PEACEMAKER: ‘Proverbially hospitable, [Don Guillermo] ‘Hartnell hesitated only a second before inviting the American [Captain John C. Fremont] in, to stay with the family in the main house,’ Susanna Bryant Dakin, The Lives of William Hartnell, page 271

Proverbially hospitable, Hartnell hesitated only a second before inviting the American in, to stay with the family in the main house.  Fremont’s men he gave permission to camp under the sycamores, close by the stream that watered Alisal.  The evening glow of their fires, the sound of their songs and talk and laugher, exerted an irresistible attraction to children of the neighbourhood, and for a few days the soldiers enjoyed a respite from their hard and cheerless life.

On March 5, their captain sent a message to the American Consul Larkin, in Monterey, saying he hoped to spend the spring, the lovliest time of year, among the California wild flowers.  From this dream he was rudely awakened.

Three of Fremont’s men, who had been too long in the wilderness, went to the near-by house of Don Angel Castro (uncle to General Jose Castro) and offered insult to his pretty daughters.  Later in the day, a courier rode through head-high mustard to the American camp at Alisal, carrying a message from yet another Castro, Don Manuel, the Monterey prefect.  It was brief and to the point, telling the American to take his men and leave the country because of this breach of hospitality.

Fremont became enraged and would not listen to his hosts’s counsel of peaceful departure.  He paid no attention, either, to a letter from the American consul containing the same advice.  Insead, he moved his men up the hill behind the Hartnell adobes, to the very top of Gavilan (hawk) Peak, and there raised the Stars and Stripes in preparation for battle.  This was three months before the actual declaration of war between the United States and Mexico.  Like Commodore Jones, Fremont made a “mistake” and started a never-ending controversy as to which side was most to blame for the end of peace.

We need not enter the controversy or look long upon war’s desolation if we fellow the course of Hartnell’s life.

On July 7, Captain William Mervine, commander of the U. S. S. Cyane and the U. S. S. Savannah, acting under orders from Commodore John D. Sloat, raised the American flag over the customhouse at Monterey, thus formally taking possession of California for the United States.  A cannonade followed, consisting of a salute with twenty-one guns for each ship in the American squadron.  Such a display of martial strength discouraged the Californians from firing even one shot in retaliation.  A proclamation then was issued  by the commodore, saying that quietude must be the “condition of security and repose,” and enjoining Americans stationed on shore not to molest the Californians “in their lawful occupations.” 

[Susanna Bryant Dakin, The Lives of William Hartnell, PEACEMAKER, pages 271 - 272]

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HARTNELLIANA 1846 – 2009

la rosa revue

PEACEMAKER: ‘Wild excitement swept over Alisal on the first of March, 1846, when Fremont’s men, two hundred strong, turned from El Camino Real… to the Hartnell home site’… pages 269 – 271 of Susanna Bryant Dakin’s LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

General Vallejo ended the speeches with a stirring appeal for annexation, then and there, to the United States.  It was growing late, so Prudhon called for a vote before refreshments.  This was the signal for pandemonium, which increased in violence until the meeting broke up.  No vote was taken, but much ‘ardiente was consumed.

When arbitration failed and the cause of England was lost, William Hartnell retired again to Alisal.  Many visitors appeared, for El Camino Real still was the state highway, and it passed close by the rancho.  The most famous guest at this time was the American Captain Fremont.  He and Hartnell had met a few years earlier, when Fremont first came to California on an exploration tour.

The American and the Englishman possessed in common a good education and brilliant conversational powers.  Dona Teresa was attracted by the captain’s aire of refinement and courtly manners, his wavy brown hair and deep blue eyes.  She had heard of his lovely wife Jessie, daughter of Senator Thomas Benton, who would one day accompany her husband to the coast.  With enthusiasm, the Hartnells had invited the Fremonts to visit.

