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CALIFORNIA

California in 1822 was a sparsely populated territory with a small and declining indigenous population of Native Indians. There were twenty Franciscan Missions which had been built during the Spanish period of governance between 1769 and 1821. They were located along the coast from San Diego in the south to San Rafael in the north. A further mission was built in 1823 at San Francisco Solano which became the most northerly mission. There were also four presidios or military forts at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco and three pueblos or small towns. Under Spanish rule private land ownership had been prohibited and all of the land was under the control of the missions except for about thirty ranchos which had been conceded as land grants mainly to retired Spanish soldiers.

 The Spanish restrictions on foreign trade and the disruption to supplies from Mexico during the Mexican War of Independence meant that when Hugh McCulloch and William Hartnell landed at Monterey in June 1822 from the brig John Begg they were entering a country that had no commercial economy to speak of and was in dire need of an official supply of manufactured goods having had to mainly rely on contraband trade for the previous ten years.
As their ship was the first to arrive since the port of Monterey had been opened to foreign traders the partners were not surprisingly welcomed with open arms by the Governor, Pablo Vicente Solá, and the President of all the missions, Father Mariano Payéras, to both of whom they presented their proposals for establishing a trading venture. The Governor and the President were delighted to recommend to all of the mission fathers that they should accept the partner's business proposals and enter into a three year trading contract. A document dated 17th June 1822 was sent to every mission. This is the final page:
‘Viva Jesus Reverend Fathers, Apostolic Preachers and Ministers of our Missions from San Antonio to San Diego: My respected fathers and esteemed brothers: I notify you all that by the authority of the Governor, Messrs. Hugh McCulloch, a Scotchman, and William Hartnell, an Englishman, both Protestants and partners of the English merchant, John Begg established in Lima, presented themselves before me. The object of the aforesaid gentlemen is to enter into a commercial contract for three years with all this Province; the provisions give promise of advantages to both contracting parties...........'

Governor Solá and Father Payéras also wrote to the missions pointing out the advantages of entering into the contract with the Governor saying it was "an opportunity for which we have been waiting". The principle commodities to be supplied by the missions were hides for the English market and tallow for the South American market with a number of other products mentioned as being of secondary interest. In return McCulloch & Hartnell would supply the missions with the diverse range of manufactured goods they required. Most importantly the contracts would give the partnership a monopoly on trade with all the missions that signed it for three years from the commencement of the contract in January 1823.

The two partners now set off on horseback to visit each of the missions and try and obtain the signatures of the mission fathers to the contracts, Hartnell going north from Monterey and McCulloch going south, following 'El Camino Real'. In the north Hartnell was successful in securing the signatures at all the missions except two that had nothing to trade, perhaps in part due to his friendly and persuasive manner which endeared him to the Franciscan fathers. However McCulloch, a brusque Scotsman maybe, was less successful with the southern missions and was not able to obtain many signatures at this first attempt. His efforts were also hampered by the presence of American vessels and in a letter to Hartnell from San Diego on 18th July 1822 he writes that the American supercargoes (ship's agents) are on shore and he is unable to speak to the padres. In other letters that he writes to Hartnell from the southern missions that he was visiting we hear his estimates of the quantities of hides and tallow that might be obtained at each mission and in a letter on the 8th July he tells Hartnell to "hurry as soon as possible to the southward" with the brig John Begg so that they can display the goods that they have to offer in an attempt to encourage the Missions to sign the contract.

All the way from Cape Wrath

In this letter of 8th July 1822 McCulloch is in ebullient mood and thinking of home.
 (He normally signed Hugh or H McCulloch)

It seems that this must have been a successful ploy as he writes to John Begg in Lima on the 31st July 1822:
"Enclosed you have a copy of a contract entered into with almost all the missions for three years from the beginning of January 1823"
In the same letter he tells Begg that they can expect 30,000 quintals of tallow and 25 to 30,000 hides yearly. Things were not all plain sailing though with one problem being their religion as Protestants as explained by McCulloch in the same letter:
"It has cost us a good deal of trouble and loss of time to be permitted to remain in the Country on account of our Religion as the Padres expected that we would consent to be Baptised. However we convinced them that we could get that ceremony done to us without coming so far as this, so that by consenting to go on our knees, taking off our hats etc. on occasions we have settled all."
And so began the Hide and Tallow trade which was to form almost the entirety of the Californian economy for the next 25 years until the gold rush began in 1848.