Alongside the Tejanos of Texas and Neomexicanos of New Mexico and Colorado, Californios are part of the larger group of descendants of Spaniards in the United States, which has inhabited the American Southwest and the West Coast since the 16th century.

[4] Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a Californio as both a native or resident of this state and a specific ethnic group: the Spanish settlers and their descendants in California.

[5] Authors such as Douglas Monroy,[6] Damian Bacich[7] or Covadonga Lamar Prieto,[8] among others, define Californios as exclusively applying to Alta California residents and their descendants.

[9] Calisphere[10] and author Ferol Egan[11] restrict the meaning of Californio to the Californian elite who acquired land during the Spanish and Mexican periods and their descendants.

All ships were supposed to clear through Monterey and pay the roughly 42% tariff (customs duties on imported goods before trading anywhere else in Alta California).

[16] Late in 1775, Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza led an overland expedition over the Gila River trail he had discovered in 1774 to bring colonists from Sonora New Spain (Mexico) to California to settle two missions, one presidio, and one pueblo (town).

In 1776 about 200 leather-jacketed soldiers, Friars, and colonists with their families moved to what was called Yerba Buena (now San Francisco) to start building a mission and a presidio there.

This land, as it gradually accumulated, was seldom sold, as it cost nothing to keep, but could be rented out to gain additional income for the Catholic Church to pay its priests, friars, bishops, and other expenses.

About 1849 on his home farm called Lachryma Montis (Tear of the Mountain), he built a modern frame house where he spent the later years of his life.

The only other United States military force in California at the time was a small exploratory expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont, made up of 30 topographical, surveying, etc.

The large British ship, 2,600 tons with a crew of 600, man-of-war HMS Collingwood, flagship under Sir George S. Seymour, also arrived at about this time outside Monterey Harbor.

On July 26, 1846, Lieutenant Colonel Frémont's California Battalion of about 160 boarded the sloop USS Cyane, under the command of Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont, and sailed for San Diego.

In Pueblo de Los Angeles, the largest city in California with about 3,000 residents, things might have remained peaceful, except that Major Gillespie placed the town under martial law, greatly angering some of the Californios.

Gillespie, on September 30, finally accepted the Californio terms and departed for San Pedro with his forces, weapons, flags and two cannon (the others were spiked and left behind).

In late December, 1846, while Fremont was in Santa Barbara, Bernarda Ruíz de Rodriguez, a wealthy educated woman of influence and town matriarch, asked to speak with him.

Fremont later wrote of this 2-hour meeting, "I found that her object was to use her influence to put an end to the war, and to do so upon such just and friendly terms of compromise as would make the peace acceptable and enduring".

Fremont and two of Pico's officers agreed to the terms for a surrender, and Jose Antonio Carrillo penned Articles of Capitulation in both English and Spanish.

[36] Rancho owners cited the articles VIII and X of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, wherein it guaranteed full protection of all property rights for Mexican citizens—with an unspecified time limit.

Many others were not so fortunate as droughts decimated their herds in the early 1860s and they could not pay back the high cost mortgages (poorly understood by the mostly illiterate ranchers) they had taken out to improve their lifestyle and subsequently lost much or all of their property when they could not be repaid.

In early 1849, approximately 6,000 Mexicans, many of whom were Californios who remained after the United States had annexed the territory, were prospecting for gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

[43] Any protests by Californios were quickly put down by hastily formed Euro-American militias, so any legal protection provided by the new California legislature was ineffective when the threat of violence and lynchings loomed.

[44] Their early success drew praise and respect from Euro-American miners, they eventually became jealous and used threats and violence to force Mexican workers out of their plots and into less lucrative ones.

[44] In addition to these informal forms of discrimination, Anglo miners also worked to establish Jim Crow-like laws to prevent Latinos from mining altogether.

Discriminatory and racist treatment and laws as well as being so vastly outnumbered forced them out of their native lands despite assurances by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that they could remain.

The costs of the minimal Alta California government were paid mainly from revenues of the roughly 40–100% import tariff collected at the entry port of Monterey.

As Californios increasingly assumed positions of power in the Alta California government (including that of governor), rivalries emerged between northern and southern regions.

Southern regional leaders, led by Pio Pico, made several attempts of their own to relocate the capital from Monterey to the more populated Los Angeles.

Under Spanish/Mexican rule, all landowners were expected to the diezmo, a compulsory tithe to the Catholic Church of one tenth of the fruits of agriculture and animal husbandry, business profits or salaries.

The ranchos produced the largest cowhide (called California Greenbacks) and tallow business in North America by killing and skinning their cattle and cutting off the fat.

The classic book Two Years Before the Mast (originally published 1840) by Richard Henry Dana Jr. gives a good first-hand account of a two-year sailing ship sea trading voyage to Alta California which he took in 1834–1835.