William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[59] homes for men desirous of a wider field and freer atmosphere, was not an object of their voyage. Sailing in search of gold and spices, they left the coast when they had found these articles and filled their ships. A company of friars remained to teach the natives, and a company of soldiers to secure the soil. The rest returned to Spain. No women, as a rule, came out. The men were either soldiers, friars, or trappers, and in every case were single men. The soldiers and the friars were not allowed to marry. A trapper was of course at liberty to woo and wed; but in a land with no White women he could only woo a squaw. If the stranger made a home, he took such females as an Indian lodge supplies.

A governor of Monterey might bring his family from Mexico, but such a luxury as the companionship of wife and children was reserved for persons of exalted family and official rank.

“ When I first came into these parts,” says David Spence, “ the only White people near Monterey were the fathers at San Carlos, and the soldiers in the citadel. No other White men had a right to dwell in Monterey. We bought our licences to live and ”