Andrés Pico

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American politician (1810-1876)

title: "Andrés Pico" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["californios", "1810-births", "1876-deaths", "19th-century-american-businesspeople", "19th-century-american-landowners", "19th-century-roman-catholics", "african-american-catholics", "american-politicians-of-mexican-descent", "california-state-senators", "catholic-politicians-from-california", "governors-of-alta-california", "hispanic-and-latino-american-people-in-california-politics", "landowners-from-california", "members-of-the-california-state-assembly", "mexican-military-personnel-of-the-mexican–american-war", "military-personnel-from-san-diego", "people-of-the-conquest-of-california", "people-of-alta-california", "politicians-from-san-diego", "union-militia-generals", "19th-century-members-of-the-california-state-legislature"] description: "American politician (1810-1876)" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Pico" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American politician (1810-1876) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

FieldValue
nameAndrés Pico
imageAndres Pico circa 1850.jpg
captionPico 1850
officeActing Governor of California
term_startJanuary 10, 1847
term_endJanuary 13, 1847
predecessorJosé María Flores
successorRobert F. Stockton (as Military Governor of California)
state_senate1California
district11st
term_start1January 2, 1860
term_end1January 6, 1862
predecessor1Cameron E. Thom
successor1Jacob C. Bogart
office2Member of the California State Assembly
term_start2January 4, 1858
term_end2January 2, 1860
predecessor2Multi-member district
successor2Multi-member district
constituency21st district
term_start3January 6, 1851
term_end3January 3, 1853
predecessor3Multi-member district
successor3Multi-member district
constituency32nd district
birth_date
birth_placeSan Diego, Alta California, New Spain
death_date
death_placeLos Angeles, California, U.S.
partyWhig (before 1853)
Democratic (after 1853)
otherpartyChivalry Democratic (1850s)
Breckenridge Democratic (1860s)
spouseCatalina Carmen Moreno
children{{flatlist
relativesJosé María Pico (father)
Pío Pico (brother)
José de la Guerra y Noriega (brother-in-law)
José Antonio Carrillo (brother-in-law)
Pico family
professionRancher, soldier, politician
allegiance[[File:Bandera de la República Central Mexicana.svg
[[File:California Lone Star Flag 1836.svgborder
United States
branch[[File:Mexico-branch-colour Cavalry(blue).gif
[[File:CavalryBC.png24px]] California Cavalry
rank[[File:Gral bgdr.gif
(Mexico – until 1847)
[[File:Union Army brigadier general rank insignia.svg35px]] Brigadier General (California State Militia – after 1858)
commandsCalifornia Lancers
awardsRancho Ex-Mission San Fernando
Pico Canyon Oilfield named for him
Rancho Pico Junior High School named after him
citizenshipUnited States
::

| name = Andrés Pico | image = Andres Pico circa 1850.jpg | caption = Pico 1850 | office = Acting Governor of California | term_start = January 10, 1847 | term_end = January 13, 1847 | predecessor = José María Flores | successor = Robert F. Stockton (as Military Governor of California) | state_senate1 = California | district1 = 1st | term_start1 = January 2, 1860 | term_end1 = January 6, 1862 | predecessor1 = Cameron E. Thom | successor1 = Jacob C. Bogart | office2 = Member of the California State Assembly | term_start2 = January 4, 1858 | term_end2 = January 2, 1860 | predecessor2 = Multi-member district | successor2 = Multi-member district | constituency2 = 1st district | term_start3 = January 6, 1851 | term_end3 = January 3, 1853 | predecessor3 = Multi-member district | successor3 = Multi-member district | constituency3 = 2nd district | birth_date = | birth_place = San Diego, Alta California, New Spain | death_date = | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | party = Whig (before 1853) Democratic (after 1853) | otherparty = Chivalry Democratic (1850s) Breckenridge Democratic (1860s) | spouse = Catalina Carmen Moreno | children = {{flatlist|

Early life

Andrés Pico was born in San Diego in 1810 as a member of the Pico family of California, a prominent Californio family. He was one of several sons of José María Pico and María Eustaquia López. An older brother was Pío Pico, who twice served as governor of Alta California.