But here was the American with an army following him, instead of a wife.  Wild excitement swept over Alisal on the first of March, 1846, when Fremont’s men, two hundred strong, turned from El Camino Real and started up the side road, clattering past the Alvarado place and right on to the Hartnell home site.  They were well mounted, and had three hundred extra horses in their train.  The Hartnell children were first transfixed with fear and then slowly fascinated by the sight of the rifles, revolving pistols, and long knives which glittered in the pale spring sunlight.

Captain Fremont knocked at the door, ready to renew friendship with the Hartnells.  But it was with difficulty that Don Guillermo recognized the polished gentleman of his former acquaintance in the fierce-looking fellow who now confronted him.  Like the rest of his men, Fremont wore his untrimmed hair flowing from under a foraging cap, and an untrimmed beard.  White teeth flashing in a smile actually added to the ferocity of his appearance.  Like his men, he was clad in buckskin from head to toe and armed to the teeth. 

 

[Pages 269 - 271 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's important history of Alta California: The Lives of William Hartnell,published in 1949 by Stanford University Press.]

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HARTNELLIANA 1846 – 2009

PEACEMAKER: ‘William Hartnell went on record as favoring England… a strong imperial nation which would… not sanction slavery,’ page 269 of Susanna Bryant Dakin’s ‘Lives of William Hartnell’

On and on wanders Wyllie, in the mazes of his imagination.

Meanwhile, Micheltorena, on whom everything depends, has been chased back across the border by Hartnell’s sworn enemy, Pio Pico, who had assumed authority.

British colonization of California became a dead issue, existing only in the minds of a few men out of government jobs who had gathered around former Governor Alvarado and William Hartnell at Alisal.

A story was told by General Vallejo and confirmed by Alvarado (in their manuscript histories of California preserved at the Bancroft Library) that Thomas Larkin played host one night to some old friends who had been separated and made suspicious of each other by the political situation.

Vallejo hinted that they met primarily to overthrow Pico.

But the international issue, the question of a protectorate, was on everybody’s mind.

Don Jose Castro presided and surprised the assembly by declaring himself for annexation to France, for religious reasons.

He had been thought to favor independence.

Rafael Gonzales then sprang to his feet from Mrs. Larkin’s sofa, with the ringing words: “California libre, soberana, y independiente (California free, sovereign, and independent)!”

William Hartnell, taking notes, reported his brother-in-law, Pablo de la Guerra, as long-windedly seconding the motion.

French Victor Prudhon, a master of many languages, declared that prudence made him favor the United States since “gentlemen of the frontier” already were too close for comfort.

His fellow countryman, Henri Cambuston, called him down; then Larkin moved for peaceful annexation to the United States.

David Spence and William Hartnell went on record as favoring England, urging her advantages as a strong, imperial nation which would afford protection impartially to Protestants and Catholics and would not sanction slavery.

 

Page 269 of Susanna Bryant Dakin’s The Lives of William Hartnell

 

BENEDICT XVI: DEAR ARTISTS, YOU ARE THE CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY

Pope Benedict XVI addressed the artists of the world on November 21, 2009 from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

For a link to the address given by Benedict to artists on relation between art and the Church today, please refer to the comments section below for a link to the Chiesa website.

- ‘Goyo de la Rosa’

   Editor, LA ROSA

PEACEMAKER: DR. ROBERT WYLLIE TO WILLIAM HARTNELL: ‘If the General [Micheltorena] wishes to join us, he could secretly, have one third of the allotment to me and to you, so as that his Grant also would come under British Protection,’ pages 267 – 269, Susanna Bryant Dakin

The doctor’s eloquence could not be shut off, because he now was across the world from where he had expected to be.  Writing from Oahu, Wyllie finally gave an address:

“You will be surprised to know that I am here, along with General Miller, now H. B. M.’s Consul General for these and other islands in the Pacific.”  When this legendary character from Kent, whom both cousins had known in South America in the twenties as one of Bolivar’s bravest generals, asked the Doctor to accompany him and a lovely daughter to the South Seas, Wyllie couldn’t resist, although, says he: “I was all ready to start for England agreeably to what I told you.”

