Latest / California Frontier / 073: Presidios and Soldados in California Part 1 | Author Michael Hardwick

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073: Presidios and Soldados in California Part 1 | Author Michael Hardwick · California Frontier

• 0:00
  Damian Bacich's video recording: When we read or hear about the Spanish presence in California and in the whole Southwest, for that matter, the main focus tends to be on the missions, which were a very, uh, important religious and cultural, uh, institution.
• 0:18
  Damian Bacich's video recording: But at the time.
• 0:20
  Damian Bacich's video recording: That the missions were being established.
• 0:23
  Damian Bacich's video recording: The other arm of that Spanish presence
• 0:25
  was the
• 0:26
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Presidios, the Presidios, which were the military presence on the frontier of the Spanish Empire.
• 0:36
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Today I'm talking with someone who is a real expert on Presidios and a real expert on the Spanish history of California.
• 0:46
  Damian Bacich's video recording: his name is Michael Hardwick and he just wrote a book called Spanish Arms and Armaments of the Presidios in California.
• 0:54
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Michael, graduated with a degree in anthropology from the University of California in Santa Barbara and worked on archeology at the Presidio of Santa Barbara, which eventually become, became the state historic park of El Presidio.
• 1:12
  Damian Bacich's video recording: He worked also at Laima as a ranger and he established the archive there.
• 1:20
  Damian Bacich's video recording: And for many years he, helped interpret and preserve Laima mission on top of it, he's a veteran of the US Navy, and so he has a very firsthand knowledge of military munitions and armaments and strategy.
• 1:38
  Damian Bacich's video recording: And so
• 1:39
  I think he's an
• 1:40
  Damian Bacich's video recording: excellent person to talk to about this.
• 1:43
  Damian Bacich's video recording: As a final note of an interesting note, he founded a reenactment group, very unique one, which is called Los SDOs Re Pre Santa Barbara, which was a reenactment group dedicated to, reenacting Spanish military costumes and armaments, et cetera in California.
• 2:02
  Damian Bacich's video recording: And it started back in 1990.
• 2:05
  Damian Bacich's video recording: So Mike's gonna talk about writing
• 2:07
  this book the
• 2:08
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Discoveries he made along the way,
• 2:10
  and he's gonna
• 2:10
  Damian Bacich's video recording: introduce us to a lot of little known facts about California's early military history.
• 2:16
  Damian Bacich's video recording: I think you're really gonna like it.
• 2:17
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Um, Just one note, if you're listening to this and not watching it, Mike refers to images from a presentation he made.
• 2:26
  Damian Bacich's video recording: So if you wanna see the images, you should make sure and check it out on YouTube.
• 2:31
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Of course, he describes what's going on in those images, so if you're just following this on purely audio format, that's fine.
• 2:40
  Damian Bacich's video recording: But if you wanna see the pictures.
• 2:43
  Damian Bacich's video recording: Uh, I would go and watch it on YouTube and purchase the book because all of the pictures are also in his book.
• 2:49
  Damian Bacich's video recording: So, for more information about that, listen, and I've included all the information about how to get the book and how to contact and know more about Mike in the notes to this episode.
• 3:04
  Damian Bacich's video recording: So here's my interview with Michael Hardwick.
• 3:17
  Damian Bacich: Well, thank you for agreeing to come on the podcast.
• 3:20
  Damian Bacich: As I was mentioning to you before, and I'm really looking forward to hearing about the Presidios, the Presidio soldiers, what they've meant for our history here in the West.
• 3:33
  Damian Bacich: my, uh, personal experience with Presidios was going to visit my, uh, grandparents, you know, my grandmother in San Francisco and my Uncle George, God rest his soul.
• 3:45
  Damian Bacich: He used to take us, he was a retired naval officer, had served in World War ii, and so he used to take us to lunch at the officer's club at the Presidio in San Francisco.
• 3:53
  Michael Harwick: Been there, done.
• 3:55
  Damian Bacich: yeah.
• 3:56
  Damian Bacich: And he used to play golf there, too.
• 3:57
  Damian Bacich: And so that was, I didn't know it had anything to do with Spain or our, our particular history here in California.
• 4:06
  Damian Bacich: It wasn't until later that I learned that.
• 4:07
  Damian Bacich: So I'm.
• 4:09
  Damian Bacich: I'm grateful, Mike, that you've, you've written this book and, uh, that you're willing to come talk about it and, and give us some background on, on Presidios and the soldiers that occupied them and their place in California.
• 4:22
  Michael Harwick: Well, yes, I've, uh, I've been involved with the Presidio Project.
• 4:26
  Michael Harwick: Uh.
• 4:28
  Michael Harwick: Uh, since its inception really, it started in 1965 and we were digging in Santa Barbara here in a parking lot.
• 4:36
  Michael Harwick: And, um, I got started on that and then I, I was in the, uh, I was in the Navy at the time and I got, I got shipped to Vietnam, so I spent some time over there on a, on a cruiser.
• 4:47
  Michael Harwick: Um, and, uh, then I came back to Santa Barbara in 1969 and, uh, UCSB and, and got into anthropology and history, and then again, got affiliated with the Presidio.
• 4:58
  Michael Harwick: So my, uh, research and, uh, association with that project here in Santa Barbara, which is.
• 5:04
  Michael Harwick: El Presidio State Historic Park, which is, uh, that's what it is now.
• 5:10
  Michael Harwick: Uh, but when it started it was just a, a backyard parking lot, you know, and we were trying to find the foundations and whatever for it.
