California, from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in San Francisco [1856] : A study of American character

Front matter

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EDITED BY

HORACE E. SCUDDER.

Preface

More elaborate and learned volumes than the present one have recently been devoted in large part to the history of Spanish and Mexican California before 1846. This book is concerned, in the main, only with American California, and with that only during the early and exciting formative years, from 1846 to 1856. This history of the beginnings of a great American commonwealth has seemed to the author sufficient and worthy to occupy the whole of such a volume as the present one, in view both of the interest of the events and of their value as illustrating American life and character.

The purpose has been throughout to write from the sources. For the history of the conquest in 1846 official and private documents of original value have been used in so far as was possible, while, as the reader will at once see, the interregnum, the early mining life, and the history of San Francisco affairs have in general been described directly from such early newspapers as I have been able to read, the later testimony of pioneers and the views of subsequent historical writers being used here mainly to check, to complete, or to explain what the early newspapers tell us. As to the method of study employed, the social condition has been throughout of more interest to me than the individual men, and the

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PREFACE.

men themselves of more interest than their fortunes, while the purpose to study the national character has never been lost sight of in the midst of even the most minute examination of certain obscure events. Nor has a certain unity in the whole narrative been absent from my mind as I have written. Through all the complex facts that are here set down in their somewhat confused order, I have felt running the one thread of the process whereby a new and great community first came to a true consciousness of itself. The story begins with the seemingly accidental doings of detached but in the sequel vastly influential individuals, and ends just where the individual ceases to have any very great historical significance for California life, and where the community begins to he what it ought to be, viz., all important as against individual doings and interests.

As to the originality of the various parts of this book, the later chapters are written with relatively the most complete independence of fellow-workers. In the first and second chapters, and in part in the third chapter, I have, on the other hand, to make my most important acknowledgments for help received. To Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft I owe the very great privilege of a free use of his immense collection of original documents on the early history, especially of the conquest, — a privilege of which I took advantage during the whole of the summer vacation of 1884. And from both Mr. Bancroft and his able collaborators I received, during all this time, frequent and most friendly oral advice about the use of the collection itself. As Mr. Bancroft’s library contains the material for his own great work, now in process of publication, on the history of the Pacific States of North America, I feel especially indebted to the generosity

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IX which so freely placed this original material at my disposal in advance of the publication of the results obtained by Mr. Bancroft and his collaborators themselves. Where I have referred to these original documents, I have used in my notes the abbreviation B. MS. as a gen eral name for all of them. My own freedom of judgment I have, of course, sought to retain throughout, although I am much indebted, for the formation of many of my opinions and arguments, to the suggestions gained through conversation and correspondence with Mr. Bancroft and his collaborators concerning some such disputed points as the Gillespie mission of 1845-46, the English designs on California, and other matters of conquest history. But the results that I have here written down are, as they stand, always my own final judgment upon all the evidence that I could obtain. Where they are mistaken, I therefore am alone to blame, and not Mr. Bancroft’s documents. Much of the evidence presented has been, moreover, in every case the result of my own independent research, carried on in Eastern libraries ; and in so far I have been absolutely my own guide. Of the able and exhaustive volumes that have already appeared in Mr. Bancroft’s series on the history of California, I have freely used in my preliminary sketch the portions that deal with colonial California down to 1840. Beyond this I have had no access to Mr. Bancroft’s book, and anticipate, of course, correction of some of my facts and opinions when that most elaborate investigation shall appear. I feel it greatly to my disadvantage, in fact, to publish my own volume in advance of so well-equipped and important a research as the work of Mr. Bancroft and his collaborators is sure to prove. I regret to have been unable to make any

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use whatever of the just issued History of California by Mr. Theodore H. Hittell, which appeared too late to help me.

Among general libraries, I owe most to the library of Harvard College. The librarian, Mr. Winsor, has in particular constantly and very patiently aided me with suggestions and criticisms, and the library authorities have kindly provided, during the course of the work, for the purchase of much material without which the book, especially in the later chapters, would have been almost impossible. The American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, the Massachusetts State Library in Boston, the Boston Athenaeum Library, the Mercantile Library of San Francisco, and the Library of the California Pioneers have all generously answered my various requests for permission to use material in their possession, and to most of them I also owe much for free opportunities to search in their collections after material not previously known or catalogued.

