THE SAN JUAN BAUTISTA ELECTION-FRAUD + VAIL/WAIT LAND-DESPOLIATION AFFAIR: (a) the Comisión de Elecciones' queja against the Juzgado of San Juan Bautista — the Juez José María Sánchez refused to accept the Governor's order to verify the elections, having made the Junta de vecinos convened for the purpose fail; the querella adds (Lehiya[?]) that Sánchez was found 'muy borracho junto con otros individuos también borrachos, en un lugar por donde pasaban Lehiya y sus compañeros'; the Comisión asks the sentencias of not having verified the elections be sent to the Governor; (b) ⭐⭐ Antonio Mª Pico, Prefecto (30 Nov 1849): 'Despojos de terrenos cometidos por el Medir[?] Wait/Vail' — several vecinos have suffered attacks & despojos in their properties (casas y terrenos) because the ex-Juez Wait formed a bogus 'Junta del Pueblo' with other American citizens & divided the pueblo lots into blocks (manzanas) of more than one league square, whose lands he took, dispossessing the vecinos & the mission of its most valuable lands; at the first junta only 4 or 5 vecinos of the country (Californians) & the rest Americans attended, & the act was written in English, so no one gave Wait authorization to redistribute lands; the Ayuntamiento's efforts to remedy met opposition; Pico names Francisco Vaca[?] as comisionado of the Prefectura to report fully — ⭐⭐ a documented American land-grab dispossessing Californios & the mission at San Juan Bautista, prosecuted by the Californio prefect
| Date | 1849-02-04 → 11-30 (exact) |
|---|---|
| From | La Comisión de Elecciones & Prefecto Antonio María Pico |
| To | Gobernador |
| Place | San Juan Bautista / San José |
| Series | Miscellaneous / Unbound Documents |
| Tomo | Unbound |
| Original tomo page | — |
| Savage copy page | 361 |
| Scan leaf | n364–n368 |
| Document type | abstract |
| Source | Savage abstract |
Read this leaf on the Internet Archive ↗ · leaf n364–n368
La Comisión de Elecciones & Prefecto Antonio María Pico to Gobernador, San Juan Bautista / San José, 1849-02-04 → 11-30, Miscellaneous / Unbound Documents, Unbound, —, Archives of California, C-A 63, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.Cite the document by series, tomo and original tomo page, as the literature does; the C-A number locates it in the repository. To cite this catalogue entry itself, use https://archivesofcalifornia.com/record/ca63/ca63-d502.html- Previously read savage_page: '361'; summary: "THE SAN JUAN BAUTISTA ELECTION-FRAUD + VAIL/WAIT LAND-DESPOLIATION AFFAIR: (a) the Comisión de Elecciones' queja against the Juzgado of San Juan Bautista — the Juez José María Sánc…". Leaves read: bancarchca_82_05 n363, n364, n365, n366, n367, n368. SCAN_PIN PARTIAL: both documents lie inside the declared span but not on its first leaf — n364 (stamp 362) carries the San Luis Obispo cárceles note and the Monterey alcalde-election notes. Item (a) is on n365 (stamp 363): '+ 1849 Feb.o 4 S. Juan Baut.a / La Comision de Elecciones al Gobernador / Queja contra el Juez de S.n Juan Baut.a'. Item (b) begins on n366 (stamp 364) and ends at the top of n368: '+ 1849 Nov. 30 S. José. / Antonio Maria Pico, Prefecto al Gobernador. / Despojos de terrenos cometidos por el Alcalde Wait'. SAVAGE_PAGE WRONG: the recorded '361' is the stamp of n363, which carries the Santa Bárbara election papers of Raymundo Carrillo; these documents sit on stamps 363-366. ORIG_PAGE correctly '—'. SUMMARY WRONG — five defects against the leaves: (1) the heading reads 'cometidos por el Alcalde Wait', so the catalogue's 'el Medir[?] Wait/Vail' misreads 'Alcalde'; the leaf never writes 'Vail'. (2) The leaf says Wait 'formó una liga con el Juez que le sucedió y con otros ciudadanos Americanos' — the successor judge, central to the accusation, is dropped. (3) 'at the first junta only 4 or 5 vecinos of the country (Californians) … attended' inverts n367, which reads 'A la primera junta se siguieron otras dos á las que solo concurrieron 4 ó 5 vecinos del pais (Californios) y el resto Americanos' — it was the two LATER juntas. (4) The comisionado is named on n367 as 'Francisco Arce', not 'Francisco Vaca[?]'. (5) The claim that Wait dispossessed 'the mission of its most valuable lands' and the framing of (b) as a SAN JUAN BAUTISTA affair are not on the leaves: no mission is mentioned anywhere in n366-n368, and Pico's heading places the document at 'S. José'. Also in (a), 'the Comisión asks the sentencias … be sent to the Governor' reverses n365, which reads 'manda la Comision al Gobernador las constancias de no haberse verificado las elecciones' (the Comisión SENDS the Governor the CONSTANCIAS); and the catalogue's '(Lehiya[?])' reads on the leaf as '(Lebrija)', with the queja adding that he was insulted 'en union de José Castro y Teófilo E. Echeverría' — a detail omitted. Author, recipient, place and the date range are all correct. OMISSIONS PARTIAL: on the record's own first declared leaf, n364, there is an entry no ca63 record covers — '+1849. Abril 20. Mont. / Ignacio Esquer, Alcalde' (a heading Savage left without an abstract body); the neighbouring items on that leaf (Ávila on the Ildefonso escape, Florencio Serrano's 18 April election note) are folded into ca63 doc 501, and the Price note at the foot of n365 is doc 503.