José de los Santos Berreyesa (April 28, 1817 – October 30, 1864), a member of the Berreyesa family, was the last ''

Alcalde Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...

'' of

Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...

. Fluent to a high degree in both English and Spanish, he served as a witness on many land grant cases before the

Public Land Commission The California Land Act of 1851 (), enacted following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the admission of California as a state in 1850, established a three-member Public Land Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican la ...

in the 1850s and 1860s.

Life

José de los Santos Berreyesa was born in

Yerba Buena Yerba buena or hierba buena is the Spanish name for a number of aromatic plants, most of which belong to the mint family. ''Yerba buena'' translates as "good herb". The specific plant species regarded as ''yerba buena'' varies from region to reg ...

(present day San Francisco) in northern

of Mexico. He was the sixth child and fourth son of

José de los Reyes Berreyesa José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...

.FamilyTreeMaker.com
''Descendants of Luis Cayetano (Berrelleza) Berreyesa''. Generation No. 3
. Retrieved on August 17, 2009. Berreyesa served as the alcalde at the Mexican

Presidio of Sonoma The Sonoma Barracks (Spanish: ''Cuartel de Sonoma'') is a two-story, wide-balconied, adobe building facing the central plaza of the City of Sonoma, California. It was built by order of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo to house the Mexican soldiers that ...

. In 1846, while alcalde and during the

Bear Flag Revolt The California Republic ( es, La República de California), or Bear Flag Republic, was an unrecognized breakaway state from Mexico, that for 25 days in 1846 militarily controlled an area north of San Francisco, in and around what is now Son ...

, he was jailed with two of his brothers by American

John C. Frémont John Charles Frémont or Fremont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, military officer, and politician. He was a U.S. Senator from California and was the first Republican nominee for president of the United States in 1856 ...

. When his father traveled up to see how his three sons were being treated in jail, the father and two cousins, twin sons of Francisco de Haro, were shot and killed in San Rafael by a group of three men, including Kit Carson, who was assigned the task by Frémont. The dead were stripped of their belongings, and left for Mission Indians to bury. When Berreyesa asked whether his father had been killed, Frémont said it might have been a man named Castro. A soldier of Frémont's was seen wearing the father's serape, and Frémont refused to assist Berreyesa in retrieving it as a final token of his father to give to his mother. The three Berreyesa brothers resorted to buying the serape from the soldier for the extortionate price of $25 ().Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner. ''The Beginnings of San Francisco'', 1912
"Appendix D: The Murder of Berreyesa and the De Haros."
Hosted at SFGenealogy. Retrieved on August 16, 2009. Later, Carson told

Jasper O'Farrell Jasper O'Farrell (1817–1875) was an Irish-American politician who served as the first surveyor for San Francisco. He designed the "grand promenade" that became today's Market Street. O'Farrell Street in San Francisco is named after him. Early ...

that he regretted killing the Californios, but that the act was only one such that Frémont ordered him to commit. ;Family Berreyesa married Francisca Ignacis Martínez (1824–1907), a twin daughter of

Ygnacio Martínez Ygnacio Nicanor Martínez (1774–1848) was a Californio politician, soldier, and ranchero, who served as the fourth Alcalde of San Francisco (then known as Yerba Buena). He was an important figure in the development of Contra Costa and the ci ...

.FamilyTreeMaker.com
''Descendants of Luis Cayetano (Berrelleza) Berreyesa''. Generation No. 4
. Retrieved on August 17, 2009. The couple had four sons and two daughters between 1848 and 1856. ;Rancho Mallacomes Berreyesa received the Mexican land grant of

Rancho Mallacomes Rancho Mallacomes (also called Moristul and Mallacomes y Plano de Agua Caliente) was a Mexican land grant in present-day Napa County and Sonoma County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to José de los Santos Berreyesa. T ...

from Governor

Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general of the Mexican Army, adjutant-general of the same, governor, commandant-general and inspector of the department of Las Californias, then ...

in 1843. It was located in the Napa Valley, within present day in

Napa County, California Napa County () is a county north of San Pablo Bay located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 138,019. The county seat is the City of Napa. Napa County was one of the original co ...

. After the U.S. statehood of California (1850), as required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Mallacomes was filed by Berreyesa in 1852 with the

. was patented by the U.S. to his estate in 1873. Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886
José de los Santos Berreyesa died in Martinez, California on October 30, 1864.

References

External links

Plat of Rancho Mallacomes, 1840sPlat of Rancho Mallacomes, 1859–1860Plat of Rancho Mallacomes, 1867–1868
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berreyesa, Jose De Los Santos Californios People of Mexican California 1817 births 1864 deaths Mexican people of the Bear Flag Revolt People of the Conquest of California People from Napa County, California People from San Francisco People from the San Francisco Bay Area

Life

See also

References

External links