a year of exile from Branciforte.
Anotherresult of Sanchez’ shot was that dark-eyed Concepcion Salzar, Fulgencio’s wifeof a few years, had to court to recover from his brothers his possessions,which consisted of his gay clothing and his horses.
All thathappened, however, three years after the most exciting event in the story ofthe Robles boys of Branciforte. In 1839they raise so much disturbance that Perfect Jose Castro, in command of all ofnorthern California, had to send a squad of soldiers over from San Juan Bautistato take them there for trial.
The quartetof hard-riding young Californians resisted and Avelino was so daring in hisdefiance of military authority that he was shot by Soldado (soldier) FelipeEspinosa and died in twenty-four hours.
It was an excitingtime in Branciforte and Governor Alvarado did not entirely approve. It was, in fact, Avelino’s death whichprobably saved his younger brother, Nicolas, the principal offender, from asever sentence at hard labor on the fortifications at Monterey. Nicolas already had a bad record for hisdisregard of ownership of horses he picked to ride.
The olderboys of the eight had gone into the army as soon as they were sixteen orseventeen years old. They had marriedwhile they were serving their ten-year terms of enlistment and become moresettled.
Their storyreally goes back to Zacatecas, where their father was born. He was married to Gertrudis Merlopes andfather of a baby daughter, Ines, when Viceroy Branciforte offered him a chanceto go as a poblador (original settler) of a new city in Alta California.
The offerwas a hansome one, with traveling expenses, a five-year subsidy, land and achance to buy tools and cattle on credit.
Only eightyoung Guadalajarenos who took advantage of the offer reached Branciforte andonly the more dependable of them really took hold to make homes, after they gotover their disappointment at not finding the promised tile-roofed adobes whichwere to be theirs by gift of the king.
Antonio andGetrudis Robles were among those made of sterner stuff and settled down withoutdemur, building their own adobe and thatching it with tule grass.
Getrudiswas kept busy. Baby Ines was only two years old when they came on the Concepcionup the coast to Monterey. Jose Antoniode los Nieves was born almost as soon as the family arrived atBranciforte. Eugenia came along in1800, Rafael two years later, Raimundo in 1804 and Antonio a year later. Teodoro, Avelino, Secundino, maria Guadalupe,Nicolaus, Fulgencio and Estefana came in rapid succession.
JoseAntonio de los Nieves died in 1822, only a few months after he had taken as abirde Petra Vasquez. His sonPolicarpio, was born after Jose Antonio’s death.
Rafael wentinto the army and discipline induced in him a sober conduct. Raimundo served his ten-year enlistment inthe presidio company of San Francisco,which supplied the guards for the escoltas (escorts) of the northern missions, came home to marry PerfectaCastro, but died when he was thirty-three.
Teodoro,Avelino, Nicolas and Fulgencio, the wild youngsters, normally lived with theirfather and mother in the home adobe on the hill east of Branciforte creek, butherded cattle for many of their neighbors when they were not makingsurreptitious trips to San Jose or Monterey.
The boyswere in continual trouble with the authorities. One of Nicolas’ trips to San Jose when he was nineteen wasimmediately followed by the arrival in Branciforte of Jose Cibrian, sent by Alcalde Pedro Chabolla with a message that acinnamon-colored horse belonging to Antonio Higuera of that pueblo couldundoubtedly be found in the possession of Nicolas, and was to be delivered toCibrian.
That was inFebruary of 1834. Gray-haired AntonioBolcoff, the Russian, was juez de paz (justice of the peace) inBranciforte. he sent Juan Jose Castro,one of his regidores, to interrogate youn Nicolas, who met him so belligerentlythat Bolcoff ordered him under arrest and wrote the Monterey authorities he wassending Nicolas there in handcuffs.
Nicolas’father, the old poblador (settler) who had come thirty-seven years earlier, wasstill influential. He had held hisfirst public office when he was elected regidor in 1805 and by 1817 had beenmad comisionado. Twice, in 1827 and1833 he had been picked by his fellow townsmen to be named jusz by thegovernor.
WhenNicolas was sent in fetters to Monterey his saddened father called on one ofhis old friends in the capital and Frederico Antomount went bond for Nicolasuntil he could be tried.
ManuelJimeno Caserin, Governor Alvarado’s secretary of state, investigated the caseand wrote over to Bolcoff that if he would draw up formal charges Nicolas wouldbe tried in the court which had to do with vagrants and petty offenders. Nicolas’ punishment was mild, however, andhe was quickly back in Branciforte with his brothers.
