On writing Yakimali’s Gift
Fernanda’s story came from a group of short stories I wrote about children telling how and why their ancestors settled in the United States. When I decided to write a novel about Fernanda and the expedition, and delved into the research, I was fascinated to learn that the colonization occurred during the time of the American Revolution, and some seventy years before the often-told story of the east-to-west migration of pioneers. This further inspired me to write about this little known, but important, part of California and U.S. history.
The fun part about doing research is digging through layers and layers of information. I started out a bit overwhelmed, with little information and wondering how to tackle the project. I ended up overwhelmed by the amount of information I discovered, wondering how to fit it all into the story.
Fact versus Fiction
Although Fernanda and her story are fictitious, Juan Bautista de Anza, the priests Pedro Font, Antonio Garcés, and Tomás Eixarch, Lieutenant Moraga, Sergeant Grijalva, Vicente and Manuela Feliz, Luis and Micaela Gonzales, Ignacio and Ana Gutierrez, the couples’ children, and Feliciana Arballo and her two children were all real people who traveled on the expedition. The “Web de Anza” website (see the bibliography on my website lindacovella.com) has a wealth of information about the expedition including a Who’s Who on the colonists, and the diaries of Anza, Font, and Garcés. The diaries are fascinating to read, particularly Font’s “expanded” version. His details can be vivid, and his personal opinions about the Indians and other aspects of the journey give some insight into the Spanish attitudes of the time. Anza, the priests, and Feliciana are also discussed in several of the books in the bibliography.
The incidents in Yakimali’s Gift closely follow those of the diaries such as the route traveled, encounters with the Pima and Yuma Indians, deaths and illnesses, the weather.
I slightly changed some events for the sake of the plot. For instance, Anza and the priests rode out to Casa Grande, but there’s no record of the colonists exploring the ruins. And though the horse races between the Yumas and the colonists are fiction, they did celebrate together as mentioned in Font’s diary November 28, 1775 (and in other entries where the Yumas were repeatedly referred to as “festive”):
The Yumas entertained us in an arbor which Captain Palma had ordered erected here as soon as he learned of our coming, and many Indians of both sexes assembled to visit us, very festive and joyful and very much painted in various modes and colors… On our arrival the soldiers were ordered to fire a few shots to reciprocate the pleasure manifested by these people at our coming. This pleased the Yumas greatly and they responded to the musket-shots with a great shouting and hullabaloo.
Yakimali’s Gift ends with the colonists’ arrival in California, but the expedition continued to San Francisco, with many of the travelers settling in San Gabriel, Monterey, and other places along the way. Today, the Juan Bautista de Anza Trail is a National Historic Trail, and many of the original sites along the route still exist. During my research, I visited some of the sites in Arizona: Tubac and the presidio, the missions at San Xavier del Bac and Tumacacori, parts of the Yuma river, and the Casa Grande (a National Monument). I went on this trip after I had already done a lot of book research, and it was a real thrill to see the places that I’d been reading and writing about, and to see first-hand the desert areas where Fernanda would have lived.
Women and Children on the Expedition
When I first read about this expedition, I was shocked to learn that several women chose to go even though they were in advanced stages of pregnancy. I wanted to know more about the women and their children who made up more than half the number of colonists. The diaries of Anza, Font, and Garcés give just cursory mention of the women’s experience, and almost nothing about the children. For instance, Anza briefly writes about the death of a woman during childbirth on the first night of the journey, October 24, 1775, without even mentioning her name (which was Manuela Feliz), and then goes on about the weather:
At three o'clock in the morning, it not having been possible by means of the medicines which had been applied in the previous hours, to remove the afterbirth from our mother, other various troubles befell her. As a result she was taken with paroxysms of death, and after the sacraments of penance and extreme unction had been administered to her, with the aid of the fathers who accompany us she rendered up her spirit at a quarter to four.
At seven o'clock today it began to rain, and continued until half past ten…
Who was the woman? Did she have other children? How did the death that occurred on that first night affect the other colonists? These questions and more intrigued me. Reading one of my resources, Women and the Conquest of California (see bibliography), further inspired me to look at the expedition through the eyes of women and children. With limited information available, I began to imagine what life was like on that first march along the Anza trail—who the people were and why they had left their homes to emigrate to California. Thus the story of Fernanda and her journey was born. Though her life, her family, her connection with the Pima Indians and the old Pima woman, Sikul, are all fictitious, I created Fernanda’s story based on facts about that period of history found in the resources listed in the bibliography. I added a short description of each book should you like to read more about the period and journey yourself.
Indians
I didn’t research Apaches since they don’t play a big part in the story. But I was surprised that the expedition never encountered any Apaches since many historical records show them as an ever-present threat to other Indian tribes and to colonists. This could possibly have been because the train was well guarded by the soldiers and vaqueros.
I did have difficulty, though, locating writings from the perspective of the Pimas, Papagos, and Yumas. And information about the relationship between the soldiers, missionaries, and Indians during that time is sketchy. After much digging, I found some wonderful books that detailed the different tribes’ housing, clothing, religious beliefs, language, and social customs of that time. (See bibliography).
Some of the story that Sikul tells Fernanda is based on fact, particularly the “uprising” of the Pimas. The conflict between the Pimas, the Jesuits, and the Spanish soldiers occurred in 1751 when Papa would have been sixteen, Mama four, and Fernanda yet to be born ten years later. There’s been much debate throughout history as to the cause of the fight. I had only uncovered the most basic facts about the conflict when I came across Russell Charles Ewing’s dissertation The Pima Uprising, 1751-1752 (see bibliography). Although his narrative can be construed as being biased on the side of the soldiers and the Catholic Church, he gives a lot of otherwise hard-to-find details about the circumstances before, during, and after the conflict.
Miguel’s story about the soldiers’ attack in the Papago village is fictitious and is not based on any actual event. However, incidents like the one Miguel speaks of are one of the horrors of war, and there are many reasons they happen. Most wars and conflicts are not simply black and white with a good guy and a bad guy, and Miguel acknowledges this later to Fernanda. In my research, I found information that showed good relationships between the Spaniards and Indians as well as violent or abusive actions against each other.
Celebrate Your Heritage. Live Your Passion
In the end, I wanted Yakimali’s Gift to be a story of hope. Hope that we value our ancestry and appreciate the richness of our country’s diversity. And hope that, like Fernanda, we have the determination and passion to live the lives we truly desire among the people we love.