History of the State of California

Where the city of Sacramento now stands, at the time of the gold discovery, there stood, "solitary and alone," a small fort. This formed the nucleus, about which, at the commencement of the rush of emigration, the town soon sprang into existence. Its increase has been almost as rapid as that of San Francisco. During the rainy season of the early part of 1850, the population numbered somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand. But at that period, a considerable portion of the gold-diggers made Sacramento and the other towns in the neighborhood of the mines, their resort, to escape the severity of spending the season at the open and exposed valleys of the gold region. The city is regularly laid out, but its appearance evidences the rapidity of its erection. The greater number of the houses and stores in the neighborhood of the river are constructed of wood, while the outskirts, particularly upon the south, are occupied by the tents of the constantly-arriving overland emigrants. Before the commencement of the last rainy season, the number of these emigrants reached two or three thousand. They squatted upon the vacant lots which had been surveyed and sold to other persons. This caused a considerable agitation in the town, which continued till the disastrous flood swept both the parties off the ground, and thus left the field clear for another commencement. Sacramento is the grand receptacle of the overland emigration, and this, combined with its commercial facilities, will continue to give the city a superiority over the majority of the other places in California.

Adjoining Sacramento city, is the town of Sutter. It is situated on the highest and healthiest ground on the river. It is not, like Sacramento, subject to an annual overflow. The town was originally laid out by Captain Sutter and others; and is owned by Hon. John McDougall, Lieutenant-Governor of California, and Captain Sutter. It has a thriving business population, and its position, and the fertility of the neighboring country will soon make it a place of importance.

Stockton is to the southern portion of the gold region what Sacramento is to the northern. It is situated upon a slough, or a succession of sloughs, containing the back waters formed by the junction of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. It is about fifty miles from the mouth of the San Joaquin, and one hundred from San Francisco. The ground upon which it is situated is high and is not subject to overflow. Vessels drawing nine feet water can ascend the San Joaquin as far as Stockton, and discharge their cargoes on the bank. In the latter part of 1848, the town was laid out and a frame building erected by Charles M. Weber. In eight months from that time, it contained a population of about two thousand permanent residents, and a large number of temporary residents, on their road to the mines. Communication is with San Francisco by means of steamboats and launches, and the commerce of the town is constantly increasing.

Other towns exist – on paper – in the neighborhood of San Francisco and the gold region, and, doubtless, they will, in the course of time, become settled by a thriving, go-ahead population from the Atlantic States. Land speculation in California is as profitable a business as gold-digging – and less toilsome. Many of the shrewd ones, who early took advantage of this "tide in the affairs of men," have already reached the goal of their hopes, an independent fortune. Those who saw how things would turn out, and purchased land in the neighborhood of the region which promised to receive the principal current of the emigration to California, found themselves wealthy in the short space of a few months.

The great influx of emigrants to Upper California has brought the subject of the settlement of the peninsula into consideration. There is but little doubt that Lower California will, sooner or later, become the property of the United States, and then its settlement and progress will be rapid. The coast upon the gulf affords many excellent harbors, and the mountainous region of the interior gives abundant evidence of mineral wealth, as far as it has been explored. Several silver mines have been opened in different places, the principal of which are at San Antonio, between La Paz and Cape San Lucas. Near Loretto, the first settlement in California, extensive copper mines have been opened, and lead and iron abound in all directions. The pearl fishery of the gulf has already yielded an enormous wealth, having been prosecuted from the time of the discovery of the peninsula. The fishing season lasts from May till November, and more than a hundred vessels are yearly engaged in the business. These resources, despite the general unfitness of the country for agricultural purposes, will soon attract their full share of consideration, and cause an influx of emigrants and adventurers from the United States and other countries. Some portions of the country are susceptible of irrigation, and might thus be rendered fit for cultivation.

The principal port of Lower California is La Paz, situated near the mouth of the gulf. The bay on the shore of which the town is located, is of great extent and beauty, and possesses a large number of rich pearl oyster-beds – the pearl fishery having at one time supplied the chief article of traffic on this part of the coast. The country around the bay is elevated and picturesque, though rugged; the soil being composed principally of rock and sand, wildly and irregularly covered with the most prickly species of stunted bushes and shrubs of sunburnt hue. The town of La Paz is neatly built and presents a pretty appearance. The streets are lined with willow trees, and these meeting overhead, form a delicious shade during the heat of the day. The houses are all constructed of adobés, plastered white, and thatched with the leaves of the palm tree. The beach is lined with palms, cocoa-nut, fig and tamarind trees. La Paz was taken by the American volunteers during the war with Mexico, and considerable destruction of the orchards, gardens and houses of the town was the consequence. The harbor offers great advantages for a naval station, and such, doubtless, it will become.

