CANOA CAMPSITE

At La Canoa, two momentous events occurred, one joyful, the other tragic. Manuela Pinuelas, the wife of soldier Jose Vicente Felix, gave birth to a boy, Jose Antonio Capistrano Fexiz. Within hours, however, the mother died, the only fatality of the entire Expedition. She was later buried at San Xavier del Bac. The boy survived and completed the journey to San Francisco.

In his journal, Anza made the following report:
"At the end of the afternoon today the wife of one of the soldiers of the expedition began to feel the first pains of childbirth. We aided her immediately with the shelter of a field tent and other things useful in the case and obtainable on the road, and she successfully gave birth to a very lusty boy at nine o’clock at night. (October 23, 1775)
At three o’clock in the morning, it not having been possible by means of the medicines which had been applied in the previous hours, to remove the afterbirth from our mother, other various troubles befell her. As a result she was taken with paroxysms of death, and … she rendered up her spirit at a quarter to four." (October 24, 1775)