Alta California under Spanish and Mexican Rule

Spanish colonisation of Alta California began in 1769 through a chain of missions, presidios and civilian settlements. Franciscan missions sought to convert and control Indigenous communities, whose populations were devastated by disease, coercion and disruption of land use. Military and settler families created a small colonial society linked to Mexico and the Pacific.

After Mexican independence, mission lands were secularised and large ranchos became central to the regional economy. Californio families, Indigenous labourers, traders and foreign settlers competed within a distant northern province. War with the United States ended Mexican rule, and the 1848 treaty transferred California shortly before the gold rush.

Zorro reimagines this society through the fictional Diego de la Vega, moving between colonial California and Napoleonic Spain. Stories set in the period often explore missions, ranchos, frontier authority, mixed ancestry and resistance to official violence.