History of California before 1900

The most commonly accepted

In all, some 30 tribes or culture groups lived in what is now California, gathered into perhaps six different language family groups. These groups included the early-arriving Hokan family (winding up in the mountainous far north and the Colorado River basin in the south) and the later-arriving Uto-Aztecan of the desert southeast. This cultural diversity was among the densest in North America, and was likely the result of a series of migrations and invasions during the previous 13,000 years, and perhaps even earlier.^[1]

At the time of the first European contact,

Tribes adapted to California's many climates. Coastal tribes were a major source of trading beads, which were produced from mussel shells and made using stone tools. Tribes in California's broad Central Valley and the surrounding foothills developed early agriculture, while tribes living in the mountains of the north and east relied heavily on salmon and game hunting, and collected and shaped obsidian for themselves and trade. The harsh deserts of the southeast were home to tribes who learned to thrive by making careful use of local plants and by living in oases or along water courses. Local trade between indigenous populations enabled them to acquire seasonings such as salt, or foodstuffs and other goods that might be rare in certain locales, such as flint or obsidian for making spear and arrow points.

The Native Americans had no domesticated animals except dogs, no pottery; their tools were made out of wood, leather, woven baskets and netting, stone, and antler. Some shelters were made of branches and mud; some dwellings were built by digging into the ground 2 to 3 feet (61 to 91 cm) and then constructing a brush shelter on top covered with animal skins,

A dietary staple for most indigenous populations in interior California was acorns, which were dried, shelled, ground to flour, soaked in water to leach out their tannin, and cooked. The grinding holes worn into large rocks over centuries of use are still visible in many rocks today.^[5] The ground and leached acorn flour was usually cooked into a nutritious mush, eaten daily with other traditional foods. Acorn preparation was a very labor-intensive process nearly always done by women. There are estimates that some indigenous populations might have eaten as much as one ton of acorns in one year.^[6] Families tended productive oak and tanoak groves for generations. Acorns were gathered in large quantities, and could be stored for a reliable winter food source.^[7]

The staple foods then used by other indigenous American tribes, corn and/or potatoes, would not grow without irrigation in the typically short three- to five-month wet season and nine-to seven-month dry seasons of California (see

The first European explorers, flying the flags of Spain and of England, sailed along the coast of California from the early 16th century to the mid-18th century, but no European settlements were established. The most important colonial power, Spain, focused attention on its imperial centers in Mexico and Peru. Confident of Spanish claims to all lands touching the Pacific Ocean (including California), Spain sent an exploring party sailing along the California coastline. The California seen by these ship-bound explorers was one of hilly grasslands and wooded canyons, with few apparent resources or natural ports to attract colonists. The other European nations, with their attentions focused elsewhere, paid little attention to California. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that both Russian and British explorers and fur traders began establishing trading stations on the coast.

Hernán Cortés

Around 1530,

An expedition in 1533 discovered a bay, most likely that of La Paz, before experiencing difficulties and returning. Cortés accompanied expeditions in 1534 and 1535 without finding the sought-after city.

On May 3, 1535, Cortés claimed "Santa Cruz Island" (now known as the

Francisco de Ulloa

In July 1539, Cortés sent Francisco de Ulloa to sail the Gulf of California with three small vessels. He made it to the mouth of the Colorado River, then sailed around the peninsula as far as Cedros Island.^[14][15] This proved that Baja California is a peninsula.^[16] The next year, an expedition under Hernando de Alarcón ascended the lower Colorado River to confirm Ulloa's finding. Alarcón may thus have become the first to reach Alta California.^[17] European maps published subsequently during the 16th century, including those by Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, correctly depict Baja California as a peninsula, although some as late as the 18th century do not.

The account of Ulloa's voyage marks the first-recorded application of the

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo is believed to be the first European to explore the California coast. He was either of Portuguese or Spanish background, although his origins remain unclear. He was a soldier, crossbowman, and navigator who sailed for the Spanish Crown. Cabrillo led an expedition in two ships of his own design and construction from the west coast of what is now Mexico, setting out in late June 1542. He landed on September 28 at San Diego Bay,^[19] claiming what he thought was the Island of California for Spain.^[a] Cabrillo named each of Californias' channel islands, which lie offshore from Baja California to northern California, as he passed them and claimed them for Spain.

