The Battle of Chino
A small drama in the big history of a big state
As the sun rose over the distant San Bernardino mountains on September 27th, 1846, it cast its soft light upon a group of about fifty mounted men waiting keenly in the cold morning air. The night before, they had surrounded the large farmhouse of a prominent citizen named Isaac Williams, the central hub of the expansive Rancho Santa Ana del Chino. Inside, some twenty men, all American immigrants, watched their opponents warily, counted their diminished stockpile of ammunition, and considered their options. The “Battle of Chino” was underway, and though it would not be particularly violent (it barely qualifies as a skirmish, much less a battle), it encapsulated well the complicated nature of the American conquest of California.
It’s easy for modern Californians to forget that there were multiple violent conflicts that led to the culmination of the Golden State of today. Our own understanding of state history often focuses its incredibly rosy gaze on the mission system, glossing over the subjugation of indigenous populations and the subsequent tumultuous change in authority between the Spanish, Mexican, and ultimately American governments with relative ease. Despite the fact that the names of prominent Californians ranging all the way back to Spanish occupation surround us, we rarely seek insight into the lives of such illustrious figures as Arcadia Bandini, Pio Pico, or Benjamin Wilson. Our own complex and diverse history seems almost hidden from us in plain sight. It is therefore important to remember incidents like the Battle of Chino, if only to recall that our communities have rich backstories that go beyond orange groves and movie stars.
In May of 1846, the American government declared war on Mexico. It took months for the news to reach distant California, though the Americans had been quietly preparing their Pacific fleet for some time. In a very real sense, the territory of Alta California was the hinterland of Mexico. Its size was massive, but its population was small, numbering in the thousands. Indeed, as hard as it may be to imagine for anyone stuck in gridlock on the 405, at one time the population of nascent Los Angeles numbered only about 3,000 citizens, which still made it the most populous settlement in the region. In fact, the overall population of Alta California was so small that it did not even qualify for statehood within the Republic of Mexico. Up until it was surrendered to America, it remained a nebulous territory.
A wealthy landowner class, known as Californios, ruled over massive ranchos that covered most of the landscape, relying on indigenous and immigrant vaqueros to maintain their operations. These ranchos started as land grants from both the Spanish and Mexican governments. When the mission system was secularized, the ranchos grew substantially larger as already rich men bought up swathes of territory that once belonged to the church. Californios saw themselves as akin to the hidalgos of old Spain, powerful nobles that lacked hereditary titles but made up for that shortcoming in wealth and grandeur. They were cultured, festive, and fiercely independent.
Given the distance between Mexico and Alta California, the Californios grew used to a certain degree of autonomy from their nominal government. A series of inept leaders sent from the heartland only reinforced these attitudes. Indeed, a good number of Alta California’s Mexican governors found themselves on the outs with the local land barons. This culminated in a near civil war in 1836, after which a series of Californio governors, born and raised in the territory, were appointed instead of suspicious outsiders. For the Californios, this period was a golden age. They hosted lavish social gatherings, toured one another’s ranchos in elaborate trips, and generally lived sumptuously off the bounty of their land. That the near slave labor of their indigenous workforce buoyed this prosperity was inconsequential to them.
In fact, the only thing that tarnished the shine of it all for the quasi-hidalgos was the steady influx of determined American settlers, most of whom arrived as ranch workers. These extranjeros, almost all younger males, slowly but surely integrated themselves into California culture and government. A good number of them engaged in the time-honored tradition of marrying money, courting wealthy Californio brides that guaranteed them Mexican citizenship, large tracts of land, expansive fortunes, and prominent places in the local social hierarchy. Most of these intrepid Americans settled in the north of the territory, while only a handful made their way south to the areas around Los Angeles and San Diego. The Americans and Californios got along surprisingly well, all things considered, though the inherent differences between the foreign interlopers and the landed gentry were always simmering.
As soon as news of war reached Alta California, the underlying tension in the territory came to a boil. American ranchers, tied to the land and their Californio neighbors through blood, were faced with an unenviable test of loyalties. At the same time, the Californios quickly realized that the distance that allowed them their sense of freedom was a double-edged sword in wartime. The Mexican government, stretched thin in defending its wide lands, was in no position to immediately send aid to far-off territories with small populaces. The defense of their homes would fall to them and the relatively small Mexican garrison forces scattered around the territory. Fears of the foreign immigrants rising up in support of their homeland quickly became reality. In June 1846, a small band of Americans seized a poorly defended garrison in Sonoma and established the “Bear Republic”. A minor exploratory force of U.S. soldiers under the command of Captain James Fremont quickly arrived from the Oregon Territory to reinforce these rebels. The rest of northern California fell speedily and peaceably to American naval forces arriving from their prepared positions in the Pacific.
