Andrés Pico

Andrés Pico was born in San Diego in 1810 as a member of the Pico family of California, a prominent Californio family. He was one of several sons of José María Pico and María Eustaquia López. An older brother was Pío Pico, who twice served as governor of Alta California.^[1]

In 1845 under the law for secularization of former Church properties, his older brother Governor Pío Pico granted Andrés Pico and his associate Juan Manso a nine-year lease for the Mission San Fernando Rey de España lands, which encompassed nearly the entire San Fernando Valley. At that time a 35-year-old rancher, Andrés Pico lived in Pueblo de Los Ángeles. He ran cattle on the ranch and used the mission complex as his hacienda. He gave Rómulo Pico Adobe to his son.

In 1846, to raise funds for the Mexican–American War, the Pío Pico government sold secularized mission lands. The Mission San Fernando was sold to Eulogio de Celis, who established Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. Celis returned to Spain, but his descendants stayed in California. Under the terms of secularization, the sale excluded the Mission compound and its immediate surroundings, which were reserved for Don Andrés.^[2]

During the Mexican–American War, Andrés Pico commanded the native forces, the California Lancers, in Alta California. In 1846 Pico led an attack on forces commanded by U.S. General Stephen Watts Kearny at the fierce but inconclusive Battle of San Pasqual. He is sometimes confused with his older brother Pío Pico, who in 1847, was elected as the last Governor of Alta California.

On January 13, 1847, as the acting governor of Mexican Alta California (while his brother was in Mexico raising additional money for the fight against the United States), Andrés Pico approached the U.S. commander Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Frémont, man to man and alone. Without firing a shot, Don Andrés and Frémont agreed to the terms of the Ceasefire of Cahuenga, an informal agreement that ended the war in California, in exchange for promises of protection of California from abuses by Frémont's forces. Frémont agreed to stop burning Californio ranches and stop stealing horses and cattle; he and Andrés Pico became friends.^[3] The Ceasefire was confirmed by the Treaty of San Fernando, formalized at the mission.^[4]

Despite having previously fought against the Americans, Pico was elected a delegate to California's First Constitutional Convention in August 1849.^[5] In 1850, after statehood was achieved, Don Andrés was elected to the California State Assembly from Los Ángeles.^[2] Because of perceived anti-Californio sentiments in San Francisco, as well as his own pro-Southern sentiments, Pico introduced a bill in 1859 to divide California into two states (the lower counties becoming the Territory of Colorado). The bill passed the legislature, was signed by the Governor, and was put to a vote of southern California voters. The voters approved the split, but Congress failed to act on the matter. ^[5]

In 1853, Don Andrés acquired a half interest in Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando from Eulogio F. de Celis; it was split along present-day Roscoe Boulevard, with his brother Pio Pico's land being the southern half of the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains.^[2]

In 1858, Pico was commissioned as a brigadier general in the California Militia.^[6]

Pico Act of 1859

Main article: Territory of Colorado (California)

Pico authored what became known as the Pico Act in February 1859, to partition California into two states, splitting the north two-thirds off as "California", and the south one-third to be called the Territory of Colorado, or whatever name the local populace preferred. The reason for the split was anger at taxation without representation: the southern Spanish-speaking Californios had been paying state taxes, but no state programs had been brought to their lands.^[7][8] The bill passed both houses of the state legislature and was sent to a vote in the affected southern parts of the state. The southern voters overwhelmingly approved the plan, and it was signed by Governor John B. Weller on April 18, 1859. But the U.S. Congress never voted on the bill because of the tensions between the North and the South prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. California remained one state.^[9][10][11]

Pico married Catarina Moreno, granddaughter of Los Ángeles pobladore Jose Cesario Moreno, in San Diego. They had one son, Rómulo, and adopted a daughter, also named Catarina.

• His son's home, the Andrés Pico Adobe, is the oldest residence in the San Fernando Valley. Having deteriorated when empty, it was restored by new owners in the early 1930s, who also extended it with an addition.^[2][15] Now operated as a house museum, it holds the archives of the San Fernando Valley Historical Society. Identified as a significant property in the 1935 Historic American Buildings Survey,^[2] Andrés Pico Adobe is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Los Ángeles Historic-Cultural Monument.^[16]
• Pico Boulevard, running from Santa Monica to downtown Los Ángeles, is named for Pío Pico, the former governor, but also honors the entire Pico family.

• 
  Pico in an undated photograph
• 
  Portrait of Pablo de la Guerra, Salvador Vallejo and Andrés Pico
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  Oil painting of Pico by N. Paul Petrovits
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  Plaque commemorating the lynching of the Flores Daniel Gang