Yerba Buena was ananchorage spot and later a settlement that grew into the city ofSan Francisco, California. The settlement, built in an area known earlier asEl Paraje de Yerba Buena and named foran herb that grew abundantly there, was founded in 1834 and was located near the northeastern end of theSan Francisco Peninsula, on the shores ofYerba Buena Cove. Yerba Buena was the first Spanish colonial or Mexican civilian settlement in San Francisco, which had previously only had indigenous, missionary, and military settlements, and was originally intended as a trading post for ships visitingSan Francisco Bay. The settlement was arranged in the Spanish style around aplaza that remains as the present dayPortsmouth Square. The area that was the Yerba Buena settlement is now in theFinancial District andChinatown neighborhoods of San Francisco.
Spanish colonial and Mexican settlements inAlta California were of five types. Themisiónes (missions) were religious settlements run byFranciscan priests toevangelize theindigenous peoples of California.Presidios were military bases, established at the same time as the missions, responsible for protecting them, controlling the native population, and defending Spanish and later Mexican territory against foreign incursions.
Three secular civilianpueblos were also created during the period when the missions were being established. These wereEl Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (1777 - now theCity of San Jose); thePueblo de Los Ángeles (1781 - now the City of Los Angeles); and theVilla de Branciforte (1797 - now part of theCity of Santa Cruz. The first pueblo inhabitants were brought in groups from Mexico, recruited specifically for colonization.
Beginning in 1784 under Spanish Empire rule,land concessions were made to private citizens in areas outside of mission or presidio control. Following Mexican independence in 1820 and secularization of the missions by theMexican Secularization Act of 1833, actualland grants (conferring ownership) were made, from land formerly controlled by the missions (mainly large areas of grazing land). Those grants continued to be made until 1846.
Also following secularization of the missions, secular communities that had grown up (mostly around the mission compounds) remained, becoming a fifth type of settlement that often adopted the former mission name. Yerba Buena was an exception because its waterfront location did not closely surround either the mission or the presidio, although later San Francisco included both the former mission and presidio areas, and adopted their name.
The two earliest Spanish colonial settlements in San Francisco were both made in 1776 following thede Anza Expedition. ThePresidio of San Francisco was founded on September 18th of that year near the southern side of theGolden Gate.Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded on October 9 a little further inland near theLaguna de los Dolores, for the purpose of concentrating theOhlone andMiwok peoples of the northern San Francisco Bay area andconverting them to Christianity.[1] There were no independentrancho,pueblo, or other civilian settlements in today's San Francisco until after the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833.[2]
The uninhabited northeastern area of San Francisco was calledEl Paraje de Yerba Buena (The Place of the Good Herb), derived from the Spanish geographical termparaje, meaning "place", "camp", or "stopping point" andyerba buena, the Spanish name for plants in the mint family, used in Alta California forClinopodium douglasii, which grew abundantly in this area.[3]
There were severalanchorage spots for ships visiting San Francisco. The earliest one was the Presidio anchorage, located just inside the Golden Gate, within a mile to the east ofPunta del Cantil Blanco (what was later calledFort Point). The Yerba Buena anchorage eventually came to be more favored, as it was more sheltered and less precarious than the Presidio anchorage, even though it was farther from the Presidio headquarters. The Yerba Buena anchorage actually referred to two locations, with the earlier spot being close toNorth Point, but was later located a little further to the south, atYerba Buena Cove.[4] The name was eventually extended to the island facing Yerba Buena Cove, theIsla de Yerba Buena (Yerba Buena Island), originally known asIsla de Alcatraces.
The earliest report of the use of Yerba Buena as a place name comes from the log ofGeorge Vancouver, who in 1792 sailed his shipHMS Discovery intoSan Francisco Bay and anchored "about aleague below the Presidio in a place they called Yerba Buena".[5] Following the Vancouver Expedition, the Presidio anchorage continued to be the more commonly used landing point. However, during the particularly harsh winter of 1824, ships began to favor the anchorage at Yerba Buena and so Yerba Buena Cove became the main disembarkation point for ships visiting San Francisco.[4]
In 1797, the Spanish presidio constructed theBateria de Yerba Buena atPunta Medanos (Black Point) as anartillery battery to provide additional protection to the Yerba Buena anchorage. The site was only briefly occupied and was abandoned by 1806.[6]
With the enactment of theMexican Secularization Act of 1833, the missions were made to divest themselves of their extensive landholdings and emancipate the indigenous people under their control. As part of the process of secularization, GovernorJosé Figueroa opened up San Francisco to civilian settlement. In 1834, the settlement of Yerba Buena was founded on the shores of Yerba Buena Cove.[3][7][8]
In 1835,William A. Richardson, a naturalized Mexican citizen of English birth, erected a homestead near the boat anchorage of Yerba Buena Cove.[5] Together withAlcaldeFrancisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, which retained the name Yerba Buena.
In early 1841 James Douglas of theHudson's Bay Company (HBC), operating on the Pacific coast fromFort Vancouver, went to Yerba Buena to establish an HBC trading post. A large building on the water's edge was purchased. The HBC post had several purposes. It operated as a wholesale store, selling goods exported from Fort Vancouver such as salmon, lumber, and British manufactures in exchange for hides and tallow. The post improved diplomatic relations between the British HBC and the Mexican government of California, making the HBC's fur trapping expeditions into California's Central Valley politically acceptable. Despite the mercantile potential of the HBC store in Yerba Buena, in 1842 it was ordered to be closed byGeorge Simpson as part of Simpson's general reorganization of the HBC'sColumbia District. The HBC store in Yerba Buena was sold in 1846, two years before theCalifornia Gold Rush transformed Yerba Buena into the major city on the North American west coast.[9]
On July 7, 1846, in the early part of theMexican–American War, US Navy CommodoreJohn D. Sloat claimed Alta California for the United States aftercapturing Monterey, the province's capital. US Navy CaptainJohn Berrien Montgomery andUS MarineSecond Lieutenant Henry Bulls Watson of theUSS Portsmouth arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later by raising the American flag over the town plaza, which is nowPortsmouth Square in honor of the ship.[5] Henry Bulls Watson was placed in command of the garrison there. On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240Mormon migrants from the East coast arrived on the shipBrooklyn, led bySam Brannan. In August 1846, Lt.Washington Allon Bartlett was namedalcalde of Yerba Buena.[10] On January 30, 1847, Lt. Bartlett's proclamation changing the name Yerba Buena to San Francisco took effect.[11] The city and the rest of Alta California officially became a United States military territory in 1848 by the terms of theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended theMexican–American War. California was admitted for statehood to the United States on September 9, 1850. The State soon chartered San Francisco as both a City and aCounty.
Yerba Buena is used for a number of place names in modern San Francisco.Yerba Buena Island has retained its name from the Spanish era up to modern times, although from 1895 to 1931, it was officially designated Goat Island.Yerba Buena Gardens, which includesYerba Buena Center for the Arts, is a complex of parks, museums, theaters, and malls in theSouth of Market (SoMa) district of San Francisco that was founded in 1993. The Yerba BuenaCommunity Benefits District has designated an area centered on Yerba Buena Gardens and bounded byMarket, Howard, Second, and Fifth Streets as the Yerba Buena District, a subdistrict of the SoMa neighborhood.[12] A Yerba Buena Avenue runs through theSt. Francis Wood andWestwood Highlands neighborhoods on the southwestern side of San Francisco.
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37°47′35″N122°23′47″W / 37.79306°N 122.39639°W /37.79306; -122.39639