I have further to acknowledge the courtesy of the present Secretary of State, in giving me the use of important official documents in the Department archives at Washington ; and also the kindness of the present Secretaries of War and of the Navy, as shown by their prompt and explicit answers to my questions concerning historical documents in their possession. Mr. R. S. Watson of Milton, Mass., and Mr. E. S. Osgood of Cambridge, have very kindly helped me with their valuable reminiscences of vigilance committee times. Mr. T. G. Carey of Cambridge has put at my disposal important MS. material of his own. Pres. D. C. Gilman of Baltimore, Mr. Arthur Rogers of San Francisco, and Mr. William Carey Jones of Berkeley, Cal., have also

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XI supplied me with advice and with valuable printed matter. My obligations to the patience and courtesy of General and Mrs. Fremont for the free use of their time in discussing matters connected with the conquest in 1846 will, I hope, appear amidst all the very plain criticism of General Fremont’s views and conduct to which I have found myself driven by indubitable historical' evidence. To Mr. Charles Shinn, finally, I am indebted for the gift of advance sheets of his book on “ Mining Camps,” whereby I was much furthered in my work on that subject.

A word in conclusion as to the limitations of this book. For the sake of preserving as far as possible the unity of the story, I have had to omit almost all reference to such matters as, belonging to the history of California before 1856, still became of importance only in view of the events of later years. Such matters are the beginnings of literary activity in the San Francisco community in 1854, the first movements towards establishing university education in the State, or, again, the first phases of the long and exciting Chinese agitation. Even in speaking of the partisan political life, I have had to pass over, with a mere mention, events and persons that in a history of the next ten years would become so important as to make them seem, by reflected light, much more significant even before 1856 than I have had room to cause them to appear. I trust that these defects will be pardoned by a generous reader, who may also find my doubtless too numerous mistakes of detail not altogether inexcusable in a book that deals with so complex, exciting, and ill-recorded a period as this, and that is written, after all, by a student whose professional business is one not commonly regarded as duly conversant

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with this actual world of picks, pans, cradles, and vigilance committees. What I could do in a labor of love I have done, both to attain accuracy of detail and to make clear the meaning of a truly wonderful historical process.

Cambridge, Mass., March 9, 1886.

Chapter I. Page

Introduction : The Territory and the Strangers . 1

I. The Land 3

II. Outlines of Older California History .... 8

III. The Californian People 30

IV. The Americans in California before the Conquest . . 34

CHAPTER II. The American as Conqueror: The Secret Mission and

the Bear Flag 48

I. The Confidential Agent, and the Beginnings of War . 50

II. The Bear-Flag Heroes 60

III. Sloat, the Administration, and the Mystery of the Secret

Mission 84

IY. The Mystery as formerly expounded by Captain Fremont’s Friends 87

Y. Californian Hostility as a Cause for War . . . 93

YI. The Mystery as now expounded by General Fremont . Ill

VII. The Mystery deepens 123

VIII. Only one Dispatch contains the Secret Mission . . . 129

IX. The Mystery as expounded by the one Dispatch . . 133

X. Supplementary Evidence and Summary .... 141

CHAPTER III. The Conquest completed, the Interregnum, and the

Birth of the State 151

I. The Conquerors and their Consciences .... 152

II. Sloat, the Larkin Intrigue, and the English Legend . 157

III. The Wolf and the Lamb 174

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

IV. The Revolt and the Re-conquest 184

V. The Conquerors as Rulers and as Subjects; Quarrels,

Discontent, and Aspirations 198

VI. The Beginnings of the American San Francisco . . 213

VII. Gold, New-Comers, and Illusions 220

VIII. The Ways to the New Land 234

IX. The Struggle for a Constitution . .... 246

X. The Constitutional Convention and its Outcome . . 259

Chapter IV

The Struggle for Order: Self-Government, Good-Humor and Violence in the Mines .... 271 I. The Philosophy of California History during the Golden

