the Juan Bautista de Anza trail, in miniatures

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Within the John Muir national historic site was the Juan Bautista de Anza national historic trail exhibit. I was interested in it because it's about the Spanish history of California. I was hoping to find parallels to Philippine history. After all, both the Philippines and California used to be ruled by the viceroyalty of New Spain (Acapulco). I doubted, however, that I had enough time to scratch the surface.


If the Ayala Museum has dioramas, the Juan Bautista de Anza exhibit has miniatures too. These were much smaller than the dioramas so it was more challenging to take photos... I had to set my Canon Powershot to macro mode for this.

Anyway, the miniatures depicted the Spanish colonists, led by de Anza, going north to Alta California (encompassing present day California, Nevada, and Utah) through a land route. Along the way, they were able to establish settlements and missions in San Francisco, Monterey, and San Diego (among others).




This expedition made me realise that the Philippines is an older colony of Spain. Cebu and Manila were established in the 1500s while California missions were established in the late 1770s. But I'm sure that Spain was in North America prior to the trip to the Philippines because the Galleon Trade was established in the 1580s. Perhaps, the trip up to Alta California was an expansion of the thriving Spanish empire, rather than conquering new lands. After all, the miniatures did not depict war between the colonists and the indigenous settlers... unlike what's shown in many of the dioramas at the Ayala Museum.



I guess I need to read up more about California history during its Spanish period... find Philippine connections if there are any.

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