californias: antigua y nueva

··~I Map 17 I~··
Diego Troncoso, 1787
CALIFORNIAS: ANTIGUA Y NUEVA*
rn NGRAVED
~~
34 ))
AND PRINTED in Mexico City in 1787, Troncoso's map depicts the
~ extent of European settlement in Nueva, the present-day California, at this time,
eighteen years after the Spanish occupation of California in 1769. Troncoso's map shows
the location of the nine missions, of the ultimate number of twenty-one, founded by
Father Junipero Serra during his lifetime. The missions are connected by EI Camino
Real-The King's Highway-a route still largely followed by U.S. Highway 101. The four
Presidios at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco are located. The
Presidios were the centers of Spanish population, about 900 at this time, made up
primarily of military personnel and their families. There were only a few settlers. Two
short-lived missions on the Colorado River are shown; these were destroyed by the Yuma
Indians in 1781. Their hostility drove the Spanish from this region and ended the use of
the overland route through Sonora, Mexico, to Nueva California.
Although the map is simply drawn and has some geographical distortions, it shows
the "islands, ports, and rivers" of the coastal region of California, the region of Spanish
occupation. The representation of San Francisco Bay is based on the Spanish survey made
at the time of their first entry into the bay (map 16).
The map is one of the earliest known printed maps to show a boundary between the
two Californias. This line, just below San Diego, demarks the religious jurisdictions of
the Dominican (Antigua) and Franciscan (Nueva) religious orders. The final political
boundary was established in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, between Mexico
and the United States, that ended the war between the two countries.
The map was folded into the 344-page vellum bound Fr. Francisco Palau's biography
of Fr. Junipero Serra, Relacion historica de la vida y apostilcos tareas, del Venerable Padre
Fray Junipero Sera, Y de las Misones que funda en la California Septentrional, y nuevas
establecimientos de Monterey. It honored his mentor Serra who died in 1784. This is the
first book to give a history of Nueva California, and was the first published work written
almost entirely in it.
AWN
Californias: An- I tigua Y Nueva I Notas. I En esta Carta no se escribn. los nombrs. I de tods. las
Islas, Ptos, Rios, y demas, pro ser I hecha pa. solo demostras 10 ge. andubo, y Mi I sions. qe. fundo
en la Nva. Califa. el VP I Fr. Junipero Serra, Presidte. de Was. I La long. es arreglada al meridiano
de I S. Blas. I Diego Troncoso sc. Mexco. lao. 1787. [Engraved, 24.5 x 32.5 cm.]
* CALIFORNIAS: OLD AND NEW
Map courtesy of Alfred W Newman.