Days 272

II. The Evolution of Disorder 278

III. Pan and Cradle as Social Agents : Mining Society in the

Summer of 1848 282

IV. Mining Society in 1849 and 1850, and the Beginning of

Sluice-Mining 301

V. The Spirit of the Miners’ Justice of 1851 and 1852; the

Miners on theii own Law 313

VI. Miners’ Justice in Action. — Characteristic Scenes and

Incidents 325

VII. A Typical History of a Mining Camp in 1851-52 . . 344

VIII. The Warfare against the Foreigners .... 356

IX. The Downieville Lynching of July 5, 1851 . . . 368

X. The Attainment of Order 374

Chapter V

I. The New City and the Great Fires .... 378

II. The Moral Insanities of the Golden Days .... 391

III. Conservatism, Churches, and Families .... 398

IV. Popular Justice in February, 1851 407

V. The First Vigilance Committee 417

VI. Social Corruption and Commercial Disaster . . . 422

VII. The New Awakening of Conscience .... 432

VIII. The Crisis of May, 1856 437

IX. Popular Vengeance and the New Movement . . . 448

X. Perils and Triumphs of the Great Committee . . . 453

TABLE OF CONTENTS . XV

Chapter VI. Page

I. Early Land Troubles 467

II. The Native Population and the Later Struggle for their

Land

III. Early Political Conflicts

IV. Conclusion

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Chapter I. Introduction : The Territory And The Strangers

This book is meant to help the reader towards an understanding of two things : namely, the modern American State of California, and our national character as displayed in that land.

For both purposes the period of California history between 1846 and 1856, between the beginnings of our national occupation of the territory and the close of the Second Vigilance Committee of San Francisco, is especially instructive. This is the period of excitement, of trial, and of rapid transformation. Everything that has since happened in California, or that ever will happen there, so long as men dwell in the land, must be deeply affected by the forces of local life and society that then took their origin. And, for the understanding of our American national character in some of its most significant qualities, this life of surprises and of searching moral ordeals has a still too little appreciated value.

The American community in early California fairly represented, as we shall see, the average national culture and character. But no other part of our land was ever so rapidly peopled as was California in the first golden

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days. Nowhere else were we Americans more affected than here, in our lives and conduct, by the feeling that we stood in the position of conquerors in a new land. Nowhere else, again, were we ever before so long forced by circumstances to live at the mercy of a very wayward chance, and to give to even our most legitimate business a dangerously speculative character. Nowhere else were we driven so hastily to improvise a government for a large body of strangers ; and nowhere else did fortune so nearly deprive us for a little time of our natural devotion to the duties of citizenship. We Americans therefore showed, in early California, new failings and new strength. We exhibited a novel degree of carelessness and overhastiness, an extravagant trust in luck, a previously unknown blindness to our social duties, and an indifference to the rights of foreigners, whereof we cannot be proud. But we also showed our best national traits, — traits that went far to atone for our faults. As a body, our pioneer community in California was persistently cheerful, energetic, courageous, and teachable. In a few years it had repented of its graver faults, it had endured with charming good humor their severest penalties, and it was ready to begin with fresh devotion the work whose true importance it had now at length learned — the work of building a well-organized, permanent, and progressive State on the Pacific Coast. In this work it has been engaged ever since, with fortunes that always, amid the most remarkable changes, have preserved a curious likeness to the fortunes of the early days, and that, in numerous and recent instances, have led to a more or less noteworthy and complete repetition of certain early trials, blunders, sins, penalties, virtues, and triumphs.

This introductory chapter will aim to supply the chief facts necessary for an understanding of the ten years of busy life whose social aspects we are hereafter to examine. In the later chapters we shall endeavor to dwell with especial detail upon such facts, external, social, or individual, as illustrate and explain the history of American civilization in the State of California.

I. THE LAND.

The general topographical outlines of California are shown at once by the map. If one excludes the earliest settled and now very richly productive coast region south of Santa Barbara, the barren interior regions of San Bernardino County, and of the adjoining territory to the southward, the other barren strip of land in Mono and Inyo counties, east of the Sierras and south of Mono Lake, and, finally, the great mountainous coast and interior lands of the extreme north, one has still left the main body of the State : namely, the central Coast Range, the great valley of the two rivers (the Sacramento and San Joaquin), and the main chain of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This chief and central portion of the State shows to the Pacific Ocean a generally bold and rugged coast-line, with successive ranges of hills, nearly parallel to the coast, rising in some places to the height of three or four thousand feet. North of the latitude of Monterey, this coast is often daily obscured in summer by cold and persistent fogs, which, climbing the Coast Range, or projecting in long gray tongues through the gaps of the range, finally disappear, as one goes inward, in the dry and cloudless summer air of the great interior valley. In this level and fertile valley the two rivers — the one rising far to the north, near

