What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tragedy of Martina Castro: Part One of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation
A child of New Spain, Martina Castro became a leading figure in the tiny pueblo of Branciforte during California’s two decades as a Mexican colony. But her wealth, fame and influence quickly turned to destitution, infamy and irrelevance once California became a U.S. territory in 1848. By the time of her death, her three husbands were long dead and all eight of her surviving children had turned against her in a protracted struggle over her land, title, and legacy. Close relatives such as Rafael Castro and Thomas Fallon exploited her naivete for profit, while opportunists such as Frederick A. Hihn and Louis Depeaux took advantage of her hospitality. Even backcountry settlers like Mountain Charlie McKiernan, Brad Morrell and Lyman Burrell were swept into the battles over Martina’s massive land Rancho Soquel and its ill-defined Augmentation. Hers was a struggle over the rights of a Californio in annexed territory, of Mexican law in an American legal system, of the status of a woman in a man’s world. This is the story of Martina Castro and how her tribulations shaped the course of history in Santa Cruz County.
612 pages, Paperback
Published October 25, 2020
2 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 11, 2024
If not the finest work of Mid-Santa Cruz County history ever written, then certainly the most useful. Based on a reportedly insane library stack of just, stuff, given over to McHenry Library at a point prior, the editor Whaley's premise with this book is essentially that one can learn a lot about a much bigger world and all the comings and goings, causes and effects in it, by focusing on how all that affects a much smaller thing inside of it. As it has many times before, this premise works beautifully in Whaley's hands.
Written with the enthusiasm and discipline of a true student, the book's organization almost imperceptibly builds a kind of dramatic tension as it goes on, under the guise of organizing the details by character and year, so simple, as if drawn from the scary stack of source papers one by one, yet so thoughtful and suspenseful. The book not only paints the characters, places and events, but gives the reader a tool for future study by including the very maps, court documents, legal processes and cultural mores that make the case of Soquel come to life after 150 years. There are also mentions of other important works such as Payne's Howling Wilderness, the interview with Carrie Lodge etc., and excellent geological and topographical details for those of us who've spent that much time up in those woods.
Meanwhile it gives a better crash course in the gold rush than many "gold rush" books and succeeds in exposing Thomas Fallon for the common grifter that he was, down off that pedestal that you San José people know what I'm talking about. There are even sympathetic roles in the persons of Robert Peckham (the namesake of Gizdich's address, not of the ugly FBI building in San José), a learned, hard-working and compassionate man in a country of scoundrels, who may possibly have been the only white man in California in 1850 that you'd want to go near now, and who served as lawyer on several sides of Castro's case; and of Judge Samuel McKee, who fields the insanity of the book's middle third, practices in 1861 a kind of what we would now call family law, and in his final decision decrees that people please start writing shit down when they make their crookèd forkèd deals.
If only Powell, the compiler, had lived to see this. I put this right up there with Boessenecker's biography of Tiburcio Vásquez: a compendious recent book that not only improves on all such books before it (as least as far as I'm aware), but truly makes the reader feel the long efforts of its compilers and also dotes upon the reader with truly useful history: like how there was no sealant for wood available in Soquel in 1840, so the rafter ties were protected from moisture by horse hides. Knowing this, now every crappy western movie will have to be redone!!
Altogether the most enjoyable "nonfiction" "history" California book I've come across since Bandido. Should be read and enjoyed by young and old.
***Addition in 2024: Once you've read this one you've got to correlate its story to those in Marjorie Pierce's unique East of the Gabilans, which I half-read when I was very young and which I'd rather forgotten about due to how I was storing it in the magnificent bookshelf my wife brought into our lives, and which mentions a similar lawsuit involving 1,000 plaintiffs over the rancho that became Gilroy during the same time period. Nuts!!!
Written with the enthusiasm and discipline of a true student, the book's organization almost imperceptibly builds a kind of dramatic tension as it goes on, under the guise of organizing the details by character and year, so simple, as if drawn from the scary stack of source papers one by one, yet so thoughtful and suspenseful. The book not only paints the characters, places and events, but gives the reader a tool for future study by including the very maps, court documents, legal processes and cultural mores that make the case of Soquel come to life after 150 years. There are also mentions of other important works such as Payne's Howling Wilderness, the interview with Carrie Lodge etc., and excellent geological and topographical details for those of us who've spent that much time up in those woods.
Meanwhile it gives a better crash course in the gold rush than many "gold rush" books and succeeds in exposing Thomas Fallon for the common grifter that he was, down off that pedestal that you San José people know what I'm talking about. There are even sympathetic roles in the persons of Robert Peckham (the namesake of Gizdich's address, not of the ugly FBI building in San José), a learned, hard-working and compassionate man in a country of scoundrels, who may possibly have been the only white man in California in 1850 that you'd want to go near now, and who served as lawyer on several sides of Castro's case; and of Judge Samuel McKee, who fields the insanity of the book's middle third, practices in 1861 a kind of what we would now call family law, and in his final decision decrees that people please start writing shit down when they make their crookèd forkèd deals.
