CALIFORNIA IS NOT AN ISLAND

Adam S. Eterovich

KONSCAK, FERDINAND California is not an Island

Spain allowed foreign missionaries in the New World after 1644. Prior to that only Spanish missionaries were permitted in Spanish America. The Jesuit order pioneered the Southwest and California.

The Pole, Bohemian, Moravian, Austrian and Croatian priests contributed to the history of the Southwest and California. It was not a pure Spanish-Italian contribution. A few of the Priests in this area were Bischoff, Tirsch, Link, Inamma, Tempis, Porohradiski, Bac, Sterkianowski and Ratkay. Baron Ivan Ratkay, massacred by the Indians of the Southwest in the 1600's was mistakenly called a Hungarian. He was born of a Croatian noble family.

Father Consag

Often spelled Konscak, Konsag and Konschak, was born in the city of Varazdin, Croatia, in 1703. He left Spain for Cuba in 1730, and three years later he arrived in California. He made many trips about the peninsula, seeking desirable places where missions might he established. It is said that while he was on these journeys he carried only a "walking stick and a piece of canvas." After serving on the peninsula for twenty-eight years, he died at the Mission of Bajorca in 1759.

Famous Expedition

In 1744 the Spanish king, Philip V, decreed that the missions in lower California be carried north in order to meet those of Sonora. The Jesuit Provincial, Father Cristobal de Escobar y Llamas, sent a suggestion to King Ferdinand VI that there be issued a royal order to explore the northern reaches of California in order to verify whether the place be an island or a peninsula. The immediate effect of this correspondence was the famous exploring expedition of Fernando Consag. He entered the Jesuit novitiate of Troutchin in Slovakia at the age of sixteen, taught the humanities in Buda, Hungary, and was ordained priest in Gratz, Austria he arrived at Mission San Ignacio and assumed the duties of Taraval. He and Sistiago worked together during the 1730's and expanded the sphere of Christian influence. In 1746 Consag received orders, through Juan Antonio Balthasar, Visitor to California, to make an exploratory tour by sea along the coast and by land north and northwest. The purpose of the expedition by sea was once again to verify that California was not an island.

Remarkable Diary

In pursuance of these official desires, Fernando Consag organized two expeditions from his mission of San Ignacio. The first was by sea up to the mouth of the Colorado, and was launched in June, 1746; the other was by land over the backbone of Califomia's peninsula, and was begun in May, 1751. It was fortunate for the expansion of the California missions and for the set purposes of exploration that a man of Consag's energy had arrived in the peninsula. This Croatian Jesuit was energetic not only in organization and observation, but likewise in literary composition, for he left to posterity a diary of both these major expeditions. Consag's details may be judged from the opening of his diary: "On the ninth day of June, 1746, we departed in four canoes from San Carlos, which lies in twenty-eight degrees north latitude, the shallowness of the water in this harbor admitting only canoes. The watering places of St. Anne are three leagues from it."

The expedition comprised some Yaquis among the thirty Christian Indians and at least six Spanish soldiers. The padre rounds cape after cape, notes the extraordinary tides, and skirts the dangerous Punta de San Gabriel which is opposite San Lorenzo, the largest of the Salsipuedes Islands. He writes of the dangerous current there; of ledges of sunken rocks, graveyard of mariners; of some nights spent ashore, or others in the canoes rolling at anchor; of brackish water; of the visit of Christian Indians. Further to the north heathen Indians came into camp, unafraid and friendly because they had heard that a priest was there.

Los Angeles Bay

Father Consag summed up his achievements and discoveries in a letter of October, 1746 to visitor Balthasar. He had seen two good harbors, both having a supply of fresh water near shore. The one he called Los Angeles is especially protected, says he, by small islands and is guarded from all winds. To this favored spot provisions could he transported from Caborca across the gulf and north of the dreaded Salsipuedes Islands. He was speaking of the excellent Angeles Bay which lies behind the southern end of the island Angelo de la Guarda. He regrets his inability to have explored along the eastern shores. Continuous storms and southeasters prevented this.

