After having been asked to participate with the pacification of the Indians in the San Diego area, Don Juan with about two thirds of the expedition (he left one third behind in charge of Sgt. Grijalva) left Mission San Gabriel on February 5, 1776 and after passing through places like Griffith Park, La Laguna, the future city of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Mission San Antonio, the colonists arrived in Monterey on March 10, 1776.
Monterey's population had increased to a little over 500 thus doubling the population of California.
With this remarkable journey completed, the 193 remaining settler/soldiers who came from extreme poverty, with little or no education, laboring through desert, mountain snow, and Indian presence, with their new leader, Lt. Jose Joaquín Moraga, a mestizo, went on to found what is now the City of San Francisco, Mission San Francisco de Asis, and on November 27, 1777 el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. Thus providing the seed for what was to become the fifth largest economy in the world, the State of California.
Not bad for a group that consisted of 48 criollos, 92 mestizos, 47 mulatos, and 6 Native Americans.
Plaza of San Miguel de Horcasitas
