Americana Tour: A Brief History Of Early California To 1850

I should have posted this prior to the one about early California Railroads, but Oh well….

This post will get us caught up on a brief history of early California up to the 1850s.

Did you know the first early California settlers were not Spaniards or as we know, “Native Americans”? Actually the first Californians were Asians who travel across the Bering Sea land bridge in search of warmer climates. These people later became to be known as Indians or as we refer to now, Native Americans. These Native Americans bore little physical resemblance to the Native Americans to the east of California in the Great Plains. Because of California’s rugged landscape with very high mountains and very low deserts, it made it very difficult for the California Native Americans to travel great distances. It even made it difficult for them to share cultures and languages with other California Native Americans. They tended to live in small clans and tribes with little political structure. The tribes included Karok, Maidu, Cahuilleno, Mojave, Modoc, Yokuts, Paiute, and Pomo. They included as many as 135 different distinct dialects and enjoyed a generally peaceful life.

Early California was actually called Alta California because the Spaniards that traveled north from the Amazon region thought the peninsula we now call Baja California was California. It was not until they progressed passed the end of the peninsula that they discovered that California was actually much bigger. They named this extension Alta California. California stretches 825 miles from the northwest corner to the southeast corner and contains 1,264 miles of shoreline. California’s highest elevation is Mt Whitney at 14,495 feet, and its lowest elevation is Badwater in Death Valley at 282 feet below sea level. These two points are only 50 miles apart.

California’s first contact with Europeans began in the mid 1530s, but it was not for more than 200 years did Spain seriously attempt to gain control of Alta California. It was not until 1769 that the first parties set forth from Baja California with priests and soldiers. They established the presidio and a mission at San Diego. Eventually, there would be three more presidios (at Monterey, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara) and a total of twenty-one missions. These missions introduced Christianity to California, but they also introduced new diseases that the local tribes had no resistance. Due to crowded living conditions in the missions, thousands died of epidemics, and the infant mortality rate and death rates among young children soared. The population of the Native Americans was cut by half to about 150,000. Most that survived were the non-mission natives like the Modocs that lived in the northern mountains and had little or no contact with the Spanish.

Around 1834 a new culture sprang up in California: The life of the ranchero families created a culture that centered around cattle raising and the marketing of beef and hides. Most of the missions had been disbanded and local attempts at manufacturing stopped. The first United States citizens to come overland to California were trappers led by Jedediah Smith in 1826. Later in 1841 the first organized group of settlers led by John Bidwell and John Bartelson journeyed from the east to settle in California. The German born John Sutter had already arrived in San Francisco in 1839 and had obtained an enormous land grant of 48,000 acres at the junction of the Sacramento and American Rivers. Sutter established a settlement known as “New Helvetia” where he built a fort and maintained orchards, vineyards, and other farm land. Sutter’s Fort soon became a stopover for the American settlers led by Bidwell through the Sierras. During this time California was still under Mexican rule and Mexico was having a difficult time ruling such a distant province. Manuel Micheltorena was the last governor to be sent from Mexico. He only lasted three years and was sent packing by the locals in 1845. California’s first governor under home rule was a local ranchero of African heritage by the name of Pio Pico.

In December of 1844 John Charles Fremont led a party of about sixty armed scouts and soldiers into California ostensibly to survey the passes in the Sierras being used by the American emigrant trains. Thus, in the spring of 1846 he and his group were already here when word spread of an imminent war between Mexico and the United States over California. On June 10, 1846 Fremont and his men took up arms and declared an independent California Republic with a homemade flag bearing a single star and a painted grizzly. The uprising became known as the Bear Flag Revolt. The Bear Flag Revolt only lasted one month when the group learned that the United States and Mexico was officially at war and an American battleship was in Monterey harbor. Fremont and his men enlisted in the official military operations and the California Republic ceased to exist. After many hard fought battles the Mexican War in California ended with the Americans the victors in January of 1847. In the same month, a battalion of 1,000 Mormons from Iowa came to help fight the war, but by the time they arrived, the war was over. They later joined Brigham Young in Utah. Later in the summer of 1847 the Mormons were sent to California to join John Sutter and help him build his fort.

Sutter needed lumber to build his fort and his partner James Marshall knew just where to get it. He took some of the Mormons to Coloma and they finished the sawmill needed to process the lumber in January of 1848. Next they set out to deepen the streambed so the millrace would have adequate power. On January 24, 1848, Marshall went down to the river to inspect the progress....

And we all know the rest of the story.

Sources:

Mary-Jo Kline, Library of Congress
A link to the earliest Californians http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/EntryDate.html
Various internet sites
Footwork

Illustration 1 : Santa Barbara Mission. Reproduction of painting (20th century). Lot 4520. LC-USZ62-44216. #44449

An 1890 Photo of the "Bear Flag". A replica of the flag is now at El Prisidio de Sonoma.

Map of California Missions and Prisidios

Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park

37° 43’02.41” N
119° 39’42.37” W

California Poppies - Folsom, CA

38° 38’58.04” N

121° 06’28.41” W

Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park.
37° 44’50.18” N
119° 35’46.41” W

The reconstructed mill in Coloma, CA

38° 48’05.57” N

120° 53’29.74” W

A momumnent on the South Fork of the American River where the original mill once stood. This site is about 500 ft west of the reconstructed mill.
38° 48’12.52” N
120° 53’32.30” W