• 5:18
  Michael Harwick: So unfortunately, I got hooked and my family got hooked.
• 5:22
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, I spent 50, 60 years of my life researching and reenacting, you know, doing all that sort of thing that went along with it and, um, um, and couldn't get away from it, and still stuck in it.
• 5:38
  Michael Harwick: And my whole library is Spanish Colonial history.
• 5:41
  Michael Harwick: Pretty much.
• 5:45
  Michael Harwick: I can give you a little bit of a background on who I am and what I've done, uh, and then we could lead into the book.
• 5:52
  Damian Bacich: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Damian Bacich: that would be great.
• 5:53
  Damian Bacich: In fact, we, um, we had, uh, Jerry Jackman on a couple of times and his, uh, overviews of his history at the San, at the Santa Barbara Presidio were really enlightening and really helpful.
• 6:07
  Damian Bacich: But, uh, I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about Santa Barbara and all the other Presidio.
• 6:13
  Damian Bacich: So yeah, tell us a little bit about your
• 6:15
  Michael Harwick: Well, Jerry and I are, are, are joined at the hip.
• 6:18
  Michael Harwick: If you can say that.
• 6:20
  Michael Harwick: Um, he was, uh, the executive director of the Presidio when I was there, and we worked hand in hand and are to this day, brothers in arms, uh, sort of in Valli Thoses from the, from the Presidio Project.
• 6:35
  Michael Harwick: Um, but, uh, this is a little bit from a talk that was given in 2015 by him, uh, at the Presidio.
• 6:45
  Michael Harwick: And he starts off by saying, let's begin with his service in the US Navy during the Vietnam War.
• 6:51
  Michael Harwick: That's me, uh, where he sat off shore for six months or so on the Admiral Ship Light Cruiser, USS, Oklahoma City flagship of Seventh Fleet.
• 7:02
  Michael Harwick: Mike worked in communication ship, uh, equipment.
• 7:04
  Michael Harwick: I.
• 7:05
  Michael Harwick: Uh, the Admiral receiving received like 7,000 messages a day.
• 7:09
  Michael Harwick: He said, he says that duty made a strong impression on him, uh, as a young man for many reasons, but for our purposes, uh, is experiencing those huge ship canon.
• 7:23
  Michael Harwick: Firing at targets on shore in Vietnam was something he never forgot, and that's probably true.
• 7:29
  Michael Harwick: I think I got some gun cotton in my veins.
• 7:32
  Michael Harwick: Anyway, it piqued his interest in arms and armament and, and interest that carried over into his internet.
• 7:38
  Michael Harwick: Interest in, uh, Spanish period can, in fact, it is more than an interest.
• 7:44
  Michael Harwick: It is a passion.
• 7:45
  Michael Harwick: He has produced, uh, a several hundred page manuscript on the arms and armaments of the Santa Barbara Presidio.
• 7:52
  Michael Harwick: Now, this was in 2015.
• 7:55
  Michael Harwick: Uh, what what happened was as we were uncovering the foundations, uh, we had gone to the, one of our, uh, uh, individuals that work with us.
• 8:07
  Michael Harwick: Dick Whitehead, uh, had gone to the Bancroft Library and acquired just about everything that was known on the Presidio, most of it in Spanish.
• 8:16
  Michael Harwick: And he had copies of it made and brought it to the Presidio, and then had it, most of it translated, and this later became a book, uh, which he wrote called Citadel on the Channel.
• 8:30
  Michael Harwick: Uh, and it pretty much, uh, described the history of the Presidio.
• 8:35
  Michael Harwick: And out of this also came a map.
• 8:38
  Michael Harwick: Written by pa, drawn by Pedro Fajas, uh, at the time of the Presidio.
• 8:43
  Michael Harwick: So we had a foundation map of what the Presidio was supposed to be.
• 8:48
  Michael Harwick: So Dick used to be a surveyor when he was in the Army, and he was also a Public works director at the county of Santa Barbara retired.
• 8:56
  Michael Harwick: So he started chasing foundations and uh, we began to find that the foundations were still there Oh.
• 9:05
  Michael Harwick: Uh, around several properties.
• 9:08
  Michael Harwick: So that became the impetus for d sort of chasing the foundations and ultimately restoring the Presidio.
• 9:15
  Michael Harwick: Um, well the interesting thing about all that was, um, um, I got interested in, uh.
• 9:26
  Michael Harwick: The records that he had acquired from the Bancroft Library.
• 9:30
  Michael Harwick: And, um, he went through them and wrote a nice history of the Presidio, but he, he was, he pretty much ignored annual inventories that were taken.
• 9:39
  Michael Harwick: It was a garrison, you know, military garrison.
• 9:43
  Michael Harwick: And so they were inspected every year and they come down and wanted to know the status of the armaments and what was in the, in the magazines and that kind of stuff.
• 9:53
  Michael Harwick: And so there were all these reports, annual reports of what was at the Presidio.
• 10:01
  Michael Harwick: So I just decided I was gonna start, I'm an anthropologist, so for me, I wanted to get.
• 10:07
  Michael Harwick: Down to what, what made that operation function, you know, Garrison, what makes it function are arms, you know, and armament supplies to, to, to keep all that going.
• 10:19
  Michael Harwick: So I got in there and started putting this stuff together and I came up with a pretty interesting chronology of, uh, what was there at various times.
• 10:30
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, it was a manuscript for a lot of years and it just recently until 2025, uh, became an actual book, arms and Arm of the City of California.