He planned to stay several months longer and then ‘it is not impossible that the answers from the London Committee to my communications from Mexico, may lead me to visit California, to determine how far English settlers there would enjoy greater advantages than in the Departments nearer to the Atlantic.”  He is quite out of touch with recent developments on the mainland, and inquires anxiously about more land which he hopes Hartnell has secured from Micheltorena.

Impatient to hear from his “old cronie,” he soon writes again: “I regret that you do not say anything about the terms on which grants of land can be obtained in California.”  A splinter of truth finally pricks the bubble: “Bye & bye, I think, the N. Americans will overrun your whole Department.”  By outgoing vessels he sends several communications to Hartnell from Honolulu, each assuming that Micheltorena is still in office and that the major obstacle blocking his plan is American intervention:

‘A time may arise, and that soon, when a grant of land may be of great importance to you, & to your family.  From the successive touchings at California of American Ships of War, their views upon the Territory are apparent, and if the question of Texas had led to a war, the result cannot be doubted.

‘In such an event, the only power that could save California is Great Britain, and nothing could justify her interference so much, as previous grants of land, under the Mexican Government to British subjects.

‘Be ready therefore to grasp all you can for me and for yourself, if such a crisis should threaten, and if the General [Micheltorena] wishes to join us, he could secretly, have one third of the allotment to me and to you, so as that his Grant also would come under British Protection. . . . . If the grants can be obtained for nothing, in the old way, of course it is much better than paying for land in Deferred Bonds.’

 

[Pages 267 - 269 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's book on Alta California, THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL, published by Stanford University Press in 1949.]

[Gregory Hartnell is also transcribing Susanna Bryant Dakin's important history of Alta California at gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com.  A link to that transcription, which is on pages 12 - 13 at the moment, is found in the comments section below, or in the LA ROSA BLOGROLL to the right, under 'CCC BLOG.']

 

LA ROSA – CCC TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HARTNELLIANA 1819 – 2009

JEFFERSON STARSHIP IN VICTORIA, ROYAL THEATRE, OCTOBER 27: Two tickets for sale here: $150 Canadian, save $13 on surcharges

I have two tickets for sale to the Jefferson Starship this October 27 at the Royal Theatre in Victoria B. C. Canada.

They usually sell for $81.50 Can. a piece, including taxes and service charges.

I am willing to sell these two tickets, MFL RowF Seats 9 and 10, for $150.00 total, cash only, on personal delivery.

Please phone 250 382 97 67 if seriously interested in hearing this historic San Francisco band and saving $13.00.

 

‘Goyo de la Rosa’

250 382 97 67

Victoria

OLOMPALI Summer 1966: David Freiberg gets up and plays with Garcia, Janis Joplin sashays up and sings with Pigpen,’ Scully + Dalton, page 56

At Olompali all our gear is set up on a flat stage on the grass in front of the big house and anybody can play at any time.

Big Brother and the Charlatans and the Grateful Dead and the Quicksilver Messenger Service are all hanging out and playing together.

Totally disorganized because everybody is so high, wandering off and tripping.

Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann are riding horseback up into the hills, Bobby Weir’s hooking up with the peyote ceremony that’s going on in the back of the property (which is huge, it backs onto state land).

People get lost for days.

Whoever is around plays.

David Freiberg gets up and plays with Garcia, Janis Joplin sashays up and sings with Pigpen.

 

LIVING WITH THE DEAD

Twenty Years on the Bus 

With Garcia and the Grateful Dead

Rock Scully and David Dalton

Page 56

 

LA ROSA – CCC TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1966 – 2009

ROCK SCULLY + DAVID DALTON ON GRATEFUL DEAD INFLUENCES IN NORTH BEACH JAZZ, BLUES + FOLK MUSIC: ‘That’s where we heard Jorma Kaukonen play guitar’

When the Grateful Dead began, San Francisco was still in that transitional period from Beat to Hip.