In the south, it seemed that the same pattern would occur. Respected Californio governor Pio Pico, and Mexican general Jose Castro both decided that discretion was the better part of valor and fled from Los Angeles. Commodore Robert Stockton and a sizable force of Marines, following quickly on the heels of this flight, marched into the city and captured it with almost no resistance. It seemed as though the Mexican government and the Californios themselves had accepted the sudden change in power with relative calm. Stockton sent a party of men, under the command of extranjero Benjamin Wilson, in pursuit of Castro to ensure that he was not conducting a ruse, and considered the matter largely resolved.
Then Stockton made a mistake. He left Captain Archibald Gillespie, a trusted Marine officer, with around 48 men to occupy the city. Gillespie, a stern naval man with all the tact of a broadside cannonade, proved entirely inadequate for the delicate task at hand. His troops were undisciplined, causing significant unhappiness among the local population, and the captain himself demonstrated a grasping, authoritarian streak that led to the establishment of martial law. Unsurprisingly, the proud Californios bristled at his brutish attempt to enforce foreign autonomy over their society.
The inevitable sharp end of this anger came in the form of a local named Jose Serbulo Varela. Young and brash, Serbulo Varela was the scion of a wealthy family in the Los Angeles region with a penchant for unrest. In 1893, the historian J.M. Guinn rather uncharitably described him as, “a young man of some ability but of a turbulent and reckless character…” Roused to anger at the foreigners occupying his city, the firebrand gathered together twenty similarly aggrieved locals and orchestrated an attack on Gillespie’s reviled garrison. As fighting broke out, Mexican Army Captain Jose Maria Flores, an officer left behind in Castro’s retreat, emerged from hiding and helped organize the mob into a military force.
If the Americans occupying Los Angeles harbored any haughty illusions of their combat superiority over the natives, they were quickly dispelled. Raised almost from birth in the saddle as part of their ranchero culture, the Californios and their vaquero attendants proved to be capable cavalrymen, handily outclassing the out-of-place Marines. Though they weathered the initial attack in the Government House without casualties, the Americans quickly found the position untenable. As Californio numbers swelled into a sizable force, the Marines retreated to the more defensible Fort Hill. Realizing the desperate nature of his predicament, Gillespie sent an urgent request for aid to Stockton in the north. Benjamin Wilson, who had led his party on a celebratory hunting expedition in the nearby mountains after successfully determining Castro was gone, received word of the uprising in Los Angeles and immediately realized the danger. He had shown his commitment to the American cause too early. Now that the Californios were effectively back in charge, his very life was forfeit.
Benjamin David Wilson, also known as Don Benito Wilson, traveled from his birthplace of Tennessee to the territory of Alta California at the age of thirty. He was seeking passage to China at the time, looking to make his fortune in the Far East, but quickly realized that there were plenty of prosperous opportunities for an enterprising young man right where he was. Using the funds he brought with him, Wilson bought a significant portion of the Rancho Jurupa (what is today Rubidoux and large parts of downtown Riverside) from its owner, the Californio Juan Bandini. Demonstrating the keen charisma of an ambitious social climber, Wilson quickly married Ramona Yorba, the daughter of esteemed ranchero Bernardo Yorba. This marriage, as much as his own demonstrated integrity and character, earned Wilson a good reputation among his Californio peers, and he ultimately accepted the position of Justice of the Peace for the Inland Territory of Alta California. It is from this Wilson that we get the name of the famous Mount Wilson and also Big Bear Lake, which he named while tracking down a gang of indigenous horse thieves.
Though certainly well-integrated into Californio society, Wilson never revoked his American citizenship in favor of his Mexican one. When Stockton called upon his loyalty after capturing Los Angeles, the extranjero had not hesitated to offer his services to the cause. Now, in the mountains near Temecula, that choice was coming back to haunt the overly optimistic Wilson and the other American immigrants that had joined him. They harbored no doubts about how the Californios would view their perceived betrayal. Wilson understood that, as a citizen of Mexico, he could quite likely face a firing squad for committing treason. Other men in his party, such as the wealthy Louis Rubidoux, were in a similar situation. With these dark thoughts clouding his mind and knowing that Gillespie’s Marines, no matter how beleaguered, presented an opportunity to save himself from the wall, Wilson led his men south to the house of another extranjero, Isaac Williams. His intention was to regroup and resupply before marching north to Los Angeles to relieve the American garrison there. And so, with Williams’ blessing, a little over twenty tired, hungry Americans convened at the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino on September 26th to prepare for the next stage of their journey.
