Pacheco, Romualdo, 1831-1899

José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco (October 31, 1831 – January 23, 1899) was a California statesman and diplomat. He is best known as the only Hispanic to serve as Governor of California since statehood and as the first Latino to represent a state in the U.S. Congress. Pacheco was elected and appointed to various state, federal, and diplomatic offices throughout his more than thirty-year career, including serving as a California State Treasurer, California State Senator, and three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Born in Santa Barbara, California, he was educated by private tutors in Honolulu, Hawaii before beginning an apprenticeship aboard a trading vessel. Pacheco was a wealthy businessman and rancher by 1848 when he accepted U.S. citizenship, which he was granted by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. He subsequently worked on his parents’ estates north of Los Angeles, in San Luis Obispo County, becoming an expert horseman, and dabbled a year later in the mining business during the California Gold Rush. Interested in protecting the rights of Southern California landowners, his stepfather, John Wilson, was San Luis Obispo County’s first treasurer and served on the county’s first board of supervisors in 1852. Pacheco entered the political arena, serving as a superior court judge for San Luis Obispo County from 1853 to 1857 and then as a state senator until 1862. Initially a Democrat, Pacheco ran for re-election as a Union Party candidate in 1861 because of his deep disdain for slavery and his disapproval of the secession crisis; Pacheco was one of the first prominent Hispanic Americans to speak out against African-American slavery.

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