• 10:42
  Michael Harwick: But just to go on a little bit with my history, um, one of the things that happened as a result of, um, um, the Mexican War in 1845, um, the, a lot of these Spanish.
• 11:00
  Michael Harwick: Uh, pieces of artillery disappeared from California and they disappeared because many of them were captured as trophies of war and sent back to the East Coast, and they ultimately wound up at, uh, Annapolis, the Naval Academy.
• 11:18
  Michael Harwick: Um, so in 2012, uh, um, Jerry and I went back to Annapolis to photograph, um, these cannons and find out what was there prior to that I had, uh, um, discovered in, uh, 1783.
• 11:38
  Michael Harwick: Well, one of the things about this, uh, Presidio that we had, uh, found the map of, there were two gun bastions on opposite ends of the corner of each of the, of the bas, of the bastion.
• 11:51
  Michael Harwick: And, um, so we suspected that, uh, these were there for cannon.
• 11:57
  Michael Harwick: But, uh, nobody really knew what, uh, we suspected they were just, I mean, uh, light pieces of artillery or whatever.
• 12:05
  Michael Harwick: Um, so I got intrigued with this, you know, and then I found a inventory in these records, these Bancroft records, that indicated that in 1782 there were, uh, two bronze, uh, four pounder Cannon at the Presidio that had been ordered in.
• 12:23
  Michael Harwick: This was standard equipment for Presidios of a, of a garrison of that type.
• 12:28
  Michael Harwick: And, um, so I, uh, I saw in the inventory where they said they were bronze and they were four pounders, and they weighed 760 pounds a piece.
• 12:42
  Michael Harwick: I thought, those are not small cannon.
• 12:45
  Michael Harwick: Well, indeed, they were, they were, they were considered light artillery during the time, and they were called, uh, Spanish terminology was canons, dea.
• 12:56
  Michael Harwick: You know, field cannons, and this was what was standard issue for the presidios of the time, of the time.
• 13:03
  Michael Harwick: But of course, all these things were missing, so I didn't really know, you know, uh, what that was.
• 13:09
  Michael Harwick: But I did have a weight and I had studied these cannons a little bit, and I noticed, you know, these cannons all have markings on them.
• 13:17
  Michael Harwick: And I'm intrigued with these bronze Spanish cannons, because to me they're cul.
• 13:21
  Michael Harwick: Uh, they're, they're, they're pieces of sculpture, you know, they've got, they've got, and, you know, engravings on them.
• 13:29
  Michael Harwick: They've got the King's Crest is on the breach, you know, uh, the dates and all that sort of thing.
• 13:35
  Michael Harwick: And then if you look at the ions, you can actually, if you interpret the Spanish, uh, symbols of weight, you can get the weight off the ion of the cannon.
• 13:45
  Michael Harwick: So I had all that.
• 13:48
  Damian Bacich: Remind us what's aronian.
• 13:50
  Michael Harwick: Okay, well, a cannon, uh, of that time period, uh, is, uh, a long bronze tube, right?
• 13:59
  Michael Harwick: Um, the ian ions are the pin pivots that stick out from the side.
• 14:06
  Michael Harwick: You know, one side of of that is, is of, of that trion is marked on it.
• 14:12
  Michael Harwick: What, what the, what the gun metal composition is.
• 14:15
  Michael Harwick: They, they might say something like, uh, bro de Peru, Mexico, or something, you know, reuse bronze.
• 14:22
  Michael Harwick: And then the other side is, is got markings on it.
• 14:26
  Michael Harwick: Scratches, which say like something like pesa P for P for pesa, which means weight.
• 14:33
  Michael Harwick: And, um, so, uh, and, and the, the, the weights are like, in Libre, a Libre is roughly equivalent to an English pound.
• 14:45
  Michael Harwick: A robust, a robot is like 25 pounds.
• 14:48
  Michael Harwick: And then, uh, sort of, so they'll, they would have like p you know, um, seven, uh, seven L and then so many, so many at sign a robust, you know, and that sort of thing.
• 15:06
  Michael Harwick: So you could interpret that and get, and get the weight of the gun.
• 15:11
  Michael Harwick: So anyway, I was intrigued, we were intrigued with the fact that what happened to the Spanish artillery?
• 15:17
  Michael Harwick: 'cause if you look at, for, if you look for cannons in California from the Spanish period, you know, there's only a few of'em left.
• 15:24
  Michael Harwick: Most of them are up at like San Francisco and then there's one, there's a couple of them down in San Diego, and, uh, that's about it.
• 15:34
  Michael Harwick: You know, so what happened to the rest of'em?
• 15:36
  Michael Harwick: Well, they got, a lot of'em got captured and, and transferred east and the one that finally, they wound up at the Naval Academy.
• 15:44
  Michael Harwick: So we went there in 2012 and, um, and, and, and, and found these things and lo and behold, and I'll get to this, I wish I could show my, I wish I could square, show my, share my screen here.
• 15:59
  Michael Harwick: I I've got pictures of this stuff.
• 16:01
  Michael Harwick: There we are.
• 16:02
  Damian Bacich: Okay.
• 16:03
  Michael Harwick: Uh, there you go.
• 16:05
  Michael Harwick: That's good.
• 16:08
  Damian Bacich: Okay.
• 16:09
  Michael Harwick: Well, this gets us into Presidios a little bit.
• 16:11
  Damian Bacich: Hmm.
• 16:12
  Michael Harwick: Uh, you can, you can page ahead as we go.
• 16:15
  Michael Harwick: Right.
• 16:15
  Damian Bacich: Yes.