Wilson’s trust in Williams was severely misplaced. Williams, a rough and ready fur trapper from Scranton, Pennsylvania, had arrived in Atla California around 1832. Finding that he liked the landscape and the people, he stayed in the Los Angeles area. eventually marrying a wealthy Californio heiress and settling into the life of a rancher. Like the other extranjeros, Williams was in a difficult position, caught between the threat of the Californios and his American past. Sensing, rightly or wrongly, that Flores and his growing force in Los Angeles was primed to retake south Alta California for Mexico, Williams secretly decided to throw his lot in with the Californios. A messenger was chosen from among Williams’ ranch staff and sent north. Wilson believed the man was riding hell for leather to the embattled Gillespie to let him know help was coming, but Williams secretly instructed his worker to head instead for Flores and inform him of the tenuous position of the Americans at the rancho. However, both were surprised when a force of Californios was spotted closing on the house shortly thereafter.
These riders were under the command of local landowner Jose del Carmen Lugo, brother-in-law of Williams, who had organized the party shortly after hearing about the uprising in Los Angeles. Knowing that Wilson was out patrolling, Lugo sought to gather enough men from the surrounding area to capture the extranjero and his allies before they could return to Los Angeles and cause trouble. Ironically, though Williams had planned to turn the Americans over to the Californios, he had not organized this surprise reunion with his relative.
Isaac Callaghan, one of the American party, volunteered to ride out and identify Lugo’s force. He returned a few minutes later, out of breath and nursing a broken arm. Lugo and Wilson’s accounts on what exactly happened differ, but there is a general truth between their statements. Callaghan and two of Williams’ ranch hands approached the Lugo party and ran into a group of five men sent ahead as scouts. There was a brief clash in which shots were exchanged. Wounded in the arm, Callaghan belted back to the rancho with a warning of vicious Californios lurking nearby, leaving Williams’ workers behind. Around this time, Lugo sent word to Flores in Los Angeles that he had cornered Wilson’s patrol, which he incorrectly believed consisted of around fifty men, and needed reinforcements.
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Flores, who was proving to be the dynamic leader the departed General Castro was not, quickly reacted to the news. With the hated Gillespie bottled up on Fort Hill, Wilson and his band were the only force that could still threaten the resurgent Californio control of the region. Though he had to stay in Los Angeles to deal with the siege, Flores dispatched the now legendary Serbulo Varela and a force of some fifty men to aid Lugo’s operation. Among them was Diego Sepulveda, a colonial Mexican military officer left behind alongside Flores when Castro had fled, whose name now adorns the longest street in Los Angeles: Sepulveda Boulevard. These men, riding fast, soon arrived at the rancho, and by nightfall the place was fully surrounded.
Williams, trapped inside with the other Americans, despaired at his position. He could not reveal his true loyalties to the Californios outside without falling foul of the desperate men that surrounded him, nor could he affect an escape without potentially running into violence from the besiegers outside. To make matters worse, his young children were now stuck in a house that was on the verge of turning into a battlefield. Wilson and his compatriots were hardly in a better mood. They had used too much of their ammunition during their hunting party in the mountains and the promised resupply at Williams house had never manifested. Michael White, a former sailor turned ranch hand, suggested that the Americans expand their defenses during the night in the form of additional barricades, but Wilson did not agree. Instead, the men waited tensely, resolved to fight to the end despite the odds against them. The house itself buoyed their confidence. It was one of the largest adobe ranch homes in Alta California, with a sturdy quadrangle of rooms surrounding a beautiful patio interior. Wilson was confident that it could serve as an effective defensive position until the Californios relented under the guns of his men.
Morning would prove his assessment incorrect.
As dawn broke, Serbulo, Sepulveda, and Lugo agreed that it was time for action. Acknowledging that they could not drive the Americans out of their makeshift fortress with arms alone, they decided on one of the classic plans of warfare: a fire attack. The Californios would rush the house together and set the roof aflame, forcing the men inside to either surrender or burn to death. With Serbulo at their head, the determined Californios mounted their horses and charged towards the rancho. Inside, the Americans started shooting, but the house afforded them inadequate lines of sight. Bullets fired wildly from both sides sliced the morning air as the cavalrymen barged through one farm fence and hopped another. Digging in their spurs to urge the horses on, they cleared an irrigation ditch in significant numbers and found shelter hugging the base of the adobe’s wall.
Somewhat miraculously, perhaps on account of the poor visibility from the house, only one Californio died in the assault. Carlos Ballesteros, heir to an estate that covered what is now Lincoln Heights, fell from his horse as it balked at the second fence. While remounting, a musket ball slammed through his temple, killing him instantly. Ballesteros was well-regarded among his compatriots and even the embattled Wilson counted the unfortunate man among his close friends. His death incensed the Californios, driving them to finish their assault.
