José María Amador (cropped)
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José María Amador (1794 – 1883) was a
Californio Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...
ranchero, gold miner, and soldier.
Amador County Amador County () is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California, in the Sierra Nevada. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 40,474. The county seat is Jackson, California, Jackson. Ama ...
and Amador City, both in California's
Gold Country The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines t ...
, are named after Amador, having found gold there in 1848. He is also the namesake of
Amador Valley Amador Valley is a valley in eastern Alameda County, California and is the location of the cities of Dublin and Pleasanton. Part of Tri-Valley, the valley is bounded by the foothills of the Diablo Range on the north and south, Pleasanton Ridge ...
(home to the cities of Pleasanton and
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
), a component of the
Tri-Valley The Tri-Valley area is grouping of three valleys in the East Bay region of California's Bay Area. The three valleys are Amador Valley, Livermore Valley, and San Ramon Valley. The Tri-Valley encompasses the cities of Dublin, Livermore, Pleasa ...
in
Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. A ...
.


Biography

He was born at the
Presidio of San Francisco The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part ...
, one of the youngest of eleven children of Pedro Amador and Ramona Noriega. He very probably named his later ranch after his mother and his maternal grandfather, Ramón Noriega. He was an older brother of Sinforosa Amador (1788–1841). He spent his early years as a soldier and explorer, serving in the Spanish army of
Nueva España New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...
, 1810–1827, then from 1827 to 1835 was mayordomo, or administrator, at the Mission San José. He was granted 4,400 acres of Mission land in 1835, which he named Rancho San Ramon. Amador was married three times and had 22 children. He built several adobes at his rancho headquarters near Alamilla Springs in today's
Dublin, California Dublin is a suburban city of the East Bay in California, United States. It is located within the Amador Valley of Alameda County, California, Alameda County's Tri-Valley region. It is located along the north side of Interstate 580 (California), ...
, including a two-story adobe which was used by James Dougherty in the 1860s, thereafter named
Dougherty, Alameda County, California Dougherty (also, Amador's, Amador Valley, and Dougherty Station) was an unincorporated community in Alameda County, California. It was associated with two separate areas near Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ir ...
. He gradually sold the land till none was left at his death. His grave stone may be found at
Gilroy, California Gilroy is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. It had a population of 59,520 as of the 2020 census. Gilroy's origins lie in the village of San Ysidro, which developed in the early 19th ...
or at the Dublin Heritage Museum and Park.


Oral history

In 1877, he was living at Whiskey Hill, Santa Cruz County when Thomas Savage recorded Amador's “Memorias sobre la Historia de California,” which survives as a manuscript in the
Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...
.


Rancho San Ramon

With the
cession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdicti ...
of California to the United States following the
Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...
, the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...
provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Ramon was filed with 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 the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...
in 1852, and of the grant was
patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
to Jose Maria Amador in 1865. Amador gradually sold his rancho. James Witt Dougherty bought in 1852.


Legacy of geographical names

Amador mined along a nameless creek in 1848 and 1849. His presence gave his surname to the creek, two villages on its banks, and, in 1854, a new county.''Californio Voices: The Oral Memoirs of José María Amador'' Page 79 José María Amador, ed. Lorenzo Asisara, Gregorio Mora-Torres - 2005 translation of José María Amador, “Memorias sobre la Historia de California,” Bancroft Library MS. (1877), 207-208; There was no settlement where Amador City is now until the summer of 1851, after gold outcroppings had been prospected on both sides of "Amador's Creek", upstream several hundred yards from downtown. The "Original" or "Little" Amador mine and the Spring Hill were probably Amador County's first gold mines. With the discovery of such quartz gold, the settlement that was upstream where the stage road crossed "Amador's creek" or Amador Crossing, gradually moved to "South Amador" or Amador City where French Gulch drains into the creek. The city's most famous and productive mine, the Keystone was organized in 1853 out of two or more claims and before it closed for good in 1942 it produced in intermittent operation about $24 million in gold at much lower gold prices.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amador, Jose Maria 1794 births 1883 deaths Oral historians Ranchers from California American miners People of Alta California People from San Francisco People from Dublin, California