San José, the most southern town of Lower California, is situated about half-way between Cape San Lucas and Cape Palmo, on a sort of desert plain, extending from the beautiful valley of San José to the ocean. It is located about three miles from the beach, and is one of the strangest creations in the shape of a town imaginable.

The heavy rains and freshets which occur in the wet season, in this region, render every elevation invaluable as a preservative against the dangers of sudden inundations; hence all the houses are built upon steeps, rocks, and hillocks, necessarily irrespective of order; so that, even in the most densely populated districts, barren hills, as yet unoccupied by dwellings, are frequently to be met with, with deep hollows in every part, converting mere visits into positive enterprises, in most instances both tedious and disagreeable. To these great natural disadvantages, the indolence of the inhabitants has added others, their common practice being to dig for adobé clay at the nearest convenient spot, namely, for the most part, opposite their own doors; thus, one would imagine that the site of the whole town had been visited and disturbed by a succession of miniature earthquakes, which, whilst they had left the houses themselves unshaken, had heaved and perched them up in the most uncomfortable positions, and in the most inaccessible places. In the very centre of the principal street, which appears to have once upon a time been level, are three or four immense clay-pits, serving as a receptacle for dead dogs, cats, bones, vegetable refuse, and, in a word, every description of rubbish and nuisance a very dirty population can convey to or discharge in them.

But a description of the town would be incomplete without adding that it is dotted about in these hollows, and in the sand-holes in the rocks, with patches of thorn, brush, and cacti, forming a singular yet refreshing contrast with the general barrenness of the region itself, the whole being surrounded by a bleak mountainous range, which increases in elevation until it blends with the clear sky, far in the distance.

The principal, indeed the only regular street in the town, is wide and long, the houses being constructed of adobés and cane, thatched with palm leaves. It is blocked up at the remoter end by the fort, which stands upon a wide foundation of rock of considerable elevation; various portions of the adobé walls connecting the crags having been pierced, so as to allow artillery to be trained through the embrasures, whilst, in other parts, there are numerous loop-holes for musketry. There are some very awkward cavities amongst these rocks, produced by digging for clay for the adobé work. The fort is flat-roofed and parapetted, having portholes for cannon; and below, in the very centre of the building, occupying about a third of its entire length, runs a thick wall, forming a crescent, well mounted with heavy guns. At the end of this crescent, between it and the front wall, is the entrance to the fort – a mere aperture, barely wide enough to allow of one man's passing in.

These defences proved to be of great advantage to a small party of Americans that landed at San José, during the war between the United States and Mexico, and were compelled to take shelter in the old quartel, or barracks. There they were surrounded by the Californians, and stood a siege of several weeks', suffering incredible hardships. The population of San José numbers about three thousand, the majority being semi-Indians, or the pure descendants of the Mexicans. There is little promise of any considerable increase in the size of the town, owing to the natural disadvantages of situation.

The other towns of Lower California are – San Antonio, in the neighborhood of an extensive silver mine, which has been worked for a long time with considerable profit; Loreto, on the gulf coast, about two hundred miles north of La Paz; San Domingo and Todos Santos, on the Pacific coast. The latter town is situated on the bay of the same name, and is the most northerly part of Lower California. The church and mission buildings at this place are the largest and most imposing structures of the kind in Lower California. The church has a handsome front and a lofty steeple. The mission is the residence of the head of the church in Lower California. There is every reason to believe, that, when the richer portions of Upper California begin to get a little crowded, the tide of emigration will be turned to the south, and the ports of the peninsula will become of great commercial importance. Then, if not before, the country will become the property of the United States, either by way of purchase, or after the manner of Texas.

CHAPTER IX

THE FORMATION OF A STATE GOVERNMENT

The state of things which induced the people of California to form a state government deserves to be fully set forth. Their condition was without precedent in history; and from a statement of that condition, it will be seen that the framing of a constitution and the organization of a state government was the only resource of the Californians. The representations of the report of Thomas Butler King to the government of the United States will not be contradicted, and these we insert.

"The discovery of the gold mines had attracted a very large number of citizens of the United States to that territory, who had never been accustomed to any other than American law, administered by American courts. There they found their rights of property and person subject to the uncertain, and frequently most oppressive, operation of laws written in a language they did not understand, and founded on principles, in many respects, new to them. They complained that the alcaldes, or judges, most of whom had been appointed or elected before the immigration had commenced, were not lawyers by education or profession; and, being Americans, they were, of course, unacquainted with the laws of Mexico, or the principles of the civil law on which they are founded.

"As our own laws, except for the collection of revenue, the transmission of the mails, and establishment of postoffices, had not been extended over that territory, the laws of Mexico, as they existed at the conclusion of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, regulating the relations of the inhabitants of California with each other, necessarily remained in force;11 yet, there was not a single volume containing those laws, as far as I know or believe, in the whole territory, except, perhaps, in the governor's office at Monterey.

