CAMINO REAL SERIES

For example, ash trees were the marker for where a spring was to be found, as seen to this day at the church of Nuestra Señora del Tránsito in Fresnillo, Zacatecas. Valuable seeds were brought to California also marking the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro with trees for different uses. Tradition has it that the padres sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail to mark the windings of the trail's northward progress with bright yellow flowers, creating a golden trail stretching from San Diego to Sonoma. To facilitate overland travel, mission settlements were approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) apart, so that they were separated by one long day's ride on horseback along the 600-mile (966-kilometer) long El Camino Real ( Spanish for 'The Royal Highway,' though often referred to in the later embellished English translation, 'The King's Highway'), and also known as the California Mission Trail. Heavy freight and long distance passenger movement was practical only via ships by a coastal water route.

CAMINO REAL SERIES

After detouring to the coast to visit the Presidio of Monterey, de Anza went inland again, following the Santa Clara Valley to the southern end of San Francisco Bay and on up the east side of the San Francisco Peninsula.īetween 16, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries established a series of religious outposts from today's Baja California and Baja California Sur into present-day California. On his journey north, de Anza traveled the San Fernando Valley and Salinas Valley. De Anza's scouts found easier traveling in several inland valleys, rather than staying on the rugged coast. The Juan Bautista de Anza expedition of (1775–76) entered Alta California from the southeast (crossing the Colorado River near today's Yuma, Arizona), and picked up Portolá's trail at Mission San Gabriel.

Carmel became Serra's Alta California mission headquarters. Portolá journeyed again from San Diego to Monterey in 1770, where Junipero Serra (who traveled by ship) founded the second mission (later moved a short distance south to Carmel). On the return trip to San Diego, Gaspar de Portolá found a shorter detour around one stretch of coastal cliffs via Conejo Valley. Crespí identified several future mission sites which were not developed until later. Proceeding north, Portolá followed the coastline (today's California State Route 1), except where forced inland by coastal cliffs.Įventually, the expedition was prevented from going farther north by the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate. Serra stayed at San Diego and Juan Crespí continued the rest of the way with Gaspar de Portolá. Starting from Loreto, Serra established the first of the 21 missions at San Diego. The Portolá expedition of 1769 included Franciscan missionaries, led by Junípero Serra. The original route begins in Baja California Sur, Mexico, at the site of Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, present day Loreto, (the first mission successfully established in Las Californias). Most caminos reales had names apart from the appended camino real. Examples of such roads ran between principal settlements throughout Spain and its colonies such as New Spain. In earlier Spanish colonial times, any road under the direct jurisdiction of the Spanish crown and its viceroys was considered to be a camino real.

Camino real