Cabrillo and his crew continued north and came ashore October 8 at San Pedro bay, later to become the Port of Los Angeles, which he originally named the bay of smoke (bahia de los fumos) due to the many cooking fires of the native Chumash Indians along the shore. The expedition then continued north in an attempt to discover a supposed coastal route to the mainland of Asia. They sailed at least as far north as San Miguel Island^[19] and Cape Mendocino (north of San Francisco).^[21] Cabrillo died as the result of an accident during this voyage; the remainder of the expedition, which may have reached as far north as the Rogue River in today's southern Oregon, was led by Bartolomé Ferrer.^[22]

Cabrillo and his men found that there was essentially nothing for the Spanish to easily exploit in California, located at the extreme limits of exploration and trade from Spain. The expedition depicted the indigenous populations as living at a subsistence level, typically located in small

In 1565, the Spanish developed a trading route where they took gold and silver from the Americas and traded it for goods and spices from China and other Asian areas. The Spanish set up their main base in

Spain wanted a safe harbor for galleons en route from Manila to Acapulco. They did not find San Francisco Bay, perhaps because of fog hiding the entrance.^[21] In 1585 Gali charted the coast just south of San Francisco Bay,^[25][26] and in 1587 Unamuno explored Monterey Bay^[21] or Morro Bay,^[27] marking the first time in modern history when Asians (

After successfully sacking Spanish colonial settlements and plundering Spanish treasure ships along their Pacific coast colonies in the Americas, English privateer and explorer Francis Drake sailed into Oregon,^[29] before exploring and claiming an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing at Drake's Cove near Point Reyes.^[30] He had friendly relations with the Coast Miwok and claimed sovereignty of the area for England as Nova Albion, or New Albion.^[31]

Sebastián Vizcaíno

In 1602, the Spaniard Sebastián Vizcaíno explored California's coastline on behalf of New Spain He named San Diego Bay, and also put ashore in Monterey, California.^[32] He ventured inland south along the coast and recorded a visit to what is likely Carmel Bay. His major contributions to the state's history were the glowing reports of the Monterey area as an anchorage and as land suitable for settlement and growing crops, as well as the detailed charts he made of the coastal waters (which were used for nearly 200 years).^[33] He recommended Monterey for settlement, to provide a safe arrival point for galleons from Manila. The King agreed, but the settlement project was diverted to areas off Japan.^[21]

Further European ventures (1765–1821)

Spanish ships plying the China trade probably stopped in California every year after 1680. Between 1680 and 1740, Spanish merchants out of Mexico City financed thriving trade between Manila, Acapulco and Callao. In Manila, they picked up cotton from India and silks from China. The Spanish Crown viewed too much imported Asian cloth to Mexico and Lima as a competitive threat to the Spanish American markets for cloth produced in Spain, and as a result, restricted the tonnage permitted on the ships from Manila to Acapulco. Mexico City merchants in retaliation overstuffed the ships, even using the space for water to carry additional contraband cargo. As a result, the ships coming from Manila had enough water for two months, but the trip took four to six months. (Hawaii was unknown to the Spanish navigators). The sea currents take ships sailing from Manila to Acapulco up north, so that they first touch land at San Francisco or Monterey, in what is now California.^[34][35] In the mid-18th century, tensions were brewing between Great Britain and Spain. In 1762, while the two nations were at war, Britain captured Manila in the Pacific and Havana in the Atlantic. This was probably a stimulus for Spain to build presidios at San Francisco and Monterey in 1769. The British, too, stepped up their activities in the Pacific. British seafaring Captain James Cook, midway through his third and final voyage of exploration in 1778, sailed along the west coast of North America aboard HMS Resolution, mapping the coast from California all the way to the Bering Strait. In 1786 Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, led a group of scientists and artists on a voyage of exploration ordered by Louis XVI and were welcomed in Monterey. They compiled an account of the Californian mission system, the land and the people. Traders, whalers and scientific missions followed in the next decades.^[36]