"The magistrates, therefore, could not procure them, and the administration of justice was, necessarily, as unequal and fluctuating as the opinions of the judges were conflicting and variable.

"There were no fee-bills to regulate costs; and, consequently, the most cruel exactions, in many instances, were practised.

"The greatest confusion prevailed respecting titles to property, and the decision of suits involving the most important rights, and very large sums of money depended upon the dictum of the judge.

"The sale of the territory by Mexico to the United States had necessarily cut off or dissolved the laws regulating the granting or procuring titles to land; and, as our own land-laws had not been extended over it, the people were compelled to receive such titles as were offered to them, without the means of ascertaining whether they were valid or not.

"Litigation was so expensive and precarious that injustice and oppression were frequently endured, rather than resort to so uncertain a remedy.

"Towns and cities were springing into existence; many of them without charters or any legal right to organize municipal authorities, or to tax property or the citizens for the establishment of a police, the erection of prisons, or providing any of those means for the protection of life and property which are so necessary in all civil communities, and especially among a people mostly strangers to each other.

"Nearly one million and a half of dollars had been paid into the custom-house, as duties on imported goods, before our revenue laws had been extended over the country; and the people complained bitterly that they were thus heavily taxed without being provided with a government for their protection, or laws which they could understand, or allowed the right to be represented in the councils of the nation.

"While anxiously waiting the action of Congress, oppressed and embarrassed by this state of affairs, and feeling the pressing necessity of applying such remedies as were in their power, and circumstances seemed to justify, they resolved to substitute laws of their own for the existing system, and to establish tribunals for their proper and faithful administration.

"In obedience, therefore, to the extraordinary exigencies of their condition, the people of the city of San Francisco elected members to form a legislature, and clothed them with full powers to pass laws.

"The communities of Sonoma and of Sacramento city followed the example.

"Thus were three legislative bodies organized; the two most distant being only one hundred and thirty miles apart.

"Other movements of the kind were threatened, and doubtless would have followed, in other sections of the territory, had they not been arrested by the formation of a State government.

"While the people of California were looking to Congress for a territorial government, it was quite evident that such an organization was daily becoming less suited to their condition, which was entirely different from that of any of the territories out of which the new States of the Union had been formed.

"Those territories had been at first slowly and sparsely peopled by a few hunters and farmers, who penetrated the wilderness, or traveled the prairies, in search of game or a new home; and, when thus gradually their population warranted it, a government was provided for them. They, however, had no foreign commerce, nor any thing beyond the ordinary pursuits of agriculture, and the various branches of business which usually accompany it, to induce immigration within their borders. Several years were required to give them sufficient population and wealth to place them in a condition to require, or enable them to support, a State government.

"Not so with California. The discovery of the vast metallic and mineral wealth in her mountains had already attracted to her, in the space of twelve months, more than one hundred thousand people. An extensive commerce had sprung up with China, the ports of Mexico on the Pacific, Chili, and Australia.

"Hundreds of vessels from the Atlantic ports of the Union, freighted with our manufactures and agricultural products, and filled with our fellow-citizens, had arrived, or were on their passage round Cape Horn; so that, in the month of June last, (1849) there were more than three hundred sea-going vessels in the port of San Francisco.

"California has a border on the Pacific of ten degrees of latitude, and several important harbors which have never been surveyed; nor is there a buoy, a beacon, a lighthouse, or a fortification, on the whole coast.

"There are no docks for the repair of national or mercantile vessels nearer than New York, a distance of some twenty thousand miles round Cape Horn.

"All these things, together with the proper regulations for the gold region, the quicksilver mines, the survey and disposition of the public lands, the adjustment of land titles, the establishment of a mint and of marine hospitals, required the immediate formation of a more perfect civil government than California then had, and the fostering care of Congress and the Executive.

"California had, as it were by magic, become a State of great wealth and power. One short year had given her a commercial importance but little inferior to that of the most powerful of the old States. She had passed her minority at a single bound, and might justly be regarded as fully entitled to take her place as an equal among her sisters of the Union.

"When, therefore, the reality became known to the people of that territory that the government had done nothing to relieve them from the evils and embarrassments under which they were suffering, and seeing no probability of any change on the subject which divided Congress, they adopted, with most unexampled unanimity and promptitude, the only course which lay open to them – the immediate formation of a State government.

"They were induced to take this step not only for the reason that it promised the most speedy remedy for present difficulties, but because the great and rapidly growing interests of the territory demanded it; and all reflecting men saw, at a glance, that it ought not to be any longer, and could not, under any circumstances, be much longer postponed.

