Sonoma County Library digital sonomalibrary. Verify Email:. How would you best describe yourself? If "Other," please specify. Every item on Calisphere has been contributed to the site by a California institution. The institution can answer questions about this item, assit you with obtaining a hi-res copy, and gather additional information you may have about it.
If you are experiencing technical issues, we'd request that you contact Calisphere directly. Nature of Request Request high-resolution copy of item Ask a copyright question Get more information Report an error Leave a comment. Check to send a copy of this message to your email. Cancel Submit. Cook, after a smallpox or perhaps measles outbreak in , the Mexican government had inoculated an estimated 12,, clerics, soldiers, and native mission acolytes from San Diego to Sonoma.
When smallpox first appeared in , the Russians quickly vaccinated their native workers at Fort Ross, suffering only a few deaths. Vallejo did not. Except for inoculating a few allies like Chief Solano, he reserved the vaccine for fellow Californios.
The Petaluma Adobe, which Vallejo operated more as a factory than a military fort, exporting grain, livestock, and woolen textiles, never fully recovered. That was evident at times in his treatment of the natives. State parks archaeologist Breck Parkman touches upon some of that legacy in his recent studies of the trade relationship between Vallejo and the Russian mercantile colony at Fort Ross. Citing new English translations of archival Russian documents, Parkman highlights the different approaches Vallejo and the Russians took with the native community, particularly during the smallpox epidemic of No body remains were found, but along with his colleague Susan Alvarez, Parkman determined that the trench since destroyed was most likely used by Vallejo in trying to contain the smallpox epidemic.
In the Vallejo biography I read as a boy, the epidemic was depicted as a natural tragedy, one the general was helpless to prevent. Vaccine for smallpox had been available in California since the early s.
According to historian S. Cook, after a smallpox or perhaps measles outbreak in , the Mexican government had inoculated an estimated 12,, clerics, soldiers, and native mission acolytes from San Diego to Sonoma. When smallpox first appeared in , the Russians quickly vaccinated their native workers at Fort Ross, suffering only a few deaths. Vallejo did not. Except for inoculating a few allies like Chief Solano, he reserved the vaccine for fellow Californios. The Petaluma Adobe, which Vallejo operated more as a factory than a military fort, exporting grain, livestock, and woolen textiles, never fully recovered.
That was evident at times in his treatment of the natives. After Vallejo converted the Petaluma Valley into a vast ranch of 12, to 15, cattle, eliminating much of its wild game, natives who had resisted indentured servitude at his factory resorted to killing cattle to feed themselves.
In one case, after 35 cattle went missing, Vallejo ordered 35 natives indiscriminately rounded up and shot. Other acts of cruelty—murder, rape, and abduction—were carried out by his brother Salvador and main enforcer Chief Solano. On our personal sojourn to the Petaluma Adobe some fifty years ago, my friend and I only made it as far as Casa Grande Road, then a rural lane, before being stopped by falling darkness.
A deputy sheriff found us and drove us home. In retrospect, that was probably best, given what Dorothy found when she reached the Land of Oz and pulled back the curtain on the wizard. In March of , three years after leaving Missouri, mountain man James Pattie found himself locked in a Mexican prison cell in San Diego.
He and his father were charged with being illegal immigrants. Learning that Pattie knew how to administer the serum, California Governor Echeandia offered to release him on condition that he vaccinate the inhabitants of California.
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