set out in small parties to hunt the huge and fearsome California grizzly bear. Fages himself joined the hunt, and earned his nickname El Oso ("the bear") while hunting bears near San Luis Obispo. Fages' first tenure as commander in Monterey ended in 1774, after he quarreled with Father Junípero Serra, president of the Alta California missions. He was replaced as lieutenant-governor by another veteran of the Portolá expedition, Fernando Rivera y Moncada. In 1777, Fages was posted to Sonora to fight the Apaches, where he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1781 he successfully quelled the Quechan (Yuma) Indian revolt and temporarily reopened the Colorado River crossing of the Anza trail at Yuma, Arizona. The Quechan successfully re-closed the trail for the next 50+ years after Fages and his troops departed, ensuring that the two journeys led by Juan Bautista de Anza were the only Spanish expeditions ever to use the trail. Pedro Fages returned to Monterey in 1777, appointed Governor of the Californias, replacing Felipe de Neve. Monterey replaced Loreto as the capital of the Californias in that year, the Loreto military governorship being replaced by a presidio commander and a civil administrator. In 1804, Las Californias was officially split into Alta California and Baja California. During Fages' second tenure as governor, two missions were founded: Mission Santa Barbara (December 4, 1786) and La Purisima Mission (December 8, 1787). Reporting on the Carmel mission in 1787, Fages described the area's Indians as the laziest, most brutish and least rational of all the natives discovered between San Diego and San Francisco. He reckoned those qualities — along with the foggy and windy climate, shortage of potable water, high death rate, and language barriers — accounted for the painfully slow progress of mission Carmel. Concerned over the shortage of skilled artisans in his domain, governor Fages proposed in 1787 that artisans imprisoned in Mexico City and Guadalajara have their sentences commuted to exile in California — provided they serve out their terms at presidios or missions and then stay on as settlers. New Spain's rulers did not act on Fages' proposal. Fages was promoted to colonel in 1789, and resigned his governorship in 1791. Pedro Fages moved back to Mexico City, where he died in 1794. Tumultuous marriage Fages married Eulalia Francesca Josepha Callis on June 3, 1780 in Mexico City. Born October 4, 1758 in Barcelona, Spain, Eulalia was