• 16:16
  Michael Harwick: Okay, well we start off with some of these bullets here.
• 16:19
  Michael Harwick: Uh, Presidio, lemme give you a little background of Presidios.
• 16:23
  Michael Harwick: Uh, they, they started in New Spain.
• 16:25
  Michael Harwick: They go back to the 16th century in, uh, in New Spain.
• 16:29
  Michael Harwick: Uh, and that's Mexico.
• 16:31
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, within two centuries there was a line of Presidio, Spanish Presidios that existed in the American Southwest all the way from Texas to California.
• 16:41
  Michael Harwick: And this is, as the Spanish were moving up in, uh, northern Mexico.
• 16:46
  Michael Harwick: Um, they, they encountered all these native peoples, uh, some of which were pretty hostile.
• 16:51
  Michael Harwick: So they evolved this whole, uh, frontier, uh, method of, uh, of controlling and, and managing these, uh, these people.
• 17:01
  Michael Harwick: So that was along the whole Southwest.
• 17:05
  Michael Harwick: So, uh, when it came time to.
• 17:08
  Michael Harwick: Um, colonized California from in 1769, they used the same basic concept.
• 17:15
  Michael Harwick: You know, they'd, they'd bring in the presidios and the, uh, the garrisons to support the, uh, colonization effort and then support also the foundation of the missions.
• 17:27
  Damian Bacich: Can I ask you a
• 17:27
  Michael Harwick: So, yeah.
• 17:29
  Damian Bacich: Is, uh, was the Presidio only used in the northern part of New Spain or were there presidios in other, uh, territories in the Spanish Empire?
• 17:41
  Damian Bacich: In the, in the Americas?
• 17:43
  Damian Bacich: Or is this peculiar to, to our region?
• 17:45
  Michael Harwick: Uh, the actual Presidio itself, uh, actually, I I if you really wanna say where it began, it began in, in, in, uh, north Africa, you know, when the Spanish were fighting the Moores and whatever, they built these garrisons, which were like presidios, and they were like, um, enclaves of Christianization and.
• 18:07
  Michael Harwick: Uh, a sea of, uh, Muslim activity kind of thing.
• 18:11
  Michael Harwick: So it's a very ancient kind of concept, and it, it can, a lot of people like to say, oh, Presidio comes from the Latin Presidium, which, you know, means a garrison and Presidio and, and later Mexican, um, language in implies a prison, you know, uh, but in the 18th century and before it wasn't that it was a garrison, uh, of, of, of troops that were organized in a military fashion.
• 18:42
  Michael Harwick: And originally they, they sort of happened, um, haphazardly and eventually grew over two, two centuries into a sort of a military organization of indigenous people who were.
• 18:56
  Michael Harwick: You know, and command of horses and, uh, were, were mestizos that lived on the frontier, rugged, uh, troops.
• 19:08
  Michael Harwick: And they were adapted to that lifestyle and they were supported then, uh, as, as a form of military in the new world by the Spanish government.
• 19:20
  Damian Bacich: I see.
• 19:21
  Michael Harwick: so from the years, this is, we're looking at the la the latter evolution of the Presidio concept and the, probably the later, the la the last edition was the little Spanish, uh, uh, form of California when they, when they settled California in 1769.
• 19:41
  Michael Harwick: This was.
• 19:42
  Michael Harwick: Uh, coastal settlement, and they, uh, they were trying, the Spanish, were trying to get control of this area all the way up because the Russians were coming down from the north and, uh, they were one to check that, uh, advance and claim the territory for Spain.
• 19:58
  Michael Harwick: So they used the Presidios as a, as a method of doing that.
• 20:03
  Michael Harwick: Uh, so from 1769 to 1782, there were four Spanish Presidios in, in, in Alta California.
• 20:12
  Michael Harwick: California was broken up into Alta, uh, a higher area, and, and Baja, the lower area.
• 20:20
  Michael Harwick: And the first Presidio was in Loreto, uh, of Baja, California.
• 20:26
  Michael Harwick: So, um, so from 1769 to 80 82, we have four Presidios in California.
• 20:33
  Michael Harwick: Um, you know, one was, uh, San Diego was the first.
• 20:38
  Michael Harwick: Uh, it, because that's where they started.
• 20:42
  Michael Harwick: Uh, and it be, it formally became a Presidio in 1773, but it was actually established in 69.
• 20:51
  Michael Harwick: Uh, then Monterey was 1770 later that became the, the, the capital ultimately of Alta California.
• 20:59
  Michael Harwick: San Francisco happened in 76 with, uh, with Anza who came through.
• 21:06
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, uh, one of his, uh, uh, members founded that Presidio.
• 21:11
  Michael Harwick: And then probably the last Presidio ever founded by the Spanish in the southwest was the Santa Harbor Presidio in 1782.
• 21:21
  Damian Bacich: Now what about Sonoma?
• 21:22
  Damian Bacich: Because I know they call it a Presidio, but it was more of a a, a small garrison.
• 21:28
  Michael Harwick: right.
• 21:28
  Michael Harwick: It was under Vallejo.
• 21:30
  Michael Harwick: That happened later.
• 21:31
  Michael Harwick: I don't, you could probably technically be called, uh.
• 21:35
  Michael Harwick: Presidio, but it was, um, more during the Mexican period, I think that we look at that area.
• 21:44
  Michael Harwick: So Valerio, uh, Vallejo had a garrison up there and, um, uh, yeah, I think you could probably call it, call it a Presidio, but it wasn't, I don't think it was really founded during the Mexican period, uh, Spanish period.