Ranchero

In 1845, under the law for secularization of former Church properties, his older brother Governor Pío Pico granted Andrés Pico and his associate Juan Manso a nine-year lease for the Mission San Fernando Rey de España lands, which encompassed nearly the entire San Fernando Valley. At that time a 35-year-old rancher, Andrés Pico lived in Pueblo de Los Ángeles. He ran cattle on the ranch and used the mission complex as his hacienda. He gave Rómulo Pico Adobe to his son.

In 1846, to raise funds for the Mexican–American War, the Pío Pico government sold secularized mission lands. The Mission San Fernando was sold to Eulogio de Celis, who established Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. Celis returned to Spain, but his descendants stayed in California. Under the terms of secularization, the sale excluded the Mission compound and its immediate surroundings, which were reserved for Don Andrés.

In the Mexican–American War

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Treaty_of_Cahuenga.jpg" caption="Signing of the treaty at [[Campo de Cahuenga]] by Andrés Pico and [[John C. Frémont"] ::

During the Mexican–American War, Andrés Pico commanded the native forces, the California Lancers, in Alta California. In 1846, Pico led an attack on forces commanded by U.S. Army general Stephen Watts Kearny at the fierce but inconclusive Battle of San Pasqual. He is sometimes confused with his older brother Pío Pico, who in 1847, was elected as the last governor of Alta California.

On January 13, 1847, as the acting governor of Mexican Alta California (while his brother was in Mexico raising additional money for the fight against the United States), Andrés Pico approached the U.S. Army commander Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont, man to man and alone. Without firing a shot, Don Andrés and Frémont agreed to the terms of the Ceasefire of Cahuenga, an informal agreement that ended the war in California, in exchange for promises of protection of California from abuses by Frémont's forces. Frémont agreed to stop burning Californio ranches and stop stealing horses and cattle; he and Andrés Pico became friends. The Ceasefire was confirmed by the Treaty of San Fernando, formalized at the mission.

Post-statehood activity

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/General_Andres_Pico_Trim.jpg" caption="Pico in an undated photograph"] ::

Despite having previously fought against the Americans, Pico was elected a delegate to California's First Constitutional Convention in August 1849. In 1850, after statehood was achieved, Don Andrés was elected to the California State Assembly from Los Ángeles. Because of perceived anti-Californio sentiments in San Francisco, as well as his own pro-Southern sentiments, Pico introduced a bill in 1859 to divide California into two states (the lower counties becoming the Territory of Colorado). The bill passed the legislature, was signed by the governor, and was put to a vote of Southern California voters. The voters approved the split, but Congress failed to act on the matter.

In 1853, Don Andrés acquired a half interest in Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando from Eulogio F. de Celis; it was split along present-day Roscoe Boulevard, with his brother Pio Pico's land being the southern half of the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains.

In 1858, Pico was commissioned as a brigadier general in the California Militia.

Pico Act of 1859

Main article: Territory of Colorado (California)

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/California_divided_in_1859_by_the_Pico_Act.png" caption="The 1859 Pico Act proposed to split off the southern third of California to create a new territory."] ::

Pico authored what became known as the Pico Act in February 1859, to partition California into two states, splitting the north two-thirds off as "California", and the south one-third to be called the Territory of Colorado, or whatever name the local populace preferred. The reason for the split was anger at taxation without representation: the southern Spanish-speaking Californios had been paying state taxes, but no state programs had been brought to their lands. The bill passed both houses of the state legislature and was sent to a vote in the affected southern parts of the state. The southern voters overwhelmingly approved the plan, and it was signed by Governor John B. Weller on April 18, 1859. But the U.S. Congress never voted on the bill because of the tensions between the North and the South prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. California remained one state.

Senator and retirement

In 1860, he was elected by the state legislature as a California state senator from Los Ángeles.

On May 7, 1861, Pico, former assemblyman James R. Vineyard, and a partner won permission to make a deep slot-like road cut in the pass between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Santa Susana Mountains, making what would become known as the Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass or San Fernando Pass. The state of California awarded them a 20-year contract to maintain the turnpike and collect tolls. Vineyard was elected to the California State Senate from Los Ángeles County (Pico's old seat) four months later, but would die in office. A landowner and surveyor named Edward Beale was appointed by newly elected President Abraham Lincoln as the federal Surveyor General of California and Nevada. Beale challenged the general's loyalty to the new president and in 1863, Beale was awarded the right to collect the toll in the pass.