Spanish colonization and governance (1697–1821)

In 1697, the Viceroy Duque de Linares along with the Conde de Miravalle (180) and the treasurer of Acapulco (Pedro Gil de la Sierpe) financed Jesuit expansion into California. The Duque de Linares lobbied the Spanish Crown in 1711 to increase trade between Asia, Acapulco and Lima.[37] It is possible that Baja California Sur was used as a stopping point for unloading contraband on the way back from Manila to Acapulco. The contraband might then have been shipped across the Gulf of California to enter mainland Mexico by way of Sonora, where the Jesuits also had missions and sympathies for their financial backers.

In 1697, the Jesuit missionary Juan María de Salvatierra established Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, the first permanent mission on the Baja California Peninsula.^[38] Spanish control over the peninsula, including missions, was gradually extended, first in the region around Loreto, then to the south in the Cape region, and finally to the north across the northern boundary of present-day Baja California Sur. A total of 30 Spanish missions in Baja California were established.

During the last quarter of the 18th century, the first Spanish settlements were established in what later became the Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Reacting to interest by the Russians and, later, the British in the fur-bearing animals of the Pacific north coast, Spain further extended the series of Catholic missions, accompanied by troops and establishing ranches, along the southern and central coast of California. These missions were intended to demonstrate the claim of the Spanish Empire to what is now California. By 1823, 21 Spanish missions had been established in Alta California. Operations were based out of the naval base at San Blas and included not only the establishment and supply of missions in California, but a series of exploration expeditions to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

The first quarter of the 19th century showed the continuation of the slow colonization of the southern and central California coast by Spanish missionaries, ranchers and troops. By 1820 Spanish influence was marked by the chain of missions reaching from Loreto, north to San Diego, to just north of today's San Francisco Bay Area, and extended inland approximately 25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 km) from the missions. Outside of this zone, perhaps 200,000 to 250,000 Native Americans were continuing to lead traditional lives. The Adams–Onís Treaty, signed in 1819, set the northern boundary of the Spanish claims at the 42nd parallel, effectively creating today's northern boundary between California and Oregon.

First Spanish colonies

Spain had maintained a number of missions and presidios in New Spain since 1519. The Crown laid claim to the north coastal provinces of California in 1542. Excluding Santa Fe in New Mexico, settlement of northern New Spain was slow for the next 155 years. Settlements in Loreto, Baja California Sur, were established in 1697, but it was not until the threat of incursion by Russian fur traders and potentially settlers, coming down from Alaska in 1765, that Spain, under King Charles III, felt development of more northern installations was necessary.

By then, the Spanish Empire was engaged in the political aftermath of the

In May 1768, the Spanish Inspector General (Visitador)

The Portolá land expedition arrived at the site of present-day San Diego on June 29, 1769, where it established the Presidio of San Diego and annexed the adjacent Kumeyaay village of Kosa'aay, making San Diego the first European settlement in the present state of California. Eager to press on to Monterey Bay, de Portolá and his group, consisting of Father Juan Crespí, 63 leather-jacket soldiers and a hundred mules, headed north on July 14. They reached the present-day site of Los Angeles on August 2, Santa Monica on August 3, Santa Barbara on August 19, San Simeon on September 13, and the mouth of the Salinas River on October 1. Although they were looking for Monterey Bay, the group failed to recognize it when they reached it.

On October 31, de Portolá's explorers became the first Europeans known to view

De Portolá was the first governor of Las Californias.

