Mariano Cordero, son of Miguel Cordero and Angela Nunez, was the founder of many Cordero families in California and in Santa Barbara in particular. Mariano was a soldado de cuera, a leather-jacket soldier, who traveled from Cabo San Lucas to San Francisco, eventually settling in Santa Barbara.
Mariano's Journey from Baja to Alta California
For an updated and more complete chronology click here.
By William E. Cordero II
Loreto
In 1768, at the Royal Presidio of Nuestra Senora de Loreto in Baja California, Mariano Antonio Cordero enlisted in the service of his country, Spain.(1)
Mariano was a "soldado de cuera" (leather jacket soldier).
Mariano was eighteen at the time of his enlistment and was
mostly likely schooled by his father, Miguel, he too a soldier
for Spain. Miguel Cordero (first generation) had been a soldier
for Spain since before 1733 and assigned to the Esquadra del
Sur, with its headquarters at Todos Santos, on the southern west
coast of Baja California.( 2 ) Miguel married Angela Nunez
before 1733.( 3 ) Mariano was born in San Jose del Cabo,
Baja California around the year 1750. ( 4 ) Mariano had
two brothers, Francisco and Joaquin Ignacio, also soldados de
cuera.
Prior to the Gaspar de Portola Expedition of 1769, Miguel
Cordero was an integral part of the expulsion of Jesuits in Baja
California. Although the expulsion was most likely predestined,
Miguel because of his years of service was one of five soldiers
who gave declarations to Captain Rivera y Moncada and Lt.
Fernandez de Somera on September 16, 1766, regarding the
behavior of the Jesuits. ( 5 ) Miguel gave his age as 60 and was
called literate ( 6 ); and his responses to the interrogation
were hardly an indictment of any wrong doing by the Jesuits.
San Diego
In 1771, Mariano Antonio Cordero along with nineteen other
soldados de cuera, five cowboys, 60 mules and Captain Rivera y
Moncada left the Presidio de Loreto in Baja California on a long
arduous journey to the Royal Presidio at San Diego de Alcala in
Alta California. On July 18, 1771, Mariano received his first
issuance of supplies in Alta California at the Presidio de San
Diego.( 7 ) Mariano remained at San Diego for several years, a
soldier in a new world, where the Kumeyaay Indians attacked the
mission and presidio on several occasions. Mariano was listed as
a padrino (godfather) and soldado de cuera in the baptismal
records at Mission San Diego in 1773.( 8 ) The 1775 census lists
Mariano at San Diego.( 9 )
Monterey
In the year 1775, Mariano was transferred to the Presidio of San
Carlos Borromeo de Monterey. It was while at the Presidio de
Monterey that Mariano met his future wife, Juana Francisca
Pinto, daughter of Corporal Pablo Pinto. It was the year 1776
and the Anza Expedition had arrived, March 10th, from the Royal
Presidio of San Ignacio de Tubac (present-day southern Arizona)
at the Presidio de Monterey on their way to colonize San
Francisco. Mariano (age 26) and Juana (age 13) exchanged wedding
banns on November 28, 1776.
San Francisco
Without any disapproval of the marriage, Fray Francisco Paulo married them on January 07, 1777. Theirs
was the first marriage listed in the book of marriages at
Mission Dolores, San Francisco (Libro de Casamientos de San
Francisco). Mariano and Juana enjoyed a healthy marriage, having
eight children in the span of twenty-eight years. ( 10 ) On
October 4, 1781, Jose Moraga at San Francisco listed Mariano as
Cabo (Corporal) in a report. (11 ) In 1787, Mariano was listed
as Corporal at Presidio de San Francisco.( 12 )
Click here to
view a facsimile of the entire record in the Mission Dolores marriage register. Used
with permission. Courtesy of the Santa Barbara Mission Archive
Library.
Santa Barbara
Mariano retired briefly, November 1, 1789, only to re-enlist October 01, 1790, for a brief period at the Presidio Santa Barbara and retire again by 1791. ( 13 ) Mariano made his living as a
sastre (tailor) in his retirement years in Santa Barbara.( 14 )
Juana Francisca Cordero died April 02, 1814, age 48. Mariano
remarried January 30, 1816, to Maria Gertrudis Juana Lucinda
Alverez, and they had two children together. Mariano died
November 18, 1821, age 71, and was buried at the Mission Santa
Barbara.( 15 )
Notes
1. Bancroft, Pioneer Register, page 10; Bancroft, History of
California, page 296, note 27.
2. Listed on 1733 Loreto Payroll. AGNM, Californias 80, exp. 53,
ff. 442-443.
3. Listed on 1733 Loreto Payroll. AGNM, Californias 80, exp. 3,
ff. 19-24.
4. Information given in 1790 re-enlistment at Santa Barbara.
5. AGNM Prov. Int. 7 exp.11.
6. AGNM Prov. Int. 7 exp.11
7. AGNM Indiferente. D. Guerra, legajo 3, tomo 161D.
8. Bautismos hechos desda mediados del ano 1771 hasta mediados
de 1773 por los PP. Nuevos Ministros Fr. Franco. Dumetz y Fr.
Luis Jaume [Letter 3 April 1773 to Fr. Serra].
9. Bill Mason’s 1790 Census Book.
10. Bancroft, History of California, vol. 1, p. 296, note 27.
Witnesses: Jose Raymundo Carrillo, Jose Bonifacio de Estrada,
Juan Maria de Olivera, Jose Ignacio de la Higuera. (First
marriage listed in the Libro de Casamientos of San Francisco).
11. Report of Jose Moraga, San Francisco, October 4, 1781.
12. Archives of California, LIV, Provincial State Papers,
Sacramento, 24-25.
13. Benecia Military Records, vol. 18, page 90 (Eldredge copy).
14. Padron of Santa Barbara, 1790, Eldredge papers, The Bancroft
Library, p. 92.
15. Santa Barbara Burials, Northrup, II p. 52.