• 21:59
  Michael Harwick: It came during the Mexican period.
• 22:01
  Damian Bacich: right.
• 22:03
  Michael Harwick: So what were these garrisons like?
• 22:06
  Michael Harwick: Um, they supported mounted, mounted soldier companies of leather jacketed soldiers known as Soldado Deta.
• 22:14
  Michael Harwick: And these guys were, as I said, unique.
• 22:18
  Michael Harwick: Um, and they ultimately got their own royal regulations, which specified the arms and armament that the soldiers of these garrisons would, would have.
• 22:28
  Michael Harwick: And we go to the next slide.
• 22:33
  Michael Harwick: You can see, um, the line of presidios that was established across the southwest here, and you can see it goes all the way across.
• 22:44
  Michael Harwick: Uh, the idea being that if one Presidio got in trouble, another one could come and reinforce it.
• 22:50
  Michael Harwick: So they ultimately got this line going and, uh, in the 1770s they moved.
• 22:58
  Michael Harwick: Uh, they were, this was such a.
• 23:00
  Michael Harwick: Diverse area that needed control, that they formed a cia, general Inal in a place called a re space Sonora.
• 23:09
  Michael Harwick: And he, he was staffed, that was staffed by a, um, you know, a common, a common common commandant general, uh, a picked by the Spanish king.
• 23:23
  Michael Harwick: And he had almost the same powers as a Viceroy.
• 23:26
  Michael Harwick: So his, how, his, his purpose in that administrative center, the purpose of that was to, you know, control these presidio and try to maintain, you know, some level of control on that south, on that frontier, that northern frontier.
• 23:43
  Damian Bacich: Now I notice that there's, te and fronts are, are very close to one another.
• 23:50
  Damian Bacich: And this is just a particular question I have about the ans.
• 23:54
  Damian Bacich: Expedition.
• 23:56
  Damian Bacich: I think some of the, some of the members, some of the settlers were from RAs and some were from Tete.
• 24:02
  Damian Bacich: Were they, was he gathering people from different presidios?
• 24:07
  Michael Harwick: right.
• 24:08
  Michael Harwick: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Michael Harwick: He had, he had gotten, uh, they wanted to try to get a land route, uh, across to California.
• 24:17
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, so he was, uh, empowered by the Viceroy Viceroy, uh, Buca, uh, Belli, I believe it was to try to try to break through and see if he can get, if he could get a supply, uh, line going from this area, from that area, uh, through Yuma and ultimately to California.
• 24:38
  Michael Harwick: Because everything, all the supplies that were going up to California were going by sea, and it was very expensive to, to keep all that going.
• 24:48
  Michael Harwick: So Anzo was, was, uh, empowered to, to do that and to break trail for that.
• 24:56
  Damian Bacich: Gotcha.
• 24:57
  Michael Harwick: Right.
• 24:58
  Michael Harwick: We go to the next one.
• 25:01
  Michael Harwick: Well, here's our Sodo Dera.
• 25:03
  Michael Harwick: This is what they look like.
• 25:05
  Michael Harwick: Uh, they manned the presidios of the, of the frontier of New Spain, and they were named for their, for their Cora coats of, uh, leather jackets.
• 25:16
  Michael Harwick: You can see they, uh, they're on horseback.
• 25:18
  Michael Harwick: They have muskets and lances and, uh, shields, which they called a DGA and that sort of thing.
• 25:27
  Michael Harwick: Uh, we go on the next one.
• 25:30
  Michael Harwick: Um, the, the two left, uh, pictures of a bronze statue and, uh, um.
• 25:41
  Michael Harwick: Arizona in, uh, Tucson from the museum there.
• 25:46
  Michael Harwick: It's a very, very well done.
• 25:48
  Michael Harwick: You can see the equipment that that soldier carries.
• 25:51
  Michael Harwick: He's got his aga and his saddle and his his pistol and cartridge box.
• 25:57
  Michael Harwick: And, um, um, so they, they were pretty real.
• 26:03
  Michael Harwick: They pretty heavily armed.
• 26:04
  Michael Harwick: They had a lance, a shield, two pistols, a shortened musket shirt, short sword cartridge box, and each soldier had a mule and six horse horses that had to support him.
• 26:17
  Michael Harwick: So, you know, this guy just, just to himself, to to arm one soldier took quite a bit.
• 26:25
  Damian Bacich: Now were the soldiers, if they have a mule and six horses, are they responsible for taking care of those animals themselves or were there, uh, staff at the, uh, at the Presidio who were in charge of, of taking care of them?
• 26:43
  Michael Harwick: presidios that, that's the point we're gonna get at Presidios are the garrisons.
• 26:47
  Michael Harwick: And so they typically, they would have the horse herds that supported the soldiers.
• 26:53
  Michael Harwick: So they had livestock that were outside of the presidios that they maintained, and they, they kept horses there at the Presidio, at the ready in case they needed them, that sort of thing.
• 27:03
  Michael Harwick: So this is the substance of, you know, the inventories that I got into.
• 27:08
  Michael Harwick: Uh, when you consider the fact that the equipment, livestock powder, and shot.
• 27:14
  Michael Harwick: Light artillery.
• 27:15
  Michael Harwick: These were all supplied and inventoried on inventoried under royal regulations for each Presidio.
• 27:22
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, interestingly enough, th those magazine stores included fireworks, which you wouldn't think was a big thing, but they, they used the fireworks for, you know, uh, festivals and that sort of thing.