Junípero Serra

Junípero Serra was a

Serra founded

The California missions comprise a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic

Most missions became enormous in terms of land area (approximately the size of modern counties in California), and yet the Spanish and Mexican staff was small, with normally two Franciscans and six to eight soldiers in residence. The size of the Indian congregations would grow from a handful at the founding to perhaps two thousand by the end of the Spanish period (1810). All of these buildings were built largely by the native people, under Franciscan supervision. Again, there is controversy in the literature as to whether the labor was forced. Production on missions between 1769 and 1810 was distributed primarily among the Indian congregation. In 1810, the California missions and presidios lost their financing as the Spanish Empire collapsed from Buenos Aires to San Francisco, as a result of the imprisonment of King Fernando VII in 1808 by the French. In this context, Indians came under increased pressure to produce, and the missions exported the produce of Indian labor via Anglo-American and Mexican merchants. Whether the proceeds were distributed to Indians or to local military men came increasingly to depend on the political skill and dedication of the individual missionaries. In 1825, independent Mexico finally send a governor to take control of California, but he arrived without adequate payroll for the military. In 1825, the use of uncompensated Indian labor at missions to finance Mexican presidios in California became normalized.[41]

In addition to the presidio (royal fort) and pueblo (town), the misión was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish crown in an attempt to consolidate its colonial territories. None of these missions were completely self-supporting, requiring continued (albeit modest) financial support.

Starting with the onset of the

In order to facilitate overland travel, the mission settlements were situated approximately 30 miles (48 km) apart, so that they were separated by one day's long ride on horseback along the 600-mile-long (970 km) El Camino Real, Spanish for "the Royal Road", though often referred to today as the "King's Highway", and also known as the "California Mission Trail". Tradition has it that the padres sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail in order to mark it with bright yellow flowers. Later El Camino Viejo, another more direct route from Los Angeles to Mission San José and San Francisco Bay, developed along the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley.^[42][43] Heavy freight movement over long distances was practical only via water, but soldiers, settlers and other travelers and merchandise on horses, mules, or carretas (ox carts), and herds of animals used these routes.

Four presidios, strategically placed along the California coast and organized into separate military districts, served to protect the missions and other Spanish settlements in Upper California.

A number of mission structures survive today or have been rebuilt, and many have congregations established since the beginning of the 20th century. The highway and missions became for many a romantic symbol of an idyllic and peaceful past. The Mission Revival style was an architectural movement that drew its inspiration from this idealized view of California's past.

Ranchos

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The Spanish encouraged settlement with large land grants called ranchos, where cattle and sheep were raised. The California missions were secularized following Mexican independence, with the passing of the Mexican secularization act of 1833 and the division of the extensive former mission lands into more ranchos. Cow hides (at roughly $1 each) and fat (known as tallow, used to make candles as well as soaps) were the primary exports of California until the mid-19th century. This California hide trade involved large quantities of hides shipped nationally and internationally.

The ranch workers were primarily Native Americans, many of them former residents of the missions who had learned to speak Spanish and ride horses. Some ranchos, such as Rancho El Escorpión and Rancho Little Temecula, were land grants directly to Native Americans.

Administrative divisions

In 1773, a boundary between the Baja California missions (whose control had been passed to the

First Mexican Empire and the First Mexican Republic

By 1809, Spain no longer governed California because the Spanish king was imprisoned by the French. For the next decade and a half, the colony came to rely upon trade with Anglo-Americans and Spanish-Americans from Lima and San Blas for economic survival and political news. The victory in the Mexican War of Independence from Spain in 1821 marked the beginning of Mexican rule in California, in theory, though in practice the First Mexican Empire did during its reign. The Indian congregations at missions and the missionaries provided the critical source of products that underlay export revenues for the entire colony between 1810 and 1825. Converting new Indians faded, while ranching and trade increased.

As the

In 1831 a small group made up of the more wealthy citizens of Alta California got together and petitioned Governor Manuel Victoria asking for democratic reforms. The previous governor, José María de Echeandía, was more popular, so the leading wealthy citizens suggested to Echeandía that Victoria's stay as governor would be coming to an abrupt end soon. They built up a small army, marched into Los Angeles, and "captured" the town. Victoria gathered a small army and went to fight the upstart army, leading it himself. He met the opposing army on December 5, 1831, at Cahuenga Pass. In the Battle of Cahuenga Pass Victoria was wounded and resigned the governorship of Alta California. The previous governor, Echeandía, took the job, which he did until José Figueroa took over in 1833.

