1829 Carrillo-Fitch Elopement
In 1829 a controversy erupted when the Spanish Governor was asked to intervene in the marriage between a local San Diego Spanish woman and a foreigner.
Maria Antonia Natalia Elija Carrillo was born November 27th 1810. Called Josefa, after her Grandmother, she was the eldest of thirteen children born to Maria Ygnacia Lopez and Joaquin Victor Carrillo. Influential and socially well connected, the family was related to several other prominent Californians of the day. At the time the youth of California were pressured to marry early.
Instead of marrying another Californian, Carrillo fell in love with American merchant seaman, Henry Delano Fitch. Fitch formally requested the hand of Maria Antonia in 1827.
On April 15, 1829, the ceremony was in progress, but was stopped by order of Governor Jose Maria Echeandia. It is believed that the Governor was enraged by Carrillo's choice of a man who refused to naturalize as a citizen, as well as rumored smuggling activity.
The couple eloped in Valparaiso Chile and upon returning to California 1830, Echeandia announced the marriage as "Illegal" and had Fitch imprisoned and placed Carrillo in Deposito, the practice of separating couples to ascertain if they married of their own accord.
Carrillo was held in San Gabriel and Fitch in Monterrey. In December of 1830, ecclesiastic authorities found the marriage valid but not legitimate under canon law. To end the scandal, the couple was ordered to pay penance in the order of attending special mass and reciting prayer.
Read more about this topic: History Of Marriage In California
Famous quotes containing the word elopement:
“Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father’s curse, mother’s moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)