- published: 22 May 2009
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Andrés Pico (November 18, 1810 – February 14, 1876) was a Californio who became a successful rancher, served as a military commander during the Mexican-American War; and was elected to the state assembly and senate after California became a state, when he was also commissioned as a brigadier general in the state militia.
Andrés Pico was born at San Diego in the Spanish Las Californias Province of New Spain in 1810. He was one of several sons of José María Pico and María Eustaquia López, who together were of Native American, Spanish and African mixed-race ancestry. Andrés Pico was the younger brother of Pío Pico, who served briefly as governor of the Mexican Alta California Province.
In 1845 under the law for secularization of former Church properties, his older brother Governor Pío Pico granted Andrés Pico and his associate Juan Manso a nine-year lease for the Mission San Fernando Rey de España lands, which encompassed nearly the entire San Fernando Valley. At that time a 35-year old rancher, Andrés Pico lived in Pueblo de Los Angeles. He ran cattle on the ranch and made the Mission complex his rancho-base, with the Rómulo Pico Adobe his rancho residence.