GUAJOME— Rancho Guajome, in an idyllic area straddling the current boundary between
Vista and Oceanside, conjures images of a romantic California past.

However, there are hints in the historical record that the rancho— and its former owners— had their uglier aspects as well.

During the 19th century, when Guajome was considered a separate community, the rancho was owned by Cave Couts, who had helped lay out San Diego with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and gave the streets in Old Town San Diego many of their names.

Like many San Diegans at the time, Couts was a sympathizer for the Confederate cause. By law, there was no slavery in California, but there were some rigid caste lines drawn between people of European descent and those of other racial backgrounds.

Similar to their situation in the South, Jews in San Diego found themselves in an ambiguous position. They were accepted and given political privileges as fellows of European descent, but among some elements they also were the subjects of sneering jokes and anti-Semitic comments.

In the great divide over race, Jews were often expected to "choose sides" and decide whether their sympathies were with their fellow white people or with other minorities.

In such a context, the atmosphere probably was tense when San Diego's Jewish pioneer, Louis Rose, who served with Couts in 1865 on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, was called to testify that year against his fellow government official in a murder case.

Rose was one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution. In his testimony, as recorded in The Journal of San Diego History, Rose stated that he had seen Couts leveling a gun at the victim, a man named Mendoza, and that "when Mendoza was about 25 or 35 yards from Couts the first shot was fired.

"When about 5 or 6 yards farther" he continued, "I heard the second shot fire."

Couts subsequently testified that Mendoza had threatened him. The jury decided that the shooting was in self-defense and acquitted Couts.

The quick acquittal received by Couts has been cited by latter-day historians like Beatrice Frishette Knott in her USD thesis on "Social History of San Diego: Early American Period" as "evidence of the racism against Mexicans that permeated 19th century San Diego." Had this victim been of European descent rather than of Mexican or mixed blood, the outcome
probably would have been different, Knott said.

Legal historian Leland Stanford also cited this case as evidence that racism, rather than justice, guided decision making by the grand jury. He wrote: "In this hero's (Couts') shadow however, lurked nepotism, arrogance, quarrelsomeness, questionable husbandry, and possible subjugation of Indian proteges over whom ... he held autocratic power."

Perhaps the greatest advocate for California¹s Indians was Helen Hunt Jackson, who served as a U.S. commissioner inquiring into the conditions of the Indians and who told many of her conclusions in the novel Ramona— for which the town in eastern San Diego County is named.
Helen Hunt Jackson stayed at Rancho Guajome briefly in the early 1880s, but her visit ended abruptly when she and Ysadora Bandini Couts, widow of Cave Johnson Couts, quarreled. A subsequent defamation of character lawsuit by Mrs. Couts against Jackson never went to trial as Jackson died before it was scheduled to begin.

While it is not known what they quarreled about, one can guess that the two women had completely opposite viewpoints on how much respect was due people of non-European backgrounds.

Rancho Guajome fell on financially difficult times and sought income from the moviemaking industry that then was producing silent films. The owner of the ranch, Cave Couts Jr., persuaded a film crew to use it as a backdrop for The Pride of Palomar in 1922. This is a silent film about a rancher who goes off to fight in World War I and is falsely reported to be killed in action.
When he returns home he finds that his family's ranch is about to be grabbed up and subdivided. In keeping with anti-Asian stereotypes of the day, the villain of this racist piece is a Japanese financier who even sends a Chinese underling to kill the rancher, but he is foiled.

Today, Rancho Guajome is operated by the County of San Diego, which, of course, wants it to be a place where all people can feel comfortable. The racist aspects of Rancho Guajome are largely ignored by county officials who concentrate instead on the rancho's 7,000-sq. ft., 22-room hacienda.

Prominence is given to a description by American Southwest historian Adam Clark Vroman, who described the rancho in 1899 as "undoubtedly the finest specimen of the old Spanish times of California."

The hacienda was renovated in the 1920s. Stucco columns replaced the wooden beams holding up the front porch covering. The porch affords a beautiful panorama of hills and meadows. Inside the living quarters, Victorian-era furnishings depict the elegance of Southern California during the second half of the 19th century.

The landmark is at 2210 N. Santa Fe Ave., Vista. For more information, call (760) 724-4082.