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Mount Shasta, the other in the Sierras of Fresno County — flow through their opposing courses, and, meeting at last, discharge their waters by the two intermediate bays into the main body of the great San Francisco Bay, and so, through the Golden Gate, into the ocean. The two rivers, as they flow, receive from numerous tributaries the waters of the Sierra Nevada range, which bounds the great valley on the east. The mountains of this range rise very gradually, at first in gently sloping and irregularly disposed lines of foot-hills, to the rugged and snowy highest ridges, which vary in elevation from nine or ten thousand to twelve or even fourteen thousand feet above sea level. Through the foot-hills the westward-flowing rivers have worn vast deep canons, whose scenery has a character peculiar to this range. East of the summit, there is a rapid descent, through steep and glacier-worn, but now often nearly dry and always very wild gorges, to the broken plateaus of the desert region. Not a drop of the water that flows down this eastern slope of the great chain reaches the sea, all being lost in “ sinks,” or in salt lakes. The largest of the eastward-flowing rivers are but great mountain torrents.

The great central valley and mountain region of California, thus roughly outlined, is a country full of tell-tale landscapes, that show at a glance to the traveler the general topographical structure of the whole land. In the gently mountainous regions of even the more rugged of our Eastern States, one may wander for many days, and see many picturesque or imposing landscapes, without getting any clear notion of the complex water system of the country through which he journeys. In most such hilly regions, if he climbs to some promising summit, hoping to command therefrom a general view of the land about him, he often sees in the end nothing but a collection of gracefully curving hills similar to the one that he has chosen. Winding valleys divide these hills with their endlessly complex and oftenbroken lines. He gets no sense of the ground plan of the region. It seems a mass of hills, and that is all. Painfully, with the aid of his map, he identifies this or that landmark, and so at last comprehends his surroundings, which, after all, he never really sees. But, in the typical central Californian landscape, as viewed from any commanding summit, the noble frankness of nature shows one at a glance the vast plan of the country. From hills only eighteen hundred or two thousand feet high, on the Contra Costa side of San Francisco Bay, you may on any clear day see, to the westward, the blue line of the ocean, the narrow Golden Gate, the bay itself at your feet, the rugged hills of Marin County beyond, and the smoky outlines of San Francisco south of the Gate ; you may follow with the eye, to the southward, the far-reaching lower arm of the great bay, and may easily find the distant range of the Santa Cruz Mountains ; while, to the eastward and northward, you may look over the vast plains of the interior valley, and dwell upon the great blue masses of the Sierra Nevada rising far beyond them, and culminating in the snowy summits that all summer long would gleam across to you through the hot valley haze. From the Sierras themselves you might see the reverse of the picture. In the upper foot-hills, where I spent my childhood, we used to live in what seemed a very open country, with not many rugged hills near us, with the frowning higher mountains far to the eastward, and with a pleasant succession of grassy meadows and

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of gentle wooded slopes close about us. But, just beyond the western horizon that the darkly wooded hills bounded, there loomed up from a great distance two or three sharp-pointed summits that were always of a deep blue color. These we knew to belong to the Coast Range ; and the far-off ocean was, we fancied, rolling just at the western base of these peaks. If now we walked a mile or two to some higher hill-top, the whole immense river valley itself seemed, at the end of our walk, to flash of a sudden into existence before our eyes, with all its wealth of shining and winding streams, with the “ Three Buttes,” near Marysville, springing up like young giants from the midst of the plain, and with the beautiful, long, and endlessly varied blue line of the Coast Range bounding the noble scene on the west. Of course, what we could actually see of the great valley was but a very little part if compared to the whole ; but the system upon which this interior region of the State was planned, we as children could not fail to comprehend both very early and very easily.

The Coast Range is broken down at one point to give an entrance from the ocean through the Golden Gate into the Bay of San Francisco, upon the west shore of which, as we have just seen, lies San Francisco itself. North of the Gate the Coast Range forms a bolder and more rugged coast-line than is the case towards the south. Almost directly east of San Francisco rises beyond the Contra Costa hills the blue summit of Monte Diablo, the most noteworthy landmark of the Coast Range for all the central portion of the State. From the summit of this peak, at an elevation of some 3,800 feet, one can best of all view the portion of the State with which the early American life had most to do.

