Carlos Antonio Carrillo
Governor of Alta California (1783-1852)
Carlos Antonio Carrillo (24 December 1783 – 23 February 1852), was a Californio politician, military officer, and ranchero. He was nominated to serve as Governor of Alta California from 1837 to 1838, in opposition to Juan Bautista Alvarado's rule. However, after failing to subdue Alvarado, Carrillo relinquished his claim to the governorship to Alvarado in 1838.
Life
Carrillo was a member of the Carrillo family of California, a prominent Californio family, one of the first children born at the Presidio of Santa Barbara (established 1782). His father, José Raimundo Carrillo, was a soldier who came north with the Portolá expedition in 1769 and served at the Presidio of Santa Barbara for twelve years.
From 1797 to 1825 Carlos Antonio served in the military at Monterey and Santa Barbara. As Alta California's delegate to the Mexican Congress of the Union, Carrillo pursued Alta California judicial reform, but his ideas were rejected.
In 1836, Carrillo joined the rebellious Juan Bautista Alvarado in demanding a more autonomous Alta California, but internal dissension doomed the effort. In 1837, Carlos was appointed to replace Alvarado as governor, but Alvarado was able to reclaim the Governorship a year later.
Governor Manuel Micheltorena gave a Mexican land grant of Santa Rosa Island, in the Channel Islands of California, to Carlos and his brother José Antonio Carrillo in 1843.
The public source identifies “Carlos Antonio Carrillo” as governor of Alta California (1783-1852). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carlos, Antonio and Carrillo.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2904351. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1783, 1852, 1837 and 1838.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carlos Antonio Carrillo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.