First Lady Eager to Escape 1780s ‘Paradise’

She was California’s first First Lady, the “Queen of California.” But she hated it here so much that she schemed to divorce her governor-husband in what has been recorded as California’s first grand public marital scandal.

Dona Eulalia Callis de Fages, the wife of early Spanish Gov. Pedro Fages, was the first resident First Lady of the state. A pampered spitfire of rank and social standing, she was uprooted from family and friends in Spain to live in Monterey.

The future home of golf courses and good living was a desolate, primitive outpost in the 1780s. Reeling from culture shock, loneliness, boredom and 20 months of pregnancy (two full-term babies and a miscarriage), she nagged her husband to quit his job and return to Spain or Mexico City. When he refused, she hatched a plan that would erupt into a scandal and provincial cause celebre.

Pedro Fages first came to colonial California years before he was appointed governor. He was one of 62 Spanish soldiers who accompanied Gaspar de Portola northward through California in search of Monterey Bay in 1769. With the founding of the Monterey Presidio and Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel, Fages and his soldiers were left behind to protect the outpost.

When supplies from Mexico failed to arrive, he hunted wild grizzly bears in San Luis Obispo and saved the Presidio residents from starvation. He planted 600 trees at his own expense and kept his pockets full of coins to hand out to the children.

Although a hero to some, he was a thorn in the side of Father Junipero Serra, the founder of the missions, whose headquarters was in Carmel. Control over the Indian population was a constant power struggle between the two men. They quarreled often. In 1772, the struggle over control of the natives came to a head. While Fages was on horseback in hot pursuit of six Army deserters who ran away with Indian women, Serra was on his way to Mexico to wrest control of the Indians from the military.

Fages returned without the deserters, but Serra had obtained a Bill of Rights for the Indians from the regional Spanish authorities. It stated that “the management, control, and education of the baptized Indians pertains exclusively to the mission fathers ... just as the father of a family has charge of his house and the ... correction of his children.”

The relationship between the soldier and the padre would wax and wane over the years that they helped build colonial California.

Fages, 50, a tough military leader, more than met his match in 22-year-old Eulalia. They married in Spain in 1780. Two years later, he had returned to the New World to continue his soldiering.

Soon he was appointed governor of California and returned to Monterey, where he began making the first grants of ranchos.

When he joined his wife and baby son in Baja California for their reluctant journey northward, he gave her a string of pearls. During their trip, Eulalia suffered a miscarriage, but would be pregnant again before arriving in Monterey.

Along the way, mission bells, cannon fire and fiestas greeted the woman dubbed “Queen of California.” Awed to see a woman of such aristocratic bearing, soldiers’ wives kissed her hand and Native Americans lavished her with gifts, including a long mantle of sea gull feathers.

Drenched with rain upon her arrival in Monterey in 1784, Eulalia archly commented to her husband, “Paradise!” Horrified at seeing naked Indian women, she began handing out some of her own garments to cover them. Other natives helped themselves.

Serra walked from the mission to Monterey to welcome her. The next day, arriving for Mass, she at first was appalled, then amused, at the sight of one Indian woman clad in her missing red velvet ball gown, and another perfectly comfortable in a purple brocade mantle, but no skirt.

In August 1784, the pain of losing her newborn baby was too much to bear, coupled with the death of her friend, Father Serra, two weeks later. Eulalia became depressed and begged her husband to resign and return to Spain with her. He refused. She became hysterical. After calming down, she decided to torment Fages with the silent treatment. She also locked him out of the bedroom.

Feb. 3, 1785, was Eulalia’s “Day of Infamy.” She found her husband and a beautiful Indian servant, Dolores, together in Dolores’ room. At last, Eulalia believed she had the proof she needed for a divorce and a return trip to Spain.

But the governor defended himself, explaining that he had merely gone to awaken Dolores when his wife burst in, accusing him of planning a sinful act.

Fages rode to Carmel to bear his soul to Father Matias Noriega. He returned home with the padre in tow, hoping his wife would listen to some priestly advice. But when Noriega told her she had no grounds for divorce, she replied: “I would rather live with the devil in hell than with Don Pedro.”

Noriega confined her to her room with a military guard posted outside. Thus began the divorce proceedings of Fages vs. Fages.

Noriega acted as judge. He interviewed witnesses, mostly military personnel, who sided with the governor. Dolores, the star witness, also took the side of the governor, fearing his wrath and even imprisonment.

Dolores allegedly told two matrons the real story, but Noriega failed to call them. The case was pretty much decided, written up and sent to the bishop in Sonora, Mexico, who would officially decide Eulalia’s fate.

Waiting for the decision, Noriega said Mass for the residents at the Presidio chapel, making a few remarks from the pulpit about the scrapping couple. Angry and unwilling to sit still and listen to the priest’s purported insults, Eulalia got up to leave the chapel, muttering under her breath.

But Noriega ordered troops “to detain that woman, for I shall muzzle her.” He also threatened to excommunicate anyone who as much as talked to her.

Unwilling to leave his wife while he sailed south on business, Fages asked Noriega to keep his wife locked up at the mission until he returned. Eulalia refused to go and locked herself and their 4-year-old son in her room.

“My wife is a lunatic,” the governor said. Forcing the door open, he threatened to send her shackled, until she finally agreed to go peacefully.

While imprisoned, she tormented the priest with regular outbursts of her temper until Noriega threatened to have her flogged and put in chains.

She wrote to the commandant general in Mexico, seeking legal advice and asking for his protection and some financial support until her plight was resolved. Fages also wrote the general, hoping he could arrange a reconciliation.

The general advised the governor that his wife should not be treated so indignantly, that she was a woman of social status who deserved respect. The general wrote Eulalia that she must restrain her temper and behave like a lady.

Fages worried that Noriega was becoming too rough with his wife and allowed her to return to Mexico City. But she had a change of heart, and two months after it all began, she made peace with her husband and returned to Monterey. She continued to henpeck her husband, but he reportedly silenced her with his kisses.

Fages resigned in 1791, citing old age, and later joined his wife and children in Mexico City. He died in 1794 at 64 or 65, leaving behind his 36-year-old widow, a diary, and journals of his research and explorations.

Eulalia’s perseverance in the face of difficult and primitive conditions encouraged more Spanish women to venture into the wild frontier of California. She left a reputation for her kindness and charities to the poor and sick.

But Dona Eulalia is better remembered for the fury she unleased on her husband and the scandal it caused in the Presidio of Monterey.