• 27:37
  Michael Harwick: And you consider the fact that presidial companies were 35 to 60 men.
• 27:43
  Michael Harwick: Now you start multiplying that by pistols, swords, lance blades, you know, powder shot, all that.
• 27:51
  Michael Harwick: You know, they had to keep all that in, in, in supply there at the Presidio to, to keep these soldiers, uh, you know, equipped.
• 27:59
  Michael Harwick: That's what I got into later.
• 28:02
  Damian Bacich: Can I ask you a question?
• 28:03
  Damian Bacich: I might be getting ahead of myself, but in terms of their armament, you know, you mentioned that they carry a, a musket sword, uh, cartridge box.
• 28:14
  Damian Bacich: Well, and two pistols.
• 28:17
  Damian Bacich: I noticed in, in, in some of the material, the book that you said that the lance was their preferred weapon.
• 28:26
  Damian Bacich: Why is that?
• 28:27
  Michael Harwick: Well, most of these soldiers were mestizos and, uh, uh, virtually cowboys.
• 28:35
  Michael Harwick: I mean, they were proficient with the use of the horse and the lance, you know, um, relatively, they got very proficient at using a lance, a mounted lance.
• 28:46
  Michael Harwick: So there's a lot to using one of those things.
• 28:49
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, uh, that's pretty, pretty from the standpoint of, uh, a formidable foe on the frontier.
• 28:59
  Michael Harwick: Uh.
• 29:00
  Michael Harwick: First of all, if you're on a horse, second of all, if you've got some, if you've got a a lance and you can use it and you've got a shield, you can pretty much, um, you know, hold your own against a lot of the Indians.
• 29:15
  Michael Harwick: And, and you can also, you wear that leather jacket, flack jacket, and you can, you can get rid of you, you can stave off some of the arrows, especially with the aga that they might shoot at you.
• 29:27
  Michael Harwick: So these were, let's say, they were, at least they were, they were some of the things that these guys were really good at using.
• 29:35
  Michael Harwick: And then you add the, the, the firearms, uh, there's a little more technical involvement there.
• 29:43
  Michael Harwick: Uh, they had to get proficient at using'em, had to have the powder and shot, you know, available.
• 29:49
  Michael Harwick: Um, you know, had to, had to maintain these things'cause they broke, keep them up and that sort of thing.
• 29:58
  Damian Bacich: And weren't, they weren't the Californias, for example, using Lance into the 1840s at the Battle of San Pasqua, for example.
• 30:06
  Damian Bacich: They were, they were still very good with them.
• 30:10
  Michael Harwick: Oh yeah.
• 30:11
  Michael Harwick: Oh yeah.
• 30:11
  Michael Harwick: I've actually, uh, when I was reenacting this, I was, I built, I got my own lance and I was trying to figure out how to use it and, uh, mount it.
• 30:20
  Michael Harwick: I always wanted to try it on a horse, but you gotta be very careful when you're using one of those things because, uh, you can, you can flip yourself off the horse real easy if you're not, if you're not delved at the way you handle the, the lance.
• 30:35
  Michael Harwick: And they got to where they could, they could twirl'em.
• 30:38
  Michael Harwick: And bring them around in an attack position with the lance over the top of the arm.
• 30:45
  Michael Harwick: So if it impaled something and you had to release it, you know, you could let go and it would, it, it wouldn't, it wouldn't take you off the horse, you know, that sort of thing.
• 30:55
  Michael Harwick: So they were very good at using these things.
• 30:59
  Michael Harwick: In fact, they called them lancers of the king.
• 31:02
  Damian Bacich: There you go.
• 31:08
  Michael Harwick: So we go to the next slide there.
• 31:14
  Michael Harwick: Uh, okay, now I mentioned this earlier about the cannon, uh, and when we went to the Naval Academy, lo and behold, in front of the administrators, three star Admiral Administrators, uh, house at the academy were two.
• 31:33
  Michael Harwick: Light pieces of artillery bronze cannons that exactly matched what I had seen in the inventory at the Presidio of San Santa Barbara, uh, 1782, and I don't know if you can see this, but there is the, one of the ions upper, the second photograph top,
• 31:57
  Damian Bacich: Yeah, I can see it.
• 31:59
  Michael Harwick: yeah, it says seven Q 68, A seven Quintal, 768 pounds.
• 32:11
  Michael Harwick: So that's, that was the clue.
• 32:14
  Michael Harwick: I, I, I knew that by the measurements of the, of the, of Canon front, um, that I was a four pounder, uh, the weight exactly matched what was on the inventory.
• 32:27
  Michael Harwick: The bronze plate on the back says, captured from the Mexicans in California, 1845.
• 32:36
  Michael Harwick: And then the, the, the clincher here, the, uh, the cassbell in the back, written across there says who the gun founder was.
• 32:48
  Michael Harwick: Josef Bonno, bar Barola and Barcelona.
• 32:53
  Michael Harwick: Uh, uh, 1765.
• 32:57
  Michael Harwick: So these cannons were made in Barcelona, cast designed by Barola, the gun gun designer.
• 33:06
  Michael Harwick: And they came from bar, the Barcelona, uh, Royal Foundry in 1765.
• 33:12
  Michael Harwick: And in my book I talk about the Barcelona.
• 33:16
  Michael Harwick: Gun foundry and they, they, uh, specialized in light artillery for the, for the, uh, for the colonies.
• 33:24
  Michael Harwick: So these guns were the, this was the gun.
• 33:27
  Michael Harwick: Not, probably not the gun, but the type of gun that was at my, our Presidio in Santa Barbara.