One of thebeauties of Branciforte was dark-eyed Lucia Soria. Her father, Francisco, had already served a year as juez de paz(justice of the peace) and was later to be juez de campo and , just before thecoming of American rule, to be second alcalde.
Young Luciacame of good family. One of hergrandfathers had been Jose Soria, alcalde of Monterey, who had died at hiscountry home in Branciforte in 1828. hehad been a native of Tequila in the bishopric of Guadalajara. Her maternal grandfather had been an old soldier,Joaquin Juarez.
Fourteen-year-oldLucia caught the eye of the dashing young Nicolas Robles. It is more thanlikely, too, that Nicolas, despite known wildness, or perhaps because of it,was observed in his velveteen and satin with filigree buttons and his earrings,by the youthful Lucia.
Lucia’sfather did all he could to halt their romance, and quite justifiably, for in1838 Nicolas was again afoul of the law. Alcalde Dolores Pacheco in San Jose wrote in February that NicolasRobles was again suspect in a horse stealing case. The animal this time was the property of Jose Romero.
The lawlessNicolas did not this time get off so easily. Filiciano Soberane4s, alcalde in Monterey , heard his case. He was fined twenty-five pesos and given apassport to Santa Barbara, with an intimation that he should made his residencethere or further south, not to come back to Monterey, Branciforte or San Jose until permitted.
Nicolas, ofcourse, had no worldly goods except his flashing garments, his saddle and hishorses. His father, sixty-three yearsold, retired and full of honors, was called on to pay the fine, which he did bydelivery to Alcade Buelna of two horses, one trained to ride and the otherbroken to haul a cart.
Termsof “exile” of those days seldom lastedlong and early in 1839 Nicolas was back at his father’s home, riding againaround the shore of Monterey bay with his three brothers, drinking aguardienteand making himself a general nuisance.
Lucia,fifteen years old by this time, was ready to welcome him back but her fatherwas correspondingly sorry. Love foundmeans to circumvent parental opposition. Francisco Soria soon appeared before Alcalde Buelna with a complaintthat Nicolas Robles had cut through the laced rawhide of a window in his adobe,helped Lucia out the opening, and that the pair had fled to the hills.
It wasdecided that the offense was one against the laws of the church and the casewas laid before Francisco Soto, administrator of the ex-mission of Santa Cruz, across the river.
Soto agreedwith Alcalde Buelna that something had to be done. It was too flagrant a case.
With treemen who, trusting to their superior number, did not trouble to arm themselveswith any of the municipal muskets, Soto went to the Robles paternal adobe andfound Nicolas and Lucia.
“In thename of the nation,” Nicolas was arrested.
But Nicolashad no intent of submitting. “Waituntil I get my hat,” he told the quartet and stepped inside the house, only toemerge with a leveled flintlock.
Soto,however, was not through with his efforts. he spurred away, through Sebastian Rodriguez’s rancho on the ParjaroRiver, to San Juan Bautista.
PerfectJose Castro detailed Subtentientes Joaquin de la Torre and Victor Lineres, with three privates, to go toBranciforte. Arriving at midnight theytook advantage of the hour to round up the four Robles, two young members ofthe Salazar family and Lucia herself.
The nextday the male prisoners were fastened together with a rope which bound the neckof each and told thy would have to walk to San Juan Bautista.
To theyoung Californians, accustomed to going even the shortest distance by horse, itwas the height of insult. Avelino torehis shirt from his back and threw it at the soldiers, telling them to use itfor gun wads.
Soto, themission administrator, ordered the soldiers to fire. Only one, Felipe Espinosa, obeyed. Avelino called to his brothers that he had been wounded. The soldiers lifted him on a horse and tookhim back to this house in Branciforte, where he died the next day.
The otherswere obliged to continue to San Juan Bautista where Castro held court,examining Lucian and her father as witnesses. Avelino’s death influenced the court and they were freed except foranother short exile to southern California for Nicolas.
Therelations of Lucia and Nicolas still troubled padre Antonio Real at Santa Cruzmission and on April 27, 1839, he wrote alcalde Buelna:
“In regardto Senorita Lucia Soria I ask that you take most efficacious and active stepsto learn where she is; and as soon as you have ascertained the truth have thekindness to notify me, as upon this information will depend my course. If she has gone to be married is thequestion. I wish to know if she is awife, or if I should take further steps.”
PadreReal’s anxiety was ended a year later. Nicolas and Lucia appeared at the mission to be married on May 1, 1841,was born Felipe Santiago, first of their three children. Nicolas died in 1844 and three years laterhis widow married Ramon Soto.