"They not only considered themselves best qualified, but that they had the right to decide, as far as they were concerned, the embarrassing question which was shaking the Union to its centre, and had thus far deprived them of a regularly organized civil government. They believed that, in forming a constitution, they had a right to establish or prohibit slavery, and that, in their action as a State, they would be sustained by the North and the South.

"In taking this step, they proceeded with all the regularity which has ever characterized the American people in discharging the great and important duties of self-government.

"The steamer in which I was a passenger did not stop at Monterey; I therefore did not see General Riley, nor had I any communication with him until about the middle of the month, when he came to San Francisco. A few days after my arrival, his proclamation calling a Convention to form a State constitution, dated the third of June, was received.

"The people acted in compliance with what they believed to be the views of Congress, and conformably to the recommendations of the proclamation; and proceeded, on the day appointed, to elect members to a Convention for the purpose of forming a constitution, to be regularly submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection, and, if approved, to be presented to Congress, with a prayer for the admission of California, as a State, into the Union."

According to the recommendation of General Riley, the civil governor of California, an election of delegates to form a Convention was held on the 1st of August, 1849. The number of delegates to be elected was thirty-seven. General Riley, General Smith, and Thomas Butler King, used every means to stimulate the people to hold the preparatory meetings, and they were generally successful. But in some districts scarcely any move was made until a few days before the election. In one or two instances, the election was not held upon the day appointed; but the Convention nevertheless admitted the delegates elected in such cases.

The Convention was to meet on the 1st of September, at Monterey; but it did not get regularly organized until the 4th of that month, when Dr. Robert Semple, of the Sonoma district, was chosen president. The proportion of the native Californian members to the American was about equal to that of the population. Among the members was Captain John Sutter, the pioneer settler of California, General Vallejo and Antonio Pico, who had both been distinguished men in California, before the conquest. The body, as a whole, commanded respect, as being dignified and intellectual.

The Declaration of Rights was the first measure adopted by the Convention. Its sections being general and liberal in their character, were nearly all adopted by a unanimous vote. The clause prohibiting the existence of slavery was the unanimous sentiment of the Convention. The Constitution will be found in another part of this work, and we will not here recapitulate its provisions. It combines the best features of the Constitutions of the States east of the Rocky Mountains, and is in most respects similar to that of the State of New York.

The most exciting questions discussed were, a clause prohibiting the entrance of free people of color into the State, the boundary line, and the great seal of the State. The first, the clause prohibiting the entrance of free people of color into the State, passed first reading, but was subsequently rejected by a large majority. The question of suffrage occasioned some discussion, widely differing opinions being entertained by the members. An article was adopted by the Convention, excluding Indians and negroes, with their descendants, from the privilege of voting; but it was subsequently modified by a proviso, which gave the Legislature power of admitting Indians, or the descendants of Indians to the right of suffrage by a two-thirds concurrent vote. Under this provision, some of the most wealthy and influential Californians are excluded from voting until permitted by the Legislature.

The boundary question, which came up towards the close of the Convention, was the most exciting theme. The point of dispute was the eastern boundary line. The Pacific formed the natural boundary on the west; the parallel of 42 degrees, the boundary on the north, and the Mexican line, run in conformity with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the boundary on the south. The discussion, reconsideration and voting upon the various propositions occupied nearly two days. Finally, the line detailed in the Constitution was adopted.

The discussion upon the adoption of the Great Seal for the State was amusing. Eight or ten designs were offered, and the members from the different districts were all anxious to have their particular district represented. The choice finally fell upon one offered by a Major Garnett. The principal figure is Minerva, with spear and shield, emblematic of the manner in which California was born, full-grown, into the confederacy. At her feet crouches the grizzly bear. Before him is the wheat-sheaf and vine, illustrating the agricultural products of the country. Near them is the miner, with his implements. In the distance is the Bay of San Francisco, and beyond that, the Sierra Nevada, over which appears the word "Eureka." The closing scenes of the Convention are described in graphic and vivid colors by one who was an eye-witness to them, and recorded them upon the spot.12

"The members met this morning at the usual hour, to perform the last duty that remained to them – that of signing the Constitution. They were all in the happiest humor, and the morning was so bright and balmy that no one seemed disposed to call an organization. Mr. Semple was sick, and Mr. Steuart, of San Francisco, therefore called the meeting to order by moving Captain Sutter's appointment in his place. The chair was taken by the old pioneer, and the members took their seats around the sides of the hall, which still retained the pine-trees and banners, left from last night's decorations. The windows and doors were open, and a delightful breeze came in from the bay, whose blue waters sparkled in the distance. The view from the balcony in front was bright and inspiring. The town below – the shipping in the harbor – the pine-covered hills behind – were mellowed by the blue October haze, but there was no cloud in the sky, and I could plainly see, on the northern horizon, the mountains of Santa Cruz and the Sierra de Gavilan.