A statue of Captain Don Gasper de Portola located in front of the Portola Hotel in Monterey is accompanied by a plaque which informs us:
"Captain Don Gaspar de Portola of the army of King Carlos III of Spain. First Governor of California, 1768-1770. With Father Junipero Serra founded Monterey on June 3, 1770. Donated by H. M. King Juan Carlos I of Spain to the City of Monterey on the bicentennial of the United States of America. Fausto Blazquez - sculptor. Rededicated by H. M. King Juan Carlos I of Spain, October 3, 1987."
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Gaspar de Portolá i Rovira (1716–1786) was a Spanish soldier and administrator in New Spain and became the founder and first governor of Alta California, as commander of the Spanish colonizing expedition on land and sea that established San Diego and Monterey. Portolá also led the first land expedition from San Diego to San Francisco. He named many geographic features on the way, many of which are still in use...
Spain was driven to establish missions and other outposts on the Pacific Coast north of the Baja California Peninsula by fears that the territory would be claimed by foreign powers. The English, who had established colonies on the East Coast of the continent and north into what is now Canada, had also sent explorers into the Pacific. Russian fur hunters were pressing east from Siberia across the Bering Strait into the Aleutian Islands and beyond.
Dispatches of January 23, 1768, exchanged between King Carlos and the viceroy, set the wheels in motion to extend Spain's control up the Pacific Coast and establish colonies and missions at San Diego Bay and Monterey Bay, which had been discovered and described in reports by earlier explorers Juan Cabrillo and Sebastián Vizcaíno. Vizcaíno had mapped the California coastline as far north as Monterey in 1602, but not much more was done until 166 years later. In May of 1768, the Spanish Visitor General, José de Gálvez, began to organize an expedition, by sea and by land. Portolá was created "Governor of the Californias" and given overall command. Junípero Serra, leader of the expedition's Franciscan missionaries, took command of spiritual matters. Sea and land detachments were to meet at San Diego Bay.
Statue of Gaspar de Portolá, by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs
The first ship, the San Carlos, sailed from La Paz on January 10, 1769 and a second, the San Antonio sailed from Cabo San Lucas on February 15. At the same time, the various elements of the land parties began to move north from Loreto, Baja California Sur. The land expedition was assembled at Velicatá, where Serra established his first new mission. From there, Portolá's plan called for splitting the land expedition in two. The lead group, charged with building a wagon trail and pacifying the natives, was led by Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada, and departed from Velicatá on March 24. With Rivera was the priest Juan Crespí, diarist for the Franciscans. The expedition led by Portolá, which included Junípero Serra (the President of the Missions), along with a combination of missionaries, settlers, and leather-jacket soldiers, including José Raimundo Carrillo, left Velicata on May 15. Junípero Serra founded two more missions during the expedition: San Diego de Alcalá on July 16, 1769 and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on June 3, 1770."