The Last Battle of the Yokut
N 37° 40.516 W 121° 15.948
10S E 652933 N 4171201
Three times, the Yokut under Chief Estanislao defeated Mexican forces. This battle was their last.
Waymark Code: WM5P0N
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 01/27/2009
Views: 8
This was the largest battle ever to take place in San Joaquin County and one of the few battles in the California Indian Wars that actually used cannons. 4,000 Native Americans from the Yokut and Chumash nations joined forced, lead by Chumash Chief Pacomio and Yokut alcade
Estanislao. Estanislao, a baptized Yokut Chief, had spent six years at the Mission San Jose, in what is now Fremont, California. After leaving the mission in 1827, he educated his men in battle techniques he had learned from Spanish and Mexican soldiers and started raiding Mexican settlements in San Joaquin county, Which was then a part of Mexico. He was famous for using his sword to carve his initial, "S" in the walls of places he raided. Some people claim that this makes him the original and true Zorro.
The settlers pleaded for help from the Mexican army. It took four military expeditions to finally subdue Estanislao and his followers. The Mexican troops were led by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who later became an important figure in the transition of California from a Mexican district to an American state. The last battle was fought here at the northern banks of the Laquisimas River in Spring 1829. Estanislao returned to Mission San Jose in May 1829 and he and his followers were pardoned in October of the same year. In 1854, newly formed Stanislaus County was named after the great chief and at about the same time the Laquisimas River was renamed Stanislaus River.
According to the California Office of Historic Preservation, the precise location of the battle is 200 yards SE of confluence of San Joaquin and Stanislaus Rivers on the north bank of the Stanislaus. Unfortunately, almost the entire river front is private property. The closest public place to see the actual battle field is this bridge over the River.
Historian Hubert Howe Bancroft discusses this battle in Chapter II of Volume III of his History of California, published in 1886. his detailed account of the battle can be found here.