Historic California in Light in August (Location)

In Light in August Calvin Burden sails to California when he runs away from home at age twelve. This is several decades before the Gold Rush brought thousands of other Americans there. At the time California belonged to Spain, and young Calvin's experiences are shaped by that: he "turns Catholic" and lives "for a year in a monastery" (241); it is the Catholic "priests in California" who teach him how to read - but only in Spanish (242). After ten years he travels east to Missouri, and "formally denies allegiance to the Catholic church" (241), but he brings a Spanish and Catholic Bible with him and reads it to his son.