Alta California, also known as Nueva California among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias, but was made a separate province in 1804. Following the Mexican War of Independence, it became a territory of Mexico in April 1822 and was renamed Alta California in 1824.
Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó was the first mission established in the Californias (present-day Loreto, Mexico) in 1697.
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, established in 1770, was the headquarters of the Californian mission system from 1797 until 1833.
Mexico in 1838. From Britannica 7th edition.
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain, originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several domains established during the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and had its capital in Mexico City. Its jurisdiction comprised a large area of the southern and western portions of North America, mainly what is now Mexico and the Southwestern United States, but also California, Florida and Louisiana; Central America, the Caribbean, and northern parts of South America; several Pacific archipelagos, most notably the Philippines and Guam. Additional Asian colonies included "Spanish Formosa", on the island now known as Taiwan.
Hernán Cortés and La Malinche meet the emperor Moctezuma II in Tenochtitlán, November 8, 1519.
The evangelization of Mexico
An auto-da-fé in New Spain, 18th century
Vázquez de Coronado Sets Out to the North (1540), by Frederic Remington, oil on canvas, 1905