Lugo claims that, at great personal peril, he dashed through the hail of bullets, retrieved a firebrand, and lit the roof of the adobe on fire. Inside, the Americans quickly ascertained the peril. Smoke began to coat the area, making it impossible for the defenders to shoot outwards. Williams, in a panic, reportedly hauled himself up to an unburned portion of the roof with his children and started waving a white rag on a stick, asking the Californios for mercy. Seeing the fire spreading, Serbulo Varela began banging on the front door of the house, calling for the Americans to surrender and guaranteeing their safety upon his honor.
It was a foregone conclusion. After a quick conference with his men to maintain democratic principles, Wilson announced through the door that the Americans were coming out. Lugo provides a slightly different narrative, claiming that he was the one who orchestrated the surrender, not Serbulo Varela, and that Sepulveda also managed to enter the house from the rear, convincing the men inside to give up their weapons. In either case, the battle was over.
The butcher’s bill was small for the Battle of Chino. Ballesteros was the only man killed. Three other Californios were wounded, as were a handful of Americans, two quite seriously. A ricocheting bullet of undetermined origin had struck the cartridge case of a man named William Skene, resulting in a small explosion that left him with terrible injuries on his upper legs. Joseph Perdue, another member of the party, accounted for the other severe casualty. The Americans stacked their weapons for the Californios and were led to a nearby shed. There, the militiamen bound their hands and mounted them on horses for transport back to Los Angeles, where Flores would decide their fate. Wilson, on account of his status and reputation, was allowed to keep his own horse and mounted at the rear of the column alongside Serbulo Varela.
Williams would later claim that the Californios looted his house and land before leaving, though Wilson and Lugo’s accounts make no mention of this theft. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, the fire was extinguished after the American surrender and the adobe remained relatively intact. Williams and his children, Lugo’s nephew and nieces, were unharmed, and the Californios left them at the rancho when they escorted the prisoners away.
On the road to Los Angeles, events took a dark turn. Some of the victorious Californios, angry over the death of Ballesteros and already resenting the Americans for their perceived treachery, reached the conclusion that executions were in order. Denied bloodshed at the rancho itself, they were determined to claim vengeance before reaching the authority of Flores. They lined the Americans, including the wounded men, up on the side of the trail and began ominously loading guns. Serbulo Varela, realizing that death was in the offing, galloped forward and interposed himself between the vengeful cavalry and their potential victims. Living up fully to the stories of his fiery temperament, the enraged officer drew his sword and waved it about his head, roaring that if anyone harmed the prisoners, he would run them through where they stood. According to Wilson, he then declared that, if the Californios would shoot the prisoners, they would have to shoot him first. Serbulo Varela’s anger quelled the bloodthirst of his men, who remounted the Americans and pushed them onwards.
This act of moral and physical courage further contributed to Serbulo Varela’s personal legend. Wilson seemed to be certain that, had Varela not intervened, the Californios would have killed all the Americans then and there. Michael White, he of the barricade plan, contested Wilson’s account, claiming that it was another officer, not Varela, who saved the Americans, but popular culture in California after the war undeniably gave the fiery Angelino the credit for keeping the prisoners alive.
Back in Los Angeles, Flores briefly considered sending the captured Americans back to an uncertain fate in Mexico itself, but other Californios dissuaded him from that plan. There was a genuine fear of American reprisals should the Mexican government choose to execute well-known men like Wilson. Added to that was the fact that a number of the captives were married into Californio society. Causing them further harm would have severely tested the bonds of family that the landowners highly prized. Instead, they were despatched to a nearby rancho in what is now Long Beach as prisoners for the rest of the conflict. Don Antonio Maria Lugo, the father of the aforementioned Jose del Carmen Lugo, insisted on taking care of the wounded Americans among the prisoners, removing them to his home and personally attending to their needs until they recovered. It was the elderly Lugo, working with poor eyesight, who treated the suffering William Skene, plucking individual bits of shrapnel from the man’s wounds one by one. Per the record of historian Stephen C. Foster, who interviewed the venerable Don some months later, it took him nearly three weeks to finish the work on Skene, who did eventually make a recovery.