The climate of California is too generally known now to need special description here. In the dry season, from June to September or October, there is a local climate close along the coast itself, from about the latitude of Santa Cruz northward, which, by reason cf daily northwest winds and fogs, is as invigorating to all healthy people as it is disagreeable. One leaves San Francisco in summer, if at all, not to enjoy a cool holiday away from the city’s oppressive heat, but to get into a warmer air. All the southern half of the State and all the interior valleys enjoy, during the dry season, clear and hot days, with cool and very restful nights. The rainy season is everywhere somewhat tedious, by reason of its two or three, or perchance more, very long and heavy southwest rain-storms ; but, in the intervals of these long rains, if, as commonly chances, no noticeable “ cold wave ” weather follows them (and so no example of the occasional bitter northers), then indeed one has the true chance to enjoy nature. Then one sees, perhaps in January or February, the clearest of skies, and feels the most perfect of airs. The new grass springs on every hill, the song-birds are countless, and, by April and May, the vast fields of wildflowers are in full bloom. But April and May are the spendthrift months of wealthy nature. A few golden weeks of absolute freedom from winds and rains, of warmth and of sunshine, give place at last to the long sleep of the dry season, rainless also, and, in the interior, as windless and as dreamy as the climate of Lotus Land.

The first effect of the Californian climate is to improve the general health of nearly all new-comers, unless, indeed, being afflicted with pulmonary troubles,

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they should find the windy northern and central coast climate in the dry season too severe for them. Then, however, the interior valleys, or the southern coast, are still open to them, and are very healthful. But one secondary effect of the climate is indeed not so favorable for any one, in that the comparative evenness of the successive seasons prompts active people to work too steadily, to skip their holidays, and, by reason of their very enjoyment of life, to wear out their constitutions with overwork. Here is a fact of considerable importance for the understanding of California civilization. In early days, moreover, by reason of the utter carelessness of the mining population, fevers and dysentery were very prevalent in the Sacramento Valley and in the foot-hills of the Sierra. But people who so ate, drank, and lived as many of the miners chose to do, hardly deserve commiseration for their well-earned diseases, even as the climate deserves but little blame therefor. On the whole, save in these careless early years, the country has been remarkably free from epidemics. Of the great present material resources of the land there is no need to speak here. We deal with the men.

II. OUTLINES OF OLDER CALIFORNIA HISTORY.

The settlements of Spanish missionaries within the present limits of the State of California date from the first foundation of San Diego in 17 69. The missions that were later founded north of San Diego were, with the original establishment itself, for a time known merely by some collective name, such as the Northern Missions.1 But later the name California, already long since applied to the country of the peninsular missions to the 1 H. H. Bancroft, History of California , vol. i. p. 67.

southward, was extended to the new land, with various prefixes or qualifying phrases ; and out of these the definitive name Alta California at last came, being applied to our present country during the whole period of the Mexican Republican ownership. As to the origin of the name California, no serious question remains that this name, as first applied, between 1535 and 1539, to a portion of Lower California, was derived from an old printed romance, the one which Mr. Edward Everett Hale rediscovered in 1862, and from which he drew this now accepted conclusion. For, in this romance, the name California was already before 1520 applied to a fabulous island, described as near the Indies and also “very near the Terrestrial Paradise.” Colonists whom Cortes brought to the newly discovered peninsula in 1535, and who returned the next year, may have been the first to apply the name to this supposed island, on which they had been for a time resident.1

The coast of Upper California was first visited during the voyage of the explorer Juan Cabrillo in 1542-43. Several landings were then made on the coast and on the islands, in the Santa Barbara region. Cabrillo himself died during the expedition (on January 3, 1543), and the voyage was continued by his successor, Ferralo, who sailed as far north as 42°. The whole undertaking resulted in some examination of the coast-line as far as Cape Mendocino, and in a glimpse of the native population that lived along the southern shores of the present State.2

In 1579 Drake's famous visit took place. During the

1 H. H. Bancroft, vol. i. p. 66 ; E. E. Hale, Amer. Antiquarian Soc. Proceedings for 1862 ; Atlantic Monthly , vol. xiii. p. 265.

2 Bancroft, vol. i. pp. 69-81.

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latter half of June and nearly the whole of July, he remained in what “ The World Encompassed” calls a