Andrés Pico's Rancho ex-Mission San Fernando was confiscated by a federal decree in 1864, which said that he "did not own and never did own" it. Reduced to a pauper, he retired in Los Ángeles. Ex-Mission San Fernando fell into ruins until the mid-20th century, when the Roman Catholic Church conserved about one fourth of the old mission quadrangle.

Since Pico's death, the bulk of the old mission has never been restored. The site of the main mission buildings are now occupied by a parochial high school, including the old, monumental front facing east toward the former Fort Tejon Road. The sites of the Butterfield stagecoach stables, and the outbuildings and storage buildings of Don Andrés's ranch and hacienda, have been lost under development of the modern urban community of Mission Hills.

Personal life

Pico married Catarina Moreno, granddaughter of Los Ángeles poblador Jose Cesario Moreno, in San Diego. They had one son, Rómulo, and adopted a daughter, also named Catarina.

Legacy

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Romulo_Pico_Adobe,_MIssion_Hills.JPG" caption="Rómulo Pico Adobe, 2008"] ::

Gallery

File:Portrait of General Andres Pico.jpg|Pico in an undated photograph File:Portrait of Pablo de la Guerra, Salvador Vallejo and Andres Pico.jpg|Portrait of Pablo de la Guerra, Salvador Vallejo and Andrés Pico File:Andres Pico Old.jpg|Oil painting of Pico by N. Paul Petrovits File:Flores Gang Lynched.jpg|Plaque commemorating the lynching of the Flores Daniel Gang

References

References

  1. [http://www.sfgenealogy.com/spanish/anzaexp.htm "Soldiers of the 1775 Anza Expedition"] {{Webarchive. link. (2017-05-25 , 1912, California Spanish Genealogy. Retrieved on 2008-08-05)
  2. [http://www.sfvhs.com/AndresPicoAdobe2.htm "Andreas Pico Adobe"] {{webarchive. link. (2010-07-01 , ''The Branding Iron,'' December 1976, Number 124; reprinted by the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, 1977; accessed 11 October 2011)
  3. "Andres Pico".
  4. Pitt, Leonard. (1997). "Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County". University of California Press.
  5. . ["Andres Pico"](https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/9200).
  6. (Fall 2014). "Southern California Chivalry: Southerners, Californios, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance". California History.
  7. (Summer 1975). "The Decline of Californios". The Journal of San Diego History.
  8. Ellison, William Henry. (2021). "A Self-Governing Dominion: California, 1849–1860". [[University of California Press]].
  9. William Henry Ellison, "The Movement for State Division in California, 1849-1860," ''The Southwestern Historical Quarterly'' XVII, no. 2 (October, 1913), 139.
  10. (1983). "Two Californias: The Myths And Realities Of A State Divided Against Itself". Island Press.
  11. (1901). "HOW CALIFORNIA ESCAPED STATE DIVISION". The Quarterly.
  12. "September 4, 1861 General Election". joincalifornia.com.
  13. "Daily Alta California, 4 March 1862". California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  14. "Ripley: The San Fernando Pass". Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.
  15. Kielbasa, John R.. (1998). "Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County". [[Dorrance Publishing Co.]].
  16. [http://www.laparks.com/dos/historic/andres.htm "Andres Pico Adobe"] {{webarchive. link. (May 17, 2007, Los Angeles Parks)

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californios1810-births1876-deaths19th-century-american-businesspeople19th-century-american-landowners19th-century-roman-catholicsafrican-american-catholicsamerican-politicians-of-mexican-descentcalifornia-state-senatorscatholic-politicians-from-californiagovernors-of-alta-californiahispanic-and-latino-american-people-in-california-politicslandowners-from-californiamembers-of-the-california-state-assemblymexican-military-personnel-of-the-mexican–american-warmilitary-personnel-from-san-diegopeople-of-the-conquest-of-californiapeople-of-alta-californiapoliticians-from-san-diegounion-militia-generals19th-century-members-of-the-california-state-legislature