Mark Gresham | 17 SEP 2025
In the late summer of 1769, the sun hung low over the rugged cliffs of a place the Spanish called San Diego. The air carried the salt of the Pacific and the faint, rhythmic chants of the Kumeyaay people, their voices weaving through the mesquite and sagebrush. Fray Junípero Serra (1713–1784), a Franciscan missionary, stood on a hill, his robes dusted with the red earth of this new land. Below, Spanish soldiers and settlers hammered wooden stakes into the ground, marking the first mission in a chain that would stretch along the California coast. Serra hummed a plainsong, a Gregorian chant from his homeland, its solemn tones juxtaposed against the Kumeyaay’s layered melodies. This was the beginning of a new sound, one that would grow and shift over the next century, as the land changed hands from Spain to Mexico to the United States.
Between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Spanish Franciscans established missions along California’s coast that became centers not only for religious life but also for music. Within these missions, the Mexican Baroque style took root—a fusion of Spanish, Indigenous, and African influences. Composers such as Juan Bautista Sancho (1772–1830), stationed at Mission San Antonio de Padua, created sacred works like the Misa en Sol and Misa de los Ángeles, among the earliest examples of California’s mission-era music. This repertoire reflected a distinctive blend of European traditions and local creativity, shaping the soundscape that would influence Californio musicians for generations. These sacred compositions mingled with the voices and rhythms of the local peoples, setting the stage for the rich musical fusion that would define California’s mission-era soundscape.
The indigenous Kumeyaay sang of the land and the sea; their songs passed down through generations, accompanied by rattles made of gourds and the soft beat of deer-hoof clappers. Serra’s mission brought violins and guitars from Spain to the courtyards of Mission San Diego de Alcalá. The Spanish settlers, or californios, blended their folk tunes—canciones and romances—with the rhythms they heard from the native peoples. By the time the American Revolutionary War sparked in the East in 1775, California’s coast was a world apart, its music a fusion of sacred hymns and earthy ballads, sung in Spanish and punctuated by the clack of castanets.
As decades passed, more missions rose along the Camino Real—San Gabriel, Santa Barbara, San Francisco. Each became a hub of music. The californios danced the fandango at fiestas, their boots stomping on wooden floors to the strum of guitars and the wail of violins. The native peoples, coerced into the mission system, learned these instruments but wove their own melodies into the mix, creating a sound that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly indigenous. By 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain, California’s music was a vibrant tapestry. Ranchos spread across the coastal hills, and at gatherings, californio women sang coplas, their voices carrying tales of love and loss over the strum of a vihuela.
In the shifting tides of the 1830s, as Mexico’s grip on California wavered and American traders began to appear, their ships dotting the horizons at San Diego and San Francisco. At a trading post shrouded in fog, one might hear a sailor playing “Yankee Doodle” on a fife, its sharp notes cutting through the mist. One could imagine a local guitarist attempting to echo it, blending it with a jarabe rhythm, as the cultures briefly touch in that shared melody.
By 1846, the Mexican-American War had begun, and California was a prize. The Bear Flag Revolt saw American settlers in Sonoma declare a short-lived republic, their makeshift flag raised to the tune of “Hail Columbia.” When the war ended in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought California and the Southwest into the United States. The coastal settlements, once sleepy pueblos, buzzed with new energy. Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, and by 1849, the Gold Rush transformed San Francisco from a quiet mission town into a chaotic port. Miners poured in, bringing their own music—sea shanties from New England, reels from Ireland, and banjo tunes from the South, rooted in African rhythms brought to America by enslaved peoples.
As the 1850s rolled on, California’s coast became a crucible of American identity. Statehood in 1850 brought new settlers, and with them came camp meetings and revivals, where Protestant hymns, such as “Amazing Grace,” rang out in makeshift churches while Catholic hymns and plainchant continued at the missions. In the ranchos, californios held on to their traditions, singing corridos—ballads of heroes and bandits—while American settlers introduced square dances, their fiddles sawing out “Turkey in the Straw.”
By 1861, as the Civil War tore through the East, California was firmly American, though its music told a more complex story. The music of California’s Pacific shore, from the Kumeyaay chants to the mission hymns, from the fandangos to the Gold Rush banjo strums, was a living archive of its people. It carried the voices of the native peoples, the Spanish, the Mexicans, and the Americans who claimed this land. As the Civil War raged, the songs of the coast—sacred and secular, joyous and mournful—told a story of convergence, conflict, and creation, a music that would echo into the future of an evolving American West. ■
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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