Consag Rocks

Consag Rocks at the northern part of the gulf bear the explorer's name, but this hazardous voyage was not the Croatian priest's only claim to fame. Five years later he made a notable journey inland of which he left posterity a minute account, likewise in the form of a diary.

This trek overland and over the mountains to the Pacific was undertaken at the request of Balthasar, now provincial. Consag says he was delayed by epidemics, lack of provisions, and other occupations placed upon him by his Superiors. Finally this land expedition started from a spot which Consag had formerly visited and which he had judged, because of a stream, suitable for a mission. The place lay some leagues north of Mission San Ignacio and he called it La Piadad.

His second diary begins thus-. "From this post of La Piadad, on May 22, 1751, under the patronage of Our Lady of Loreto, to whose marvelous protection is owed the conversion of California, we launched the expedition early in the after noon. There were five soldiers and a sufficient number of Indians on foot."The leader of the soldiers was Don Fernando do Rivera Y Moncada, later governor of Alta California. Modern Californians will be interested in an entry for June 4, 1751, when the party was approaching the Pacific Coast: "The fogs, at least at this time of the year, are dense, and because of this and the wind which constantly blows from the ocean, the nights and the mornings are very cold."

Battled Fogs

How far north had they gone? It seems impossible to say. Consag's geographical explorations are obscure, for the fog which hung over the sea prevented a more exact noting of the contour of the coast and its islands. At the place called Kadazylac the padre said he had reached twenty-nine degrees and forty-seven minutes north parallel. Since this observation the expedition had crept still farther north for two days to the place called Kalvalaga, where the Indian village, emptied of its braves, was situated. Camp was set up here two leagues from the sea. This distance placed the party close to thirty degrees north latitude, if Consag's reckonings be correct, and they well may not have been. In fact, the padre says that Kalvalga is "about thirty degrees toward the southwest."

Supposing, then, that if he was as far north as his calculations indicated, then he had traveled beyond the spacious curve of Viizcaino's Bay and northwest following the coast toward Punta Baja which juts into the sea just below thirty degrees parallel.

This much remains certain: Father Consag and Captain Rivera were two white men who had penetrated by land farther north along the Pacific Coast than had any white men before them.

No white men had ever before made so far and so difficult a journey in this region.

Among Greatest

Father Consag organized a third exploratory expedition in 1753 which further added to his reputation. He made the trek at the request of the official visitor, Augustine Carta, during the months of June and July, even though without spectacular success because of less resistance on the part of the natives, less than during the two previous expeditions. At the Indian village of Los Angeles upon word that the father was coming, they opened up a road over a harsh sierra. On this trip the party went as far north as the bay of San Luis Gonzaga, just south of Isle San Luis.

Some native children were baptized here and a few white adults accompanied the Spaniards back and were incorporated into Mission Santa Gertrudis. The exploring party penetrated to within shouting distance of the southern spurs of the rock ribbed Sierra San Pedro Martir.

Shortly after this venture, Father Consag was made Superior of all the California missions. With Eusebio Francisco Kino of Pimeria Alta and Juan Ugarte, his predecessor in California, Fernando Consag must rank among the earliest and greatest of California explorers.

Untimely Death

Although Father Consag did not reach San Diego or Los Angeles, he pointed the way with his maps and explorations. It was only the the grace of God, his untimely death in 1759, and the order of Jesuit expulsion in 1767 by King Charles 111, that kept Father Consag from the position in history that was granted to Father Junipero Serra. Rivera, who had worked under Father Consag in earlier expeditions, was to lead the first explorations in upper California ten years after his death. This great Croatian explorer who was superior of all the missions of California, and who also verified that California was not an island, has been forgotten by California historians.

This Croatian priest, unknown to Croatian-Americans, is a part of Southern California. No street, town, road or place bears his name in remembrance, but perhaps the local Croatian Colony of Los Angeles will someday erect a statue in his honor.