Struggles to Save the Home of California Pioneer Juana Briones Continue
by Guest Writer on November 12th, 2009Written by Jeanne Farr McDonnell
Encajonado construction method, exposed exterior wall, ca. 1900. (Photo: Palo Alto Historical Association)
The National Trust’s Latino Heritage in Preservation affinity group’s interest in languages resounds deeply for me in regard to my research on the life of Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda for the biography I wrote of her.
How this 19th century Californian–that is, born in California when it remained a colony of Spain–managed to relate well to people of various languages, races, cultural backgrounds, and homelands, was a question that I only gradually came to feel I understood.
It has been a common belief that all the first Californians, either who entered as pioneers or who were born in the territory, shared Spanish as a common language. A closer look at the history shows that the first language of many of those first people of European background was Catalan, aka Catalonian, or Euskara, aka Basque. All had to deal with the native people, who spoke in numerous dialects, some of which differed from each other as French from Italian, for example.
The Briones house much as it would still look today if not hidden by trees, ca. 1900. (Photo: Palo Alto Historical Association)
Juana was born in Branciforte in 1802. The nearby Santa Cruz Mission could not house the Indian population in the vicinity to the extent that most missions did because agricultural conditions along the coast meant that the Indians had to continue their practices of using native foods. That meant that the Indians there kept their own language longer, and that Juana in her everyday life shared their lives to a large extent. From her infancy on, she was surrounded by languages very different from that of her parents. As research has shown, early immersion in more than one language contributes to adaptability to linguistic diversity.
Juana helped sailors who spoke English desert from their ship in San Francisco Bay at a time when sailors suffered scurvy, lashing for minor infringements of rigid regulation, and many other conditions of servitude and degradations that hardly seem possible today. She cared for sick people in her home, reported on different occasions to be nursing a sick Indian girl, a Portuguese man, and an English speaking sailor whom she cured and whose shipmates brought him to her because they thought he would die. She was unusual in that she legally adopted an Indian girl. One early historian wrote that Indian villages welcomed her as a renowned healer. Juana’s sister had learned to be a midwife from a padre whose native language was Catalonian, which has similarities to both French and Spanish, and Juana knew that missionary, Father Magin de Catala, well.
Much more about Juana’s life reveals her humanitarian sensitivity to persons of diverse origins, but it was two other features of her character that make her of special interest to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Caring for her family was a priority for her, and she considered part of that obligation to be economic. She had to provide for them in a meaningful way, and in doing that, she purchased a 4,400 acre ranch 35 miles south of San Francisco and built a house there, part of which remains to this day. At one time, the owner-resident welcomed public tours under trained docents 20 days each year. But subsequent owners have failed either to maintain the structure or to permit public access.
Survey of the Rancho la Purisima Concepcion showing casa de Juana Briones in upper right quadrant, ca. 1855. (Santa Clara University Archives)
People of the Palo Alto region, where the property is located, managed to engage an attorney to take the case that prevented the demolition the owners had requested and the city had sanctioned. But the case continues in the courts. PAST, Palo Alto’s preservation organization, has agreed to receive funds to support the cause of preservation. Interested friends of the cause are considering possible actions, one of which is to raise funds to make an offer to the owner to purchase the 1.5 acre property.
For me, this is national, even international history. The entry into California in 1769 of missionaries, soldiers, government officials, and soon after in 1775 of families, began the settlement of a place that in ways that gave Indians difficulties but in many regards managed to mingle the cultures. Juana’s father and his father were among the first group; her mother came as a child with her family in 1775. To let the home of the daughter of those pioneer originators fade away seems unconscionable. Help is needed.
Read an earlier story about Juana Briones:
Protecting the Story of Juana Briones & Her California Gem »
Jeanne Farr McDonnell is the author of Juana Briones of 19th Century California, published in 2008 by the University of Arizona Press. She is now a member of the boards of the Palo Alto Historical Association and of PAST, and was the founder of the Women’s Heritage Museum, now the International Museum of Women, based in San Francisco and specializing in on-line exhibits and programs featuring prominent women of other nations.
Support the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Donate now.
