Editing Alta California (section)

===Plans for colonization (1697–1769)===
{{see also|Portolá expedition|}}
[[File:Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto. Siglo XVIII.jpg|left|thumb|[[Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó]] was the first mission established in the Californias (present-day [[Loreto, Mexico]]) in 1697.]]
Father [[Eusebio Kino]] missionized the [[Pimería Alta]] from 1687 until his death in 1711. In 1697, a [[Jesuits|Jesuit]] expansion into California was funded and the [[Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó]] was established that same year.<ref>See Bonialian, op. cit, p. 277; or in English book review by Duggan, op. cit.</ref><ref>Kino, E. F., & In Bolton, H. E. (1919). ''Kino's historical memoir of Pimería Alta: A contemporary account of the beginnings of California, Sonora, and Arizona''. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, pp. 215–216.</ref> Plans in 1715 by Juan Manuel de Oliván Rebolledo resulted in a 1716 decree for extension of the conquest (of Baja California) which came to nothing. [[Juan Bautista de Anza I|Juan Bautista de Anssa]] proposed an expedition from [[Sonora]] in 1737 and the [[Council of the Indies]] planned settlements in 1744, although these plans did not take action.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Starr |first=Kevin |url=https://archive.org/details/californiahistor00star |title=California: A History |date=2005 |publisher=Modern Library |isbn=978-08129-7753-0 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/californiahistor00star/page/28 28] |author-link=Kevin Starr |url-access=registration}}{{cite book |last=Rawls |first=James J. |title=California: An Interpretive History |author2=Walton Bean |date=2008 |publisher=McGraw Hill |isbn=978-0-07-353464-0 |edition=9th |page=29}}</ref>

Don Fernando Sánchez Salvador researched the earlier proposals and suggested the area of the [[Gila River|Gila]] and [[Colorado River]]s as the locale for forts or presidios preventing the French or the English from "occupying [[Monterey, California|Monterey]] and invading the neighboring coasts of California which are at the mouth of the [[Carmel River (California)|Carmel River]]."<ref>[http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/78winter/plans.htm Plans for the Occupation of Upper California: A New Look at the "Dark Age" from 1602 to 1769] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160406165803/https://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/78winter/plans.htm |date=2016-04-06 }}, ''The Journal of San Diego History'', San Diego Historical Society Quarterly, Winter 1978, Volume 24, Number 1</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=sbrx4Um1_hcC&pg=PA345 ''The elusive West and the contest for empire, 1713–1763''], Paul W. Mapp, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture</ref> Alta California was not easily accessible from New Spain: land routes were cut off by deserts and Indigenous peoples who were hostile to invasion. Sea routes ran counter to the southerly currents of the distant northwestern Pacific. Ultimately, New Spain did not have the economic resources nor population to settle such a far northern outpost.<ref name=":0" />

Spanish interest in colonizing Alta California was revived under the ''visita'' of [[José de Gálvez]] as part of his plans to completely reorganize the governance of the [[Provincias Internas|Interior Provinces]] and push Spanish settlement further north.<ref>Starr, ''California: A History'', 31–32. Rawls and Bean, ''California: An Interpretive History'', 33.</ref> In subsequent decades, news of [[Russian colonization of the Americas|Russian colonization]] and [[Maritime fur trade|maritime fur trading]] in Alaska, and the 1768 naval expedition of [[Pyotr Krenitsyn]] and [[Mikhail Levashov (sailor)|Mikhail Levashov]] alarmed the Spanish government and served to justify Gálvez's vision.<ref name="haycox">{{cite book |last=Haycox |first=Stephen W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8yu3pYpzLdUC&pg=PA59 |title=Alaska: An American Colony |publisher=University of Washington Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-295-98249-6 |pages=59–60}}</ref>