Next, the Mexican Congress passed An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California on August 17, 1833. Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of this legislation the following year. The military received legal permission to distribute the Indian congregations' land amongst themselves in 1834 with secularization. Some aging Franciscans never abandoned the missions, such as Zalvidea of San Juan Capistrano. From Spain, Peyri regretted that he had departed.

Las Californias under the Centralist Republic of Mexico

In 1836, Mexico repealed the 1824 federalist constitution and adopted a more centralist political organization (under the Siete Leyes) that reunited Alta and Baja California in a single California Department (Departamento de las Californias). The change had little practical effect in far-off Alta California. The capital of Alta California remained Monterey, as it had been since the 1769 Portolá expedition first established an Alta California government, and the local political structures were unchanged.

In September 1835, Nicolás Gutiérrez was appointed as interim governor of California in January 1836, to be replaced by Mariano Chico in April, but he was very unpopular. Thinking a revolt was coming, Chico returned to Mexico to gather troops, but was reprimanded for leaving his post. Gutierrez, the military commandant, re-assumed the governorship, but he too was unpopular. Senior members of Alta California's legislature Juan Bautista Alvarado and José Castro, with support from Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Comandante of the Fourth Military District and Director of Colonization of the Northern Frontier, and assistance from a group of Americans led by Isaac Graham, staged a revolt in November 1836 and forced Gutierrez to relinquish power. The Americans wanted Californian independence, but Alvarado instead preferred staying part of Mexico, albeit with greater autonomy.

In 1840, Graham allegedly began agitating for a

In response to increased military skirmishes and souring relations, indigenous Quechan and Kumeyaay bands responded by raiding ranchos, an attack on San Diego in June 1842, and cutting off all overland lines of trade and communication between the former Alta California and the rest of Mexico through a blockade from the Colorado River to the Pacific Ocean along what is today the California-Baja California border,^[49] which would come to fuel miscommunication in Northern California.

Micheltorena administration and Californio revolt

In response, Mexican president

This turned out to backfire on him, as on November 14, 1844, a group of Californios led by Manuel Castro revolted against Mexican authority. José Castro and Alvarado commanded the troops. There was no actual fighting, a truce was negotiated and Micheltorena agreed to dismiss his convict troops. Micheltorena reneged on the deal and fighting broke out this time. The rebels won the Battle of Providencia in February 1845 at the Los Angeles River and Micheltorena and his troops left California.

Pío Pico administration

Pío Pico was installed as governor in Los Angeles, and José Castro became commandant general. Later, Alvarado was elected to the Mexican Congress. He prepared to move to Mexico City, but Pico declined funding for the transfer, and relations between the northern part of Alta California, with the increased presence of Americans, and the southern part, where the Spanish-speaking Californios dominated, became more tense.

John C. Frémont arrived in Monterey at the beginning of 1846. Afraid of foreign aggression, Castro assembled his militia, with Alvarado second in command, but Frémont went north to Oregon instead. An unstable political situation in Mexico strained relations among the Californios, and it seemed that civil war would break out between north and south.

By 1846, Alta California had a Spanish-speaking population of under 10,000, tiny even compared to the sparse population of states in the rest of northern Mexico. The Californios consisted of about 800 families, mostly concentrated on large ranchos. About 1,300 American citizens and a very mixed group of about 500 Europeans, scattered mostly from Monterey to Sacramento, dominated trading as the Californios dominated ranching. In terms of adult males, the two groups were about equal, but the American citizens were more recent arrivals.

Russian-American Company and Fort Ross

The Russian-American Company established Fort Ross in 1812 as its southernmost colony in North America,^[50] intended to provide Russian posts farther north with agricultural goods. When this need was filled by a deal between the RAC and the Hudson's Bay Company for produce from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River and other installations, the fort's intent was derailed, although it remained in Russian hands until 1841, and for the duration had a small population of Russians and other nationalities from the Russian Empire.