The results of the Battle of Chino likely preempted a quick and decisive end to the fighting in southern Alta California. Left without aid from Wilson, Gillespie and his garrison ultimately surrendered to Flores’ force when it became clear that Stockton would not arrive any time soon. In what was hardly the finest moment in the history of the Marine Corps, Gillespie’s weary command were allowed to march from the city with their arms, beating a hasty retreat to a nearby American merchant ship. Despite bearing a significant portion of the blame for what occurred in Alta California after Stockton’s departure, Gillespie’s reputation never suffered significantly after the Siege of Los Angeles. The officer himself participated in the rest of the California campaign and eventually retired to San Francisco, where he died in 1873. His name now adorns Gillespie Field, a small regional airport in El Cajon, not far from San Diego.
Not long after Gillespie’s retreat, Stockton brought 200 soldiers south to reconquer Los Angeles. The Californios, continuing to demonstrate admirable martial capabilities, bloodied two separate American attempts to retake the region. Finally, Stockton joined with the army of General Stephen Kearney and defeated the local forces in two back to back battles near Los Angeles. In early 1847, the sides agreed to the Treaty of Cahuenga, bringing an end to any further fighting in Alta California. Wilson and the other captured Americans were released. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, signed between Mexico and America a year later, guaranteed the land rights of the Californios and made them all full citizens of the United States. Some Californios thrived in their new country. The aforementioned Diego Sepulveda founded a powerful dynasty that would occupy key positions in California government for decades. But the onset of the Gold Rush and subsequent ballooning of American immigrants spelled an end to the halcyon days of the Californian hidalgos. Slowly but surely their estates were consumed and many fell afoul of creditors and loan sharks. Ultimately, they ceased to exist as a distinct and privileged social class, though their descendants continue on in California to this day. The later lives of the most important men involved in the Battle of Chino perfectly illustrate this trend.
Benjamin Wilson went on to have a sterling political career. He was elected mayor of Los Angeles, a Los Angeles County supervisor, and served three terms as a State Senator. His financial dealings made him extraordinarily rich. One of his grandsons was the legendary general George S. Patton Jr. Even now, two centuries after his death, thousands of Angelinos and tourists ascend the mountain named in his honor every year on a popular hiking trail. Another American present, Louis Rubidoux, also achieved even greater fortune after the Mexican-American War. A mountain and a town in Riverside County are named after him. Williams, the American who had betrayed his fellows, suffered greatly for many years. When news of his treachery became widely known, the original American settlers of California shunned him. The old Californios also distrusted him for his perceived aid to Wilson’s party. Eventually, Williams managed to regain a measure of positive reputation by assisting and sheltering settlers coming to join the Gold Rush, but his life and status were never the same.
Unfortunately, social isolation was the least of the problems for the Californios that charged the adobe at Chino. Of the major players in the skirmish, only Diego Sepulveda happily navigated post-war California. Jose del Carmen Lugo ended up selling large amounts of his land to the Mormon Church. He got caught in a bad financial transaction shortly thereafter, lost the rest of his assets, and died penniless in 1870. Serbulo Varela, the firebrand who saved the lives of Americans at the risk of his own, existed poorly after the war. Unsure of his place in the new society of California, he fell hard into the bottle and never climbed out. He was in and out of prison, charged with theft, perjury, and other minor crimes. The American authorities, knowing his reputation as a savior of their countrymen, extended him a certain measure of leeway, so he was at least never behind bars for long. It was a miserable, humiliating life for a once proud man.
In a general sense, the skirmish at the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino highlighted the peculiar nature of the conquest of California. It was largely bloodless, exemplified the difficulties extranjeros faced in wartime Alta California, and demonstrated the resolve of the Californios in defending their territory. It was also somewhat anticlimactic. We expect scenes of burning ranch houses and wheeling horsemen to end in the bloodshed of a Hollywood-style gunfight, not a quick surrender. Similarly, we would expect the defense of a territory as rich and bountiful as California to involve more than a few scattered struggles before a relatively congenial peace treaty. But history is often anticlimactic, and the fact that only one man died at the rancho is less disappointing and more praiseworthy. That, in the end, the Americans involved largely rose to prominence after the struggle and the Californios present fell into obscurity only further reinforces the fact that the Battle of Chino was the entire campaign in microcosm. It is a small drama in the big history of a big state. Sometimes though, small dramas are the most illustrative of all. Certainly, it bears a worthy entry into the regional history of Southern California, a tale of the West far removed from fruit farms and sunny beaches.
Today, the site of the battle sits under a youth correctional facility. Around it lie warehouses, housing developments, an airport, and even a shooting range. A plaque marks the spot for posterity.
No plaque marks the grave of the hero of the hour at Chino though. Despite saving more than twenty men from death, there was no honor or fanfare when Serbulo Varela died. On a cold morning in 1860, as the sun rose over the distant San Bernardino mountains, his body was found in an irrigation ditch outside of Los Angeles, stabbed to death.
The murder was never solved.