We aspired to the bohemian, outlaw code of the Beats.

They smoked grass, ate magic mushrooms, grew beards, and wore Levi’s and plaid flannel shirts.

They were into jazz, Zen, and existentialism.

So what if they talked to themselves or took speed and drank Hearty Mountain Burgundy!

We don’t care, they are on the beam.

But it is not exactly a mutual admiration society.

The Beats from North Beach look askance at us hippies.

We are on a different wavelength.

This has to do with musical tempo and electronics and the changing of an era.

Of course, there is one other little factor: the mind-bending drugs.

***

Jerry was born in San Francisco, as was Pigpen.

Phil Lesh was born in Berkeley.

Bob Weir in Palo Alto.

We were Bay Area kids proud of the city’s long line of hairy poets and eccentrics.

Garcia had come up through the coffeehouse scene in Palo Alto, a bohemian enclave if ever there was one.

His beard is a coffeehouse beard.

Bushy, nihilistic, Beat.

Occasionally he ventured off to North Beach.

That’s where we all hung sooner or later, because that’s where the music was .

If you were going to hear jazz, or blues, or folk music, that’s where you went.

That’s where we heard Jorma Kaukonen play guitar.

 

LIVING WITH THE DEAD

Rock Scully and David Dalton

Page 22

 

LA ROSA – CCC  TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1965 – 2009

 

For information about the upcoming Jefferson Starship concert at the Royal Theatre on October 27 in Victoria, British Columbia, please refer to the comments section below for a link to a number of relevant websites.

BLEEDING WITH THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE AT ALTAMONT: ‘Animal proceeds to smack Marty Balin in the face,’ Scully + Dalton, pages 182 – 183

Not until the Jefferson Airplane go on do we venture out of the bus.

There is all this kinetic energy zinging about, and when Marty Balin gets into a fight with this Angel named (I’m not kidding) Animal, we fear the worst.

Animal is wearing a grisly cowl made out of wolf fur.

It is road kill, essentially, that he has shaped to go over his head, complete with snout, teeth and whiskers.

All that’s missing from his outfit are horns.

Animal proceeds to smack Marty Balin in the face and has to be pulled off the stage kicking and screaming, still trying to smash Marty in face with his boot.

It is a truly terrifying moment.

Jerry holds up both hands in an involuntary gesture of keeping back some unseen host of demons.

He is petrified.

Speechless, and shaking like a leaf.

He turns every shade of pale and whispers: “Oh, maa-aan, no way are we doing this.

“There is absolutely no way.

“The inmates have definitely taken over the asylum.

“Rock, go sort it out, man.

“Talk to the Angels or something.”

Oh, sure, Jerry.

If somebody would only just talk to the Angels, this misunderstanding could get itself worked out!

Now, it’s true I am dumb enough to go retrieve my suitcase after being busted, but I’ve got a little more sense than to interfere in foreign wars.

It’s not that Jerry fears for his life; he has a lot of friends in the Hell’s Angels.

What is truly disturbing him are the bad vibes, and let me tell you, they are truly ugly.

Of course, being high as a kite makes things that much worse.

The momentum is frightening, too.

“This show is like some kind of runaway train, and we best get the f— out of here before it runs into us,” Jerry moans, making a dash for the bus.

And everybody else is running around and wailing and wringing their hands.

Phil Lesh, who is even more jittery than Garcia, is peeking out through the saggy curtains giving us a running commentary of the savage sideshow outside.

“Jesus Christ, there’s this three-hundred-pound naked guy, and — of God! — the Angels are beating him to a f—ing pulp.”

“Phil, stop, please!”

Pigpen is huddld in the back of the bus too numb to react.

But night must fall.