In 1814,

In 1840, the American adventurer, writer and lawyer Richard Henry Dana Jr., wrote of his experiences aboard ship off California in the 1830s in Two Years Before the Mast.^[51]

The leader of a French scientific expedition to California, Eugène Duflot de Mofras, wrote in 1840, "...it is evident that California will belong to whatever nation chooses to send there a man-of-war and two hundred men."^[52][53] In 1841, General Vallejo wrote Governor Alvarado that "...there is no doubt that France is intriguing to become mistress of California", but a series of troubled French governments did not uphold French interests in the area. During disagreements with Mexicans, the German-Swiss francophile John Sutter threatened to raise the French flag over California and place himself and his settlement, New Helvetia, under French protection.

American interest and immigrants

Although a small number of American traders and trappers had lived in California since the early 1830s, the first organized overland party of American immigrants was the Bartleson–Bidwell Party of 1841. With mules and on foot, the party crossed the continent using the still untested California Trail.^[54] Also in 1841, an overland exploratory party of the United States Exploring Expedition came down the Siskiyou Trail from the Pacific Northwest. In 1844, Caleb Greenwood guided the Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party, the first settlers to take wagons over the Sierra Nevada. In 1846, the misfortunes of the Donner Party earned notoriety as they struggled to enter California.^[55]

California Republic and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848)

Bear Flag Revolt and the California Republic

After the United States declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, it took almost two months (mid-July 1846) for definite word of war to get to California. Upon hearing rumors of war, U.S. consul Thomas O. Larkin, stationed in Monterey, tried to keep peace between the Americans and the small Mexican military garrison commanded by José Castro. American army captain John C. Frémont, with about 60 well-armed men, had entered California in December 1845 and was making a slow march to Oregon when they received word that war between Mexico and the U.S. was imminent.^[56]

On June 15, 1846, some 30 non-Mexican settlers, mostly Americans, staged a revolt, seized the small Mexican garrison in

In Southern California, Mexican General José Castro and Governor Pío Pico abandoned Los Angeles. When Stockton's forces entered Los Angeles unresisted on August 13, 1846, the nearly bloodless conquest of California seemed complete. Stockton left too small a force (36 men) in Los Angeles, and the Californians, acting on their own and without help from Mexico, led by José María Flores, forced the small American garrison to retire in late September.

Two hundred reinforcements were sent by Stockton, led by US Navy Captain

On January 26, 1847, Army lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman and his unit arrived in Monterey. On March 15, 1847, Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson's Seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers of about 900 men began to arrive. All of these troops were still in California when gold was discovered in January 1848.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, marked the end of the Mexican–American War. In that treaty, the United States agreed to pay Mexico $18,250,000; Mexico formally ceded California (and other northern territories) to the United States; and the first international boundary was drawn between the U.S. and Mexico by treaty. The previous boundary had been negotiated in 1819 between Spain and the United States in the Adams–Onís Treaty, which established the present border between California and Oregon. San Diego Bay is one of the few natural harbors in California south of San Francisco, and to claim this strategic asset the southern border was slanted to include the entire bay in California.

California under the United States (beginning 1848)

Population

The non-Indian population of California in 1840 was about 8,000, as confirmed by the California 1850 U.S. census, which asked everyone their place of birth. The Indian population is unknown but has been variously estimated at 30,000 to 150,000 in 1840. The population in 1850, the first U.S. census, does not count the Indian population and omits San Francisco, the largest city, as well as the counties of Santa Clara and Contra Costa, all of whose tabulations were lost before they could be included in the totals. Some estimates can be obtained from the Alta Californian newspapers published in San Francisco in 1850. A corrected California 1850 census would go from 92,597 (the uncorrected "official number") to over 120,000. The 1850 U.S. census, the first census that included the names and sex of everyone in a family, showed only 7,019 females, with 4,165 non-Indian females older than 15 in the state.^[58] To this should be added about 1,300 women older than 15 from San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Contra Costa counties whose censuses were lost and not included in the totals.^[59] There were less than 10,000 females in a total California population (not including Indians who were not counted) of about 120,000 residents in 1850. About 3.0% of the Gold Rush "Argonauts" before 1850 were female or about 3,500 female Gold Rushers, compared to about 115,000 male California Gold Rushers.

By California's 1852 "special" state census, the population had already increased to about 200,000, of which about 10% or 20,000 were female.