• 33:34
  Michael Harwick: And indeed most of the presidios because this was standard issue for garrison's of that type.
• 33:44
  Michael Harwick: So there you, there you see it as a four pound cannon light artillery of the time and, uh, matches the 1782 inventory.
• 33:54
  Damian Bacich: There it is.
• 33:55
  Michael Harwick: There it is.
• 33:57
  Michael Harwick: So this, this was like a first being able to, um, identify what, what canon was there.
• 34:04
  Damian Bacich: And these are on display in the open it seems, from the photo.
• 34:08
  Michael Harwick: Yeah,
• 34:09
  Damian Bacich: yeah.
• 34:09
  Damian Bacich: So you didn't have to dig back behind some building somewhere.
• 34:13
  Michael Harwick: Yeah.
• 34:13
  Michael Harwick: And when you wander around, well, they're right in front of the, you know, the admiral's house that runs the academy.
• 34:21
  Michael Harwick: You know, there's two of them there.
• 34:24
  Michael Harwick: They have a name on the gun each, but they, the thing that they don't have is they don't have the king cipher on the, on the breach.
• 34:33
  Michael Harwick: So that was that.
• 34:34
  Michael Harwick: Let's go to the next one.
• 34:42
  Michael Harwick: So you get an idea of what the presidios were at the 17, early 17 hundreds.
• 34:48
  Michael Harwick: They were there as garrison's and they were mostly interested in, uh, being able to preserve themselves from uprisings and supporting the foundations of the missions and whatever.
• 35:00
  Michael Harwick: And so California was divided up into four military districts, and each one of these military districts had a presidio and a garrison.
• 35:11
  Michael Harwick: They had, uh, soldiers were dispatched from the Presidio to establish missions.
• 35:18
  Michael Harwick: And indeed, all the missions, each mission had what they called an olta, uh, detached from the, from the Presidio.
• 35:26
  Michael Harwick: They would live at the mission and protect the, the friars and, uh, sort of keep the peace, you know, uh, during the time that missions were being founded and even after.
• 35:38
  Michael Harwick: So that was the, that was the main goal initially, that after 1790, the emphasis became, uh, that of sea defense at the Presidios because, um, you know, more ships were plying the coast and even pirates, uh, were off the coast.
• 35:57
  Michael Harwick: So it became necessary to build, uh, to provide coastal defense.
• 36:03
  Michael Harwick: And this is where we get into, uh, construction of what they call Castillos or.
• 36:10
  Michael Harwick: You know, um, coastal defense, uh, uh, uh, constructions now, there were basically, go ahead.
• 36:21
  Damian Bacich: can we just jump back for one second?
• 36:22
  Damian Bacich: How long was a typical enlistment or contract for a Presidio soldier, or Yeah.
• 36:31
  Damian Bacich: How many years did he normally serve?
• 36:32
  Michael Harwick: hard to say, but I think, um, many of them actually did that.
• 36:37
  Michael Harwick: As, you know, they were, they actually retired doing that, you know, being soldiers.
• 36:44
  Michael Harwick: So it became like a, a profession for them.
• 36:47
  Michael Harwick: I mean, you know, when you think about being on the frontier, if you're in the army and supplied by for food and munitions and stuff, and your family is there and you're living, um, that's, that's a job.
• 37:01
  Michael Harwick: You know, that's a way to subsist.
• 37:04
  Michael Harwick: So a lot of those soldiers were, became career soldiers.
• 37:10
  Michael Harwick: Had families and then eventually, you know, got ranches and, and that sort of thing.
• 37:15
  Damian Bacich: Right.
• 37:15
  Damian Bacich: Okay.
• 37:18
  Michael Harwick: So anyway, these royal engineers, after 1790 started putting in, uh, garrisons on the coast.
• 37:25
  Michael Harwick: Problem is you, you, you can't, uh, fend off shipping with light artillery four pound cannon.
• 37:33
  Michael Harwick: You need, you need heavier ordinance for that.
• 37:36
  Michael Harwick: Well, unfortunately, California was way out in the, in the boondocks and trying to get pieces, heavy pieces of artillery across the isus from Spain into California was almost impossible.
• 37:51
  Michael Harwick: Um, so what they did is they went down to Peru and they liberated all these ancient, uh, Elizabeth and Cannon that were down there.
• 38:01
  Michael Harwick: I.
• 38:02
  Michael Harwick: Brought'em up to, brought'em up for coastal defense.
• 38:05
  Michael Harwick: And the remnant of that is, you can see at the San Francisco Presidio, all of those cannons date from about 1600 and something.
• 38:14
  Michael Harwick: They were all cast in Peru, and they're roughly eight pounders.
• 38:19
  Michael Harwick: Um, the other thing that happened when they brought these cannons up, these are 16, uh, cannons minted and, and manufactured in the 16 hundreds.
• 38:30
  Michael Harwick: The boar sizes were different than the 18th century cannons, which had standardized.
• 38:36
  Michael Harwick: So now you had a problem of cannon balls.
• 38:38
  Michael Harwick: Where are you gonna get'em?
• 38:40
  Michael Harwick: Because you're not, you're not able to cast iron on the, on the, you know, on the West coast.
• 38:47
  Michael Harwick: Uh, there weren't the, weren't the foundries for that, but they did.
• 38:51
  Michael Harwick: And were able to cast copper.
• 38:54
  Michael Harwick: It bel it melts at a lower temperature.
• 38:58
  Michael Harwick: So now a lot of these cannon balls that you're gonna find.
