Cave "Don Cuevas" Johnson Couts (November 11, 1821 – July 10, 1874) was an American military officer, rancher, and judge. After a commission to San Diego County, California, in 1849 amid the California Gold Rush, he wrote meticulous records, became a prominent political figure, and developed agricultural practices, including founding Rancho Guajome. Couts served as a county judge and briefly as a special Indian agent in 1856.
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Early life and education
Couts was born on November 11, 1821, in Springfield, Tennessee, to a family with strong political ties. His uncle, Cave Johnson, served as a U.S. Congressman and the Postmaster General. Couts graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1843 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, joining the regiment of Mounted Rifles.
Career
Couts began his military service stationed at various posts across the United States, including Fort Jesup in Louisiana and Fort Washita and Fort Gibson in Indian Territory. In 1848, he was sent to California with his men, arriving in January 1849 after a difficult journey across the Sonoran Desert. His mission included assisting in the Boundary Survey between Upper California in the United States and Baja California in Mexico. Couts established a post at the confluence of the Colorado River and Gila River, which he named Camp Calhoun. He also helped manage relationships with local Native Americans and assisted Gold Rush emigrants; on September 23, 1849, Couts established Camp Salvation in Calexico, California, to help gold rush refugees traveling on the Southern Emigrant Trail. The camp closed December 1 and has since become a California Historical Landmark.
In October 1851, Couts resigned his Army commission. He was then appointed a colonel as the aide de camp, or personal assistant, of Governor John Bigler. After retiring from the Army, he lived in old San Diego and became a county judge (of the "Judges of the Plains"). In 1851, Couts was second-in-command of the volunteer force that suppressed the Indian Garra Revolt and was elected Justice of the Peace from 1853 to 1863. In June 1853, Indian Affairs Superintendent Edward Fitzgerald Beale appointed Couts as an Indian subagent to the agent and neighboring ranchero Benjamin Davis Wilson upon the latter's recommendation. On August 10, 1856, Couts briefly became a special Indian agent. He checked up on the Indigenous people in San Diego County and wrote reports on their status and possible improvement to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. At the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia and Rancho Monserate, he became the supervisor of the indigenous people there and employed 300 of them in construction jobs.
Couts was thrice acquitted of crimes stemming from his violent temper. In 1855, he whipped two Luiseño with a rawhide lasso, killing one; he was indicted twice and acquitted as one of the grand jurors was not a citizen. In 1863, due to a Smallpox epidemic, Couts sent his brother and two servants to prevent the burial on a cemetery on Guajome land of a ranchero neighbor who died of smallpox; when the funeral attendees refused to stop the procession, Couts's party fired upon the crowd, killing one and wounding two. The charges were dismissed as the district attorney had not posted his bond of office. On February 6, 1865, Couts encountered Juan Mendoza, a former majordomo at Rancho Guajome, in the town plaza. Mendoza had a history of threatening Couts; however, historians Iris Engstrand and Thomas L. Scharf have stated that, on this occasion, Mendoza "apparently tried to avoid a conflict". Nevertheless, Couts shot him twice, killing him. Benjamin Ignatius Hayes, acting as Couts's counsel, argued that Mendoza had been a robber and a troublemaker, and that Couts had acted in self-defense; Couts was again acquitted.
Ranching
Before arriving in San Diego, Couts was stationed in Los Angeles. During his service there, he was accused of being involved in a gambling operation alongside two civilians. The U.S. Army brought charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, but owing to a shortage of commissioned officers in California at the time, the proceedings were deferred. Couts was eventually tried by court-martial on December 27, 1850, and was acquitted.
After retiring from military service, Couts settled in San Diego County, becoming an influential rancher and agricultural pioneer. Couts married Doña Ysidora Bandini (1829–1897) on April 5, 1851, with whom he had 10 children. Ysidora was the daughter of Don Juan Bandini whom was an alcaldes of the Pueblo of San Diego, and sister of Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker. The Bandinis were a prominent early San Diego family; Juan Bandini had worked for the Mexican government and was the son of Don José Bandini, an admiral in the Spanish Navy. Abel Stearns, merchant and husband to Arcadia, gifted the 2,219-acre land grant that would become the Rancho Guajome to Ysidora and Couts.
On June 15, 1850, the same day Joshua Bean was elected the first mayor of San Diego, he sold City Hall and the surrounding pueblo lands to himself and Couts for $2.50. Bean acted while still vested with the authority of an alcalde. Believing himself the lawful owner, Bean asserted control over the building, and he and Couts occupied additional offices for private use. At the same time, Couts began constructing a two-story frame building adjacent to the courthouse. The city council investigated the sale. It was determined that although Señora María Antonia Machado Amador (daughter to José Manuel Machado) had sold the deed to Bean, she believed he was acting on behalf of the city. On August 20, 1850, the council submitted its findings to the district court.
The case was tried on January 7, 1851, and Judge Oliver S. Witherby ruled in favor of the city, ordering Bean and Couts to relinquish their claims and pay court costs. Couts was permitted to retain the adjacent structure, known as the Colorado House hotel. He later shifted his focus to ranching and subdivided the building for commercial use. The town hall and courthouse remained in use until their destruction by fire on April 20, 1872.
Couts moved to Guajome in March 1853, and at his Rancho Guajome—a 2,219-acre (898 ha) property he owned with his wife—Couts found that San Diego County soil and climate could grow many types of crops; Couts was the first in San Diego County to plant vast fruit orchards, and he proceeded to experiment with various crops.
Death and legacy
By Spring 1874, Couts could no longer ranch, burdened by market declines and severe chest pain diagnosed as a terminal aortic aneurysm in San Francisco. Two weeks after losing consciousness, Couts died on July 10, 1874, at the Horton House in San Diego. His fourth son Cave Johnson Couts Jr. became an engineer who was deputy surveyor for San Diego County and later managed Couts's Rancho Guajome, which is now preserved as the Guajome Regional Park in Vista, California, and is listed as a California Historical Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. His innovative agricultural techniques helped develop the region into a productive farming area.
Couts's detailed journals have provided regional historians with a wealth of information about his life and times. He kept detailed diaries and records of his dealings, which he stored in an iron safe. Historian Michael Magliari chose to write on Couts as a microcosm of Indian slavery in California as Couts was a "terrible guy, but a terrific record keeper". Leland Stanford used Couts's extensive meeting notes to trace the history of San Diego's Judges of the Plains and said "in this hero’s shadow, however, lurked nepotism, arrogance, quarrelsomeness, questionable husbandry, and possible wrongful subjugation of indian proteges over whom, as federal sub-agent for such natives in his area, he held autocratic power", while W. E. Smythe, in his History of San Diego, called Couts "a man of good education, strict integrity, and gentlemanly manners".
Published works
Cave Johnson Couts, Hepah, California!: The journal of Cave Johnson Couts from Monterey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, during the years 1848-1849, eds. Henry F. Dobyns and Samuel E. Chamberlain (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, 1961).
Cave Johnson Couts, From San Diego to the Colorado in 1849: The Journal and Maps of Cave J. Couts, ed. William McPherson (Los Angeles: A.M. Ellis, 1932)