
He knew, when he volunteered to act as courier, that his mission would be a dangerous, wild ride. The assignment: to deliver a message asking help for American soldiers surrounded, and under siege, by the enemy. Enroute the situation changed, forcing him to forge ahead many more miles than anticipated. In all, Juan Flaco galloped from Los Angeles to Monterey to San Francisco, 530 miles in four days of actual traveling time, on horseback—an astonishing feat.
The year was 1846, and the Americans—certain they could easily conquer Mexico’s isolated province— had brought the Mexican-American War to California. So far, things had gone well: Los Angeles, the last hold-out, had been “captured” in mid-August by the combined forces of US Navy Commodore Robert Stockton, and US Army Colonel John Frémont, in a bloodless coup. That accomplished, the two officers had departed for points north, leaving behind a garrison of 48 men, quartered at the Government House, under the command of marine lieutenant Archibald Gillespie. Their task was to maintain the peaceful military rule Stockton had ordered in his proclamation ... but Gillespie, filled with hubris, became a tyrant.
The first attack on the Government House, led by a ragtag band of insurgents, came at three o’clock in the morning of September 22nd. This was quickly repulsed, but within 24 hours, the Americans were surrounded by 600 (as Gillespie later claimed), armed and splendidly mounted horsemen, led by Mexican Army Captain José Flores. On September 24, Flores issued his own proclamation—essentially a call to war—and demanded that the Americans surrender. Desperate, Gillespie knew he must get word to Commodore Stockton, thought to be in Monterey, to send reinforcements. Tall, thin, skilled roughrider John Brown, better known to all as Juan Flaco (Spanish for Lean John), stepped forward.
Juan left just before sunset on September 24, riding his own fleet white horse, carrying a bundle of 30 or more paper-wrapped cigars Gillespie had inscribed with the simple message, “Believe the Bearer.” Almost at once, he was chased by 15 well-armed Californios (Mexican citizens born in California), who shot his horse in its right flank just as Juan came to a thirteen-foot-wide gulch. The terrified horse leapt over the chasm—thwarting the pursuers—but died under him two miles farther on. According to Juan’s own words, he hung the saddle in the limb of a tree and ran 27 miles to a rancho owned by a Mexican citizen, stumbling in a little before daybreak.
Since this man might turn him in, Juan told an outrageous lie about losing his horse to a grizzly while in pursuit of a thief. Provided with breakfast, a horn of brandy, and a new horse and saddle, he set off again soon after sunrise, reaching Santa Barbara—occupied by a small garrison to protect the American conquest—at eleven o’clock that night, on a half-dead steed with severe cuts on its body from his spurs.
Juan rested then, because the barracks were closed at night. At daybreak he gave one of the cigar-paper messages to Captain Theodore Talbot, and told him the story. Receiving fresh horses from Talbot, he rode out again at sunrise. Outside of Santa Barbara, he stopped at the ranch of Captain Thomas Robbins, an American sea captain; gave him one of Gillespie’s cigaritos, and told him of the crises at Los Angeles. Robbins supplied him with four fresh horses, a good saddle, a good breakfast, and a glass of brandy. He was still being followed, however. Fifteen minutes after his departure, 25 Mexican lancers galloped into Robbins’s ranch, demanding fresh mounts, but Robbins tricked them by offering only broken-down horses, giving Juan time to get farther ahead.
Pushing on through Santa Inez, Juan arrived at the ranch of Mr. Burton, another American, late in the evening. Again, Juan gave the man a cigarito, and repeated his story. Burton gave him four of his best horses, which Juan exchanged for Robbins’s tired ones, and went on, finally establishing a camp somewhere between San Miguel and San Luis Obispo around eleven p.m., where he stayed the night.
Riding hard the next day, he came into Monterey after dark—the supposed end of his journey—but Commodore Stockton wasn’t there. United States Consul to Mexican California Thomas Larkin also being absent, Juan delivered his message to Captain William Maddox of the USS Cyane. Too tired to eat, Juan consumed his “supper” of coffee and brandy in bed—but his mission wasn’t over. Monterey was surrounded by the enemy, too; the authorities there also had urgent messages for Commodore Stockton, and no one else they could trust to deliver them except John Flaco Brown. He agreed, on the condition that he be provided with an extremely fast horse to start out on. Awakened at sunrise, he mounted an American race horse, owned by a Mr. Dye; and after two more stops to change horses, arrived in San Jose at noon.
At last, having been delayed enroute for a total of six and a half hours while replacement mounts were readied, he stood on the beach at San Francisco where he heard the eight o’clock gun report from the USS Congress, at anchor in the Bay. The date was September 30, 1846; that night he slept on the beach near where he thought the Congress’s market boat would land in the morning. At daybreak on October 1, he boarded the Congress, where he delivered Monterey’s dispatches, and the rest of Gillespie’s cigaritos, to Commodore Robert Stockton in person. The two drank glasses of brandy together … and Juan’s duty was finished.
The above details are from letters written by Archibald Gillespie and Juan himself, both published in California newspapers in 1858. Gillespie’s name has since faded from general public awareness, but stories about Juan Flaco keep surfacing—not all of them accurate. He was not a “boy” in 1846, as some have said, but a man aged 47. Also, it is unlikely that he hid 30 or more small cigars, or even balled-up cigar papers, in his hair as he rode. His true name was John Brown, anglicized from his Swedish birthname Johannes Braun; and after leaving home in 1814, aged 14, he had experienced many unique or risky situations before this.
In 1815, while attached to the English naval service, he saw Napoleon imprisoned on the HMS Bellerophon at Portsmouth. His quest for adventure led him to join in the struggles for South American independence under General Simón Bolivar, where he engaged in nine regular battles, crossed the Isthmus of Panama four times, and doubled Cape Horn three times. At length he was taken prisoner by Bolivar’s opposition, but escaped to California aboard a Mexican vessel in 1828. Prior to joining the American conquest in 1846, he participated in the Californio’s 1836 revolt against the Mexican government, and their 1845 revolt to oust Governor Micheltorena.
After the American takeover, it is said Juan worked as a cowboy for a time. Riddled with rheumatism and other ailments, he retired to Stockton in 1851, where he died on December 10, 1859, aged 60—yet his fame lived on. During WWII, California Shipbuilding Corp. named a Liberty ship in his honor, the SS Juan Flaco Brown, launched April 12, 1943. On January 28, 1957, TV’s Death Valley Days aired a fictionalized account of his valiant ride in an episode titled “California’s Paul Revere.”
The Juan “Flaco” Brown Grave Site in Stockton is registered as California Historical Landmark No. 513, designated as such on November 25, 1953.
ความคิดเห็น