Healy pokes his head in the bus: “The Airplane are coming off-stage, what do you guys want to do?”

We had planned to go on just before the Stones, but things seem to be falling apart too quickly (including the band).

It’s essential, if more chaos is be avoided, that the Stones play as soon as possible.

A lot more bands have shown up than we anticipated, the show is goinG on too long, and if we go on now the Stones will go on way too late.

It is starting to get dark, and there are no lights and no lit roads to find our way out of the godforsaken place.

At least 350,000 people trapped in this demonic gulley!

Garcia tell me to get everybody together; he wants it to be a group decision.

Well, turns out that Marty Balin’s getting hit has made the band members fairly crazy; nobody wants to go out there and play, lights or no lights!

 

LIVING WITH THE DEAD:

Twenty Years on the bus with

Garcia and the Grateful Dead

This Darkness Got to Give

Pages 182 – 183

 

LA ROSA – CCC TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1965 – 2009

 

NOTA BENE: The Jefferson Airplane band spawned the Jefferson Starship, which is coming to the Royal Theatre in Victoria on October 27, 2009.

Please refer to the CCC BLOGROLL on the right for further ticket details.

- ‘Goyo de la Rosa,’ Editor

LA ROSA

 

Thanksgiving 1967 at 710 Ashbury: Jefferson Airplane, Charlatans, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Neal Cassady + the Dead

Thanksgiving 1967 feels like a last hurrah.

The Airplane come, and the Charlatans, and Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley and Neal Cassady, our genius loci, presiding over all.

We open all the big sliding doors that separate the different rooms — the front room from the dining room, the dining room from the back room, which is Pigpen’s room.

We finally get to see Pig’s room.

He has to clean up his room and make his bed and do all the things that he hates to do, because we are incorporating his room into the festivities.

We put together every table in the house, take doors off the hinges to make tables, and then cover the whole thing with motley tablecloths.

We have tables winding through from the front of the house to the back, all on different levels.

It goes up and down with the height of the different tables.

People are sitting on easy chairs or towering over the tables on stools.

Everybody brings something to this wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, their favorite thing or the best thing that they make.

The dinner is elegant: pies and soup, rice and all kinds of exotic side dishes, from American Indian recipes and Zen macrobiotic to traditional American turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and gravy.

Everybody eats themselves silly except for Neal Cassady.

Aside from sixteen diet pills, he doesn’t eat a thing.

For him those Desoxyn are the best brown meat, white meat, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pies and gravy and cranberry sauce imaginable.

Le tout rock ‘n’ roll of San Francisco comes. 

It’s probably the first time a lot of us have a celebration like this that isn’t with our families.

It’s one of those moments where we realize that we’re making our own kind of family here.

Cassady never sits down.

He’s up on the table, doing a little dance from corner to corner, rapping out his own Dada digest of the news.

A futurist collage of an article on Vietnam and then on to movie reviews or some book review and then back to how the folks at the White House are planning to celebrate Thanksgiving.

This is our dinner music.

Jerry loves it because you can talk over it or under it, relate to it or ignore it.

Jerry and Phil, who are both well read, listen to it like instantaneous poetry and toss lines back to him and feed the frenzy.

Cutup conversations pieced together out of the dross and everyday surrealism of American culture, a Mahabharata of gossip, mental mumbling, song lyrics, weather reports, and menus.

You can see why Kerouac and Kesey loved him so much.

The guy was a brilliant writer who never stopped long enough to write it down.

But under the camaraderie and high spirits runs a strain of melancholy.

We know something we believed in with all our hearts has ended. 

The Haight is going all to hell and shortly the Dead family is going to be splitting up.

We’re never all going to live together again.

We are being cast out of Eden.

Time to roll another joint.

 

LIVING WITH THE DEAD:

Twenty years on the bus

with Garcia and the Grateful Dead

Rock Scully and David Dalton

Pages 133 – 134

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1967 – 2009