Vallejo Family.

The Vallejo family has deep roots in the New World, and in California particularly. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo's ancestors came to the New World with the first conquistadors in the late fifteenth century. Several held prominent positions: Don PedroVallejo, for example, was viceroy of New Spain.

General Vallejo's father, Don Ignacio Vallejo, was a member of Father Junipero Serra's military guard and was with him when he came to California in 1769 to begin missionizing among the California Indians. General Vallejo's wife, Francisca Carrillo, also came from a prominent California family. Her great-grandmother came to California from Sinaloa as a young widow with the second Anza Expedition of 1775-1776. General Vallejo was born in Monterey in 1808, the eighth of thirteen children. He was groomed for leadership from a young age by several Alta Californian governors. After training as a cadet in the Mexican Army, the Governor of Mexico appointed him the head of the San Francisco garrison (1833), and then the military commander of the northern part of the state. In 1836, he supported a short-lived revolt that sought independence for California from Mexico. Vallejo was critical of Mexican government, and consistently identified with those Mexican liberals who argued for the separation of civil and religious authority in government. For this reason, he supported both the 1836 revolt and the US takeover of California in 1848.

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