Badillo was "finally lynched about 1860, his body with that of his son being found one morning hanging to a tree with the feet very near the ground. A little granddaughter wept bitterly because the cruel Americans allowed her grandpapa to die when a little earth under his feet would have saved him! Another son known as Six-toed Pete escaped across the frontier."— Hubert Howe Bancroft
In June 1825, the schooner Nieves set sail from San Blas, carrying with it not only José María Echeandía, the newly appointed governor of California, but a contingent of men who would shape, for better or worse, the early years of Mexican rule in the region. Among them were two engineer officers—Alférez (second lieutenant) Romualdo Pacheco and Alférez Agustín V. Zamorano—both likely former students of Echeandía’s at the military engineering college he had directed. Pacheco was to serve as the governor’s aide-de-camp, while Zamorano, a man of precise discipline and methodical thinking, was appointed his secretary.
Also aboard was Alférez José María Ramírez, a cavalry officer whose exact role under Echeandía was, at this point, uncertain, as well as Alférez Patricio Estrada, who commanded a detachment of about forty infantrymen from the Fijo de Hidalgo battalion. Another young officer, Alférez Juan José Rocha, may have been on the Nieves, though some accounts suggest he arrived separately on the Morelos, a ship bound for Monterey.
The Morelos had departed Acapulco on March 25th and, by the time it reached San Blas, likely carried some of these same officers before they transferred to the Nieves for the final leg of the journey. Estrada and his men would remain in California for a decade, but history records little about their service. However, Pacheco, Zamorano, Rocha, and Ramírez would leave a distinct mark on the territory in the years to come.
While most of these men disembarked with Echeandía at Loreto and later traveled overland to San Diego, there was at least one exception. Another vital passenger on the Morelos was José María Herrera, a government official sent as comisario subalterno de hacienda—essentially, the new financial administrator for the province. Unlike Echeandía and his entourage, Herrera continued directly to Monterey, arriving on July 27th and assuming his post on August 3rd. His appointment replaced Mariano Estrada, who had previously held a similar position under a different title, authorized by the diputación of Alta California.
Herrera’s authority derived not from Echeandía but from the comisario general de occidente in Arizpe, a distant seat of power in northern Mexico. He arrived with a memoria—a ledger of goods—worth $22,379 and another $22,000 in silver. But this windfall came with a catch. There was no provision for paying the long-overdue wages of Alta California’s disgruntled soldiers. When Echeandía, eager to establish goodwill among the troops, ordered Herrera to issue three months’ worth of back pay in advance, the financial officer flatly refused.
Herrera's instructions did not permit it, as he explained to Echeandía; the funds were insufficient, and placing such a large sum into the hands of soldiers all at once was, in his view, unwise. The dispute over military pay was only one of many bureaucratic battles defining Herrera’s tenure. Though there were occasional clashes with the habilitados—the officials responsible for military finances—his first year in office was relatively uneventful.
However, Herrera was not the only newcomer in the summer of 1825. This time, another group of officers and enlisted men had also arrived in Alta California aboard the Morelos. Among them was Lieutenant Miguel González, leading a detachment of artillerymen. Almost immediately upon his arrival, González was promoted to captain and given command of the garrison at Monterey as comandante de armas, an elevation in rank that gave him considerable influence in the northern stronghold.
With him came three more alféreces—sub-lieutenants—Antonio Nieto, Rodrigo del Pliego, and José Pérez del Campo. Nieto was in charge of an unusual cargo: a group of eighteen convicts, sentenced to serve out their punishments in the presidios of California. It was not the first time Mexico had sent criminals to the province, and it would not be the last. Many of these men were considered dangerous—some had been convicted of violent crimes—but for others, their exile was as much a matter of political convenience as it was of justice.
The records from this period do not specify how many artillerymen and infantry soldiers arrived with González, nor do they name most convicts. But among them were individuals who would soon become infamous. One, a man by the name of Vicente Gómez, was known throughout Mexico as el capador, the castrator. He was no ordinary bandit. Gómez had earned a reputation for sheer brutality, allegedly torturing any Spaniard, man or woman, who fell into his hands.
Yet, despite his record, the Mexican government had spared his life, choosing to send him to Alta California rather than execute him. His story, however, did not end there. Within a year, he would be sent overland to Sonora—perhaps in the hope that hostile indigenous tribes would do what the government had not. He made it as far as Baja California, only to be killed in a personal quarrel by none other than José María Ramírez, one of the officers who had arrived with Echeandía.
Another of the convicts, Joaquín Solís, was no less notorious. Described in official records as “principal agente de Gómez, de muy mala conducta, toz general ser ladrón” (Gómez’s chief agent, of very bad conduct, a thief by nature), Solís would one day lead a full-scale revolt against the government of Alta California. His crimes had condemned him to execution in Mexico, but instead, he found himself in Monterey, biding his time.
There were others—men like Francisco Badillo, sentenced to a decade of forced labor at a presidio, with orders that if he ever attempted to escape, he was to be shot on sight. Some convicts, however, integrated themselves into Alta California’s rough-and-tumble society. Badillo, for instance, survived his ten-year sentence, later opening a gambling house in Santa Barbara. He married his mistress in Santa Barbara in 1830 and was charged with another robbery in 1833. After a long career as a cattle thief and swindler, he was finally lynched about 1860. His body was found hanging from a tree beside that of his son. His young granddaughter reportedly wept at the scene, asking why the Americans who had killed her grandfather hadn’t simply placed a bit of earth under his feet to save him.
Not all of the exiles were hardened criminals. A few had been sentenced for minor offenses and, through good behavior, earned respectable positions in Alta California. Their presence, however, reinforced a long-standing fear among local elites—that Mexico, in its desire to rid itself of its worst elements, was turning Alta California into a penal colony. For Echeandía, these were the men with whom he would build his government. Engineers, administrators, soldiers, and outcasts—each playing their part in a province still struggling to define its place within the young Mexican republic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XX: History of California, Vol. III, 1825-1840 (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, Publishers, 1885). Pages 13-23.