If only Powell, the compiler, had lived to see this. I put this right up there with Boessenecker's biography of Tiburcio Vásquez: a compendious recent book that not only improves on all such books before it (as least as far as I'm aware), but truly makes the reader feel the long efforts of its compilers and also dotes upon the reader with truly useful history: like how there was no sealant for wood available in Soquel in 1840, so the rafter ties were protected from moisture by horse hides. Knowing this, now every crappy western movie will have to be redone!!
Altogether the most enjoyable "nonfiction" "history" California book I've come across since Bandido. Should be read and enjoyed by young and old.
***Addition in 2024: Once you've read this one you've got to correlate its story to those in Marjorie Pierce's unique East of the Gabilans, which I half-read when I was very young and which I'd rather forgotten about due to how I was storing it in the magnificent bookshelf my wife brought into our lives, and which mentions a similar lawsuit involving 1,000 plaintiffs over the rancho that became Gilroy during the same time period. Nuts!!!
October 20, 2024
I live at San Jose so I grew up visiting Santa Cruz & the Santa Cruz Mountains. My parents were born and raised in Watsonville., & are buried there. One of my Grandpas came to Watsonville in 1911 from Croatia along with the rest of his village.. My mom’s grandpa & grandma moved to Watsonville in the 1930s from Grays Harbor, WA to live closer to their older sons & daughters . My mom’s cousins married into the Bernal, Castro & Rodriguez families. So I grew up with 2nd-3rd hand stories/myths about family histories . This book not only rekindles memories, but enriches my interests , & appreciation, reminding myself how fortunate I am to live in this area.
From the mid 60’s through 80s, I rode my 10 speed all through the backroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains & as the county opened up areas for parks, I visited almost all of them. I remember going to Roaring Camp when it 1st opened.
I first heard about David Whaley in YouTube giving a lecture on Los Gatos
https://youtu.be/62S6wlntvRg?si=7WFpm...
Here’s his YouTube channel
https://youtube.com/@santacruztrains?...
I checked out the Zyante publishing website
https://zayantepublishing.com/
which introduced me to these 3 volumes
I checked out Kindle Unlimited & there the were
I appreciate the form & style , chronologically arranged with subject headings in bold type. I especially enjoyed The hand drawn maps, & copies of the actual surveyors charts listing plot # $ ownership , along with descriptions & directions to some sites w/st# addresses included. I saved them on the map app on my phone, so next time I’m up that way, it’ll be more interesting.
I’ve been going to Nisene Marks ever since it opened in 1963, when I was 9yo.
My cousins had a house on Rodeo Gulch Rd, & we’d go hiking Nisene all the time. Then I put my 10 speed up on the rack & bought a mountain bike, riding up in the Soquel Demonstration Forest lands , where not that I’ve read the book is part of the Soquel Augmentation.
I’ll admit, I skimmed through the court cases , litigation, partition hearings parts, most of chapters 6-7 etc. That’s why the subject headings in bold face came in handy.
I will add though, I did read the earlier court proceedings word for word, but by the 6th chapter when everyone began suing each other, the legalese & minutiae got too monotonous & redundant . It shows how litigious things got as time went on. Another intriguing aspect of this for me was, the earlier pioneers who passed through the Santa Clara Valley & kept going because they didn’t wanna get involved and n all the legal tangles involved, moved & stayed up in the mountains .
From the mid 60’s through 80s, I rode my 10 speed all through the backroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains & as the county opened up areas for parks, I visited almost all of them. I remember going to Roaring Camp when it 1st opened.
I first heard about David Whaley in YouTube giving a lecture on Los Gatos
https://youtu.be/62S6wlntvRg?si=7WFpm...
Here’s his YouTube channel
https://youtube.com/@santacruztrains?...
I checked out the Zyante publishing website
https://zayantepublishing.com/
which introduced me to these 3 volumes
I checked out Kindle Unlimited & there the were
I appreciate the form & style , chronologically arranged with subject headings in bold type. I especially enjoyed The hand drawn maps, & copies of the actual surveyors charts listing plot # $ ownership , along with descriptions & directions to some sites w/st# addresses included. I saved them on the map app on my phone, so next time I’m up that way, it’ll be more interesting.
I’ve been going to Nisene Marks ever since it opened in 1963, when I was 9yo.
My cousins had a house on Rodeo Gulch Rd, & we’d go hiking Nisene all the time. Then I put my 10 speed up on the rack & bought a mountain bike, riding up in the Soquel Demonstration Forest lands , where not that I’ve read the book is part of the Soquel Augmentation.
I’ll admit, I skimmed through the court cases , litigation, partition hearings parts, most of chapters 6-7 etc. That’s why the subject headings in bold face came in handy.
I will add though, I did read the earlier court proceedings word for word, but by the 6th chapter when everyone began suing each other, the legalese & minutiae got too monotonous & redundant . It shows how litigious things got as time went on. Another intriguing aspect of this for me was, the earlier pioneers who passed through the Santa Clara Valley & kept going because they didn’t wanna get involved and n all the legal tangles involved, moved & stayed up in the mountains .
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews