With California’s gubernatorial primary just weeks away and the November general election looming, voters are deluged with promises about the future. But few recall that more than a century and a half before the next governor takes the oath, a Mexican ranchero named Pío Pico held that same title—and lost almost everything when the border moved north.

Pío de Jesús Pico was born on May 5, 1801, at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, in what was then the Spanish colony of Alta California. He was a Californio – a Mexican citizen after Mexico won independence from Spain – and a man of African, Indigenous and Spanish descent. In many ways, his ancestry told the full story of the Americas.

Pico entered politics in the 1820s and rose through the ranks of California’s territorial legislature. In February 1845, after a popular revolt ousted the unpopular Governor Manuel Micheltorena, Pico became governor of Alta California under Mexican rule.

His timing could not have been worse.

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