• 39:01
  Michael Harwick: Are made outta copper to fit these new cannons or these old cannons.
• 39:07
  Michael Harwick: So, uh, that's what was fired out of those things.
• 39:11
  Michael Harwick: So these guns were at the Presidio and built, interestingly enough, cannons just like this, and with the same dates minted in Peru are at the, at the, at the, uh, uh, Naval Academy in Washington or Annapolis.
• 39:27
  Michael Harwick: And you can see the same guns, the same Peruvian cam, you know, Canon and stuff like that.
• 39:33
  Michael Harwick: Even canon that were, um, uh, captured in Monterey.
• 39:38
  Michael Harwick: Uh, a couple of them with the names that were on the guns there at the Naval Academy.
• 39:43
  Damian Bacich: Ah.
• 39:44
  Michael Harwick: So these, if you take another, my book describes each one of these guns at the San Francisco Presidio, and they all have their interesting history of, of, of who the, you know, what is on the breach, who manufactured them, uh, the weights or scribbled kind of in a funny way on the, on the back of the cannon.
• 40:05
  Michael Harwick: So there's a history there too.
• 40:07
  Michael Harwick: These are beautiful pieces.
• 40:09
  Michael Harwick: And the ones that, the ones that are at the Naval Academy are in not as good a condition because the weather back there is, is eating away at all the inscriptions.
• 40:19
  Damian Bacich: Oh, what a shame.
• 40:21
  Michael Harwick: yeah.
• 40:21
  Michael Harwick: But these at, uh, San Francisco are in much better condition.
• 40:26
  Michael Harwick: So were these casillos ever used?
• 40:30
  Michael Harwick: Um, there were two, two battles, uh, sea battles with foreign shipping.
• 40:36
  Michael Harwick: Uh, one of them was at Monterey when the pirate bouchard attacked.
• 40:42
  Michael Harwick: He sacked Monterey, held it for six days and burned it, and then came down the coast and attacked, uh, FUO here in the Santa Barbara area.
• 40:53
  Michael Harwick: And then also, uh, the, uh, the, the, the Castillo in San Diego fired on a, uh, American ship that had, uh, uh, illegally come into the uh, area.
• 41:06
  Michael Harwick: So those are the two.
• 41:08
  Michael Harwick: But the big thing you were doing with those big guns is, you know, you're, you're bringing them out, you'd lay em out and foreign shipping would come and they'd see you had these cannons and they'd report it.
• 41:19
  Michael Harwick: So it was more show and go than, than anything else.
• 41:23
  Michael Harwick: 'cause it got very, very hard to build these castillos and they didn't last very long.
• 41:28
  Damian Bacich: I was gonna ask you that I only, maybe a few years ago when I started researching the US Mexican War in California, that I found out about the Castillo San Joaquin, and I didn't realize there was one in San Diego as Well, What, what happened to these, You said that they didn't last long.
• 41:49
  Damian Bacich: How?
• 41:49
  Damian Bacich: How come they're not around anymore?
• 41:51
  Michael Harwick: these things required, uh, uh, you know, maintenance upkeep right on the ocean there.
• 41:58
  Michael Harwick: The one at San Diego is right there at Point Loma L.
• 42:01
  Michael Harwick: Point Loma, um, very, very close to the submarine base.
• 42:07
  Michael Harwick: Um, and, uh, it, it was laid out, uh, in such a way that, um, you know, it could, it could control the entrance to the harbor there.
• 42:17
  Michael Harwick: So, um, in fact, there is one cannon, actually two Cannon in San Diego, left.
• 42:23
  Michael Harwick: From that, uh, Fort Curos is is called, and, uh, one of them it's in the book.
• 42:31
  Michael Harwick: Uh, was El Capitan, an iron piece that was on, uh, downtown, uh, old town San Diego for a long time.
• 42:40
  Michael Harwick: And the other one is El Jupiter.
• 42:42
  Michael Harwick: That, uh, is a bronze cannon that's in the S Museum.
• 42:47
  Michael Harwick: Uh, and it was, it's been there for, for ages.
• 42:51
  Michael Harwick: The interesting thing about the, uh, Jupiter is that it was, uh, it was cast in the Philippines, um, and all the inscriptions on it, uh, allow you to, to kind of trace, trace it.
• 43:04
  Michael Harwick: And, uh, the Philippine foundry didn't get started until the 18th century, so it was one of the early guns that came out of that foundry.
• 43:13
  Michael Harwick: But if you wander around the San Francisco Presidio, you'll see a number of bronze 24 pounders that were captured during the Spanish American War and relocated, you know, to the garrison there at Presidio.
• 43:29
  Michael Harwick: And, and many of them are cast in Manila, and they're beautiful things.
• 43:34
  Michael Harwick: They weigh, they weigh an excess of 6,000 pounds.
• 43:38
  Damian Bacich: Wow.
• 43:39
  Michael Harwick: They're all over the place.
• 43:40
  Michael Harwick: You know, at the entrance you come in, there's a couple of, couple of cannons on the, on the gate there, down by Chrissy Field.
• 43:48
  Michael Harwick: I think there's a couple of'em.
• 43:50
  Damian Bacich: Yeah,
• 43:51
  Michael Harwick: Those, you know, those guns,
• 43:52
  Damian Bacich: That concludes part one of my interview with Michael Hardwick about Presidios and SDOs on the California frontier.
• 44:02
  Damian Bacich: Stay tuned for the next episode when we continue our conversation and talk about, among other things, pirates on the coast of California.