Media Juan Bandini and daughter Doña Machado de Ridington Rancho Penascitos Mexican era adobe Henry Fitch Santiago E. Arquello Pio Pico family Andres Pico Indians Vaqueros Señorita Vaquero Vaquero San Diego On Horseback Rancheros La Primavera

During the 1830s the intention of the Mexican government was to convert the mission properties into Indian pueblos. This policy which had envisioned free settlements of hispanicized natives, ultimately was subverted by the local Mexican frontier settlers many who regarded the Indians as incapable of self management or property ownership. Initially the secularization of the mission lands and the emancipation of the neophytes proceeded more rapidly under Governor Figueroa and subsequent Mexican governors finished the legal process. It ultimately affected about 18,000 Christianized natives in California.

Eventually enough ex-neophyte families accepted their changed status and established the Indian pueblo of San Dieguito, near the mission. Others near Mission San Luis Rey moved to an already existing native pueblo at Las Flores. And another Indian pueblo grew up in San Pascual, near present day Escondido. Each of these new pueblos were instructed to select their own alcaldes or mayors. Thus the first elected self government in the San Diego region, ironically, was instituted among the Kumeyaay pueblo dwellers. Those natives who agreed to live in these pueblos were informally allowed to use the lands they needed for dwellings and agriculture. The rest of the ex-mission lands were declared abandoned and open to petition for ownership by the Californios.

By 1834 Mission San Diego had been secularized along with five other missions in California. Mission San Luis Rey was the most populous and had it's properties administered by Pío Pico. At Mission San Diego there were more than five thousand neophytes but most of them departed after the priests left. An estimated two thousand moved closer to the newly constructed pueblo of San Diego where they found occasional work as servants and laborers. For the rest of the Mexican period the Christianized ex-neophyte native population greatly outnumbered the Mexican mestizo population within the San Diego district. For many Mexican settlers the native loyalties were always suspect and frequent raids and rumors of impending attacks always raised suspicions of alliances between the local Indian and the indios bárbaros.

During the decade that followed the Californios petitioned the Mexican government to claim hundreds of ranchos formed out of lands that had been declared "abandoned" by mission administrators. Many of these same commissioners ended up themselves owning the very lands they administered. Who benefited from this era of rancho creation within present day San Diego county? Certainly not the majority of the population. Rancho grantees were limited to a few who because of political influence or because of long service to the mission or presidio were in a position to claim the land and the cattle on it.