West Family Tree

Joséf Manuel Machado was recruited there at the age of 23 to be a "leather jacket soldier" in the Spanish army. His recruitment papers in Spain describe him as 5'2", a Roman Catholic, with black hair and eyebrows, eyes dull brown, an olive complexion, wide nose, and a scar high on his forehead on the left.

He left Real de los Álamos, Sonora, Mexico with his family on the military expedition of Capt. Rivera y Moncada in April 1781.  When the expedition arrived at the Colorado River, Capt. Moncada sent  the main group ahead to the San Gabriel Mission. Capt. Moncada & a few soldiers were left to look after the livestock before continuing , but were killed by the Yuma Indians.  Machado & the group arrived at the San Gabriel Mission on July 14, 1781. Joséf Manuel Machado, Jr. was born 2 mos. later at the Mission & was confirmed by Father Serra.  The amazing part of it all was that María was pregnant all the way to California, on foot and in the heat of summer.

He served at the Santa Barbara Presidio and at the Mission la Purisma Concepcion.

In the Biography "Machados and Rancho La Ballona" by Sister Mary Ste. Therese Wittenburg S.N.D., she uses the name Jose Manuel Machado y Yanez.

In his research on the Machado family, Father Michael English S.J., uses the name Jose Manuel Orchaga and Machado Sr.

In her article for Spanish american Genealogist magazine, entitled. "Machado Alias Orchaga", Rudecinda LoBuglio, FAS. great great granddaughter of Maria Gracia de Jesus Machado y Avila, notes that the surname Orchaga persisted at least into the 1850's when Jose Hilario, second child of Jose Manuel Machado and Maria del Carmen Valenzuela, was enumerated on the 1850 Federal Census of Los Angles as Hilario Orchaga together with his family

Sister Wittenburg records Jose Manuel as a mestizo. The word Mestizo designated a child of a Spanish father and an Indian mother.

Father English records the following: Birth place of Jose Manuel Machado y Yanez is uncertain. He was recruited in Sonora, Mexico by Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada in 1780 for a company of soldiers for the proposed Royal Presidio of Santa Barbara, California. With 16 other families, (ed note: Ruiz family on exp) arrived at San Gabriel, California July 14, 1781.

Maria del Carmen Valenzuela was sister of Pedro Gabriel and Josef Segundo Valenzuela also soldiers of the 1781 Expedition. They were probably children of Josef "Primero" Valenzuela.

Both Jose Manuel Machado y Yanez and his wife are alleged to be natives of El Real de Los Alamos in Sonora, but the 1790 "Padron" (census) of Santa Barbara indicates he was of Sinaloa. He was also allegedly a native of Spain.

Jose Manuel Machado y Yanez retired from the military and brought his family to El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Regina de Los Angeles about 1797. At that time the Pueblo's population totaled 315, with seventy families and thirty adobe huts clustered around a plaza. He was given land on the north side of the plaza, which was most likely in the area of North Spring or North Broadway. The Padron of 1816 notes that he "was given land and he cultivated it until he died and now his sons cultivate it."