Portolá, Gaspar De (c. 1717–1786)

Gaspar De Portolá (b. ca. 1717; d. 10 October 1786), commandant-governor of the Californias. A native of Balaguer, Cataluña, Portolá rose from infantry ensign (1734) to lieutenant (1743), and to captain (1764). After serving in campaigns in Italy and Portugal, he arrived in New Spain in 1764. Three years later he was sent to Baja California to effect the expulsion of the Jesuits. In 1768 Portolá was commander of the Catalan Volunteers and led the expedition to settle Alta California that had been ordered by Visitor General José de Gálvez. With the Franciscan Junípero Serra he marched overland from Loreto to San Diego, where he aided in the founding of the mission and presidio (3 July 1768). On 14 July 1769 he led an expedition in search of Monterey; he discovered San Francisco Bay in November of that year, and returned to San Diego in January 1770. By that August, Portolá was back in San Blas, and as a lieutenant colonel of dragoons he returned to Spain later that year. As a colonel, he served as governor of Puebla de los Angeles, New Spain, from 1777 to 1785. In the latter year he returned to Spain in the Numancia regiment of dragoons. In February 1786 Portolá was named royal lieutenant of the city and castles of Lérida. He died in Lérida.

See alsoCatalonian Volunteers; Franciscans; Jesuits; Missions: Spanish America; Serra, Junipero.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Palóu, Historical Memoirs of New California, translated by Herbert E. Bolton, 4 vols. (1926).

Fernando Boneu Campanys, Don Gaspar de Portolá, Explorer and Founder of California, translated and revised by Alan K. Brown (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.

                                       W. Michael Mathes