Pacheco, Romualdo, 1831-1899

PACHECO, Romualdo, a Representative from California; born in Santa Barbara, Calif., October 31, 1831; was instructed by private tutors; engaged in nautical pursuits and subsequently in agriculture; member of the State senate in 1851 and again in 1861; member of the State assembly 1853-1855 and 1868-1870; county judge 1855-1859; State treasurer 1863-1866; Lieutenant Governor 1871-1875, and became Governor when Governor Booth was elected to the United States Senate in 1875; presented credentials as a Republican Member-elect to the Forty-fifth Congress and served from March 4, 1877, to February 7, 1878, when he was succeeded by Peter D. Wigginton, who contested his election; elected as a Republican to the Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1883); chairman, Committee on Private Land Claims (Forty-seventh Congress); appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Central American States December 11, 1890, to Honduras and Guatemala July 1, 1891, and served to June 21, 1893; died in Oakland, Calif., January 23, 1899; interment in Mountain View Cemetery.

<p>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.</p>

<p>José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco was a Californio, born in Santa Barbara, California to a family with prominent connections. His father, José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco, had moved to Alta California from Guanajuato in 1825, and served as an aide to José María de Echeandía during his tenure as Governor of Alta California. Pacheco's father was killed at the Battle of Cahuenga Pass in 1831, when the young Romualdo was just five weeks old. His father had shot Jose Maria Avila, who had attacked Alta California Governor Manuel Victoria with a lance, but died when Avila's lance struck him.</p>

<p>His mother, Maria Ramona Carrillo de Pacheco, was a sister-in-law of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and a daughter of María Ygnacia López de Carrillo, the grantee of Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa. After the death of his father, Romualdo's mother married Captain John D. Wilson, a Scotsman, who sent Pacheco to Honolulu, Hawaii for his education.</p>

<p>Born in California while it was still Mexican territory, Romualdo Pacheco was the privileged stepson of a prominent merchant and landowner on the Pacific frontier. An avid outdoorsman who won fame for his prowess as a hunter, and a member of elite society in San Francisco and Santa Barbara, Pacheco defended the rights of landowners and promoted industry in his growing state. “Romualdo Pacheco … was indisputably the most illustrious Californio of his time,” noted a contemporary. “[He was] a magnificent physical specimen whose brain matched his brawn.”</p>

<p>José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco, Jr., was born October 31, 1831, in Santa Barbara, California. His mother, Ramona Carillo, belonged to a prominent Mexican family. Pacheco’s father, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico, and a captain in the Mexican army, had arrived in California in 1825. He was killed outside Los Angeles five weeks after his namesake’s birth, while protecting Mexican governor Manuel Victoria in the waning days of Mexico’s war for independence from Spain. Pacheco’s mother subsequently married John Wilson, a Scottish sea captain. The couple’s wealth afforded Romualdo and his older brother, Mariano, a comfortable childhood. In 1838 the two boys sailed to Hawaii on their stepfather’s ship, the Don Quixote, to attend Oahu Charity School in Honolulu, an English-language institution run by missionaries and family friends. Pacheco became fluent in English and French and, after returning to California in 1843, he had to re-learn Spanish. Pacheco went to work on his stepfather’s shipping fleet, learning navigation skills and studying with a private tutor. In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, while Pacheco was transporting cargo up the California coast on a vessel flying the Mexican flag, the U.S.S. Cyane stopped and searched his ship near Monterey. Permitted to continue his journey, Pacheco was stopped again near the coast of San Francisco, where he was allegedly imprisoned briefly by the U.S. military. 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.</p>

<p>Pacheco eventually answered the familial call to political service when California became a state in 1850. Profoundly 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. After California joined the Union in 1850, Pacheco’s brother, Mariano, was elected to the state legislature and served a single term before poor health forced him to retire in 1853. Carrying on the family tradition, 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. In 1863 Pacheco joined the Republican Party, and California Governor Leland Stanford appointed him to fill a vacancy for state treasurer; he won election for a full term later that year. Also in 1863, Governor Stanford commissioned Pacheco as a brigadier general in the California state militia to command Hispanic troops in the First Brigade of California’s “Native Cavalry.” Maintaining ties to his father’s birthplace, Pacheco became a key contact for Mexican President Benito Juárez, connecting his emissaries with prominent Californians who supported his war against France in 1864. In 1863 Pacheco married Mary Catherine McIntire, a Kentucky playwright who became one of California’s first published female authors. The couple had a daughter, Maybella Ramona, and a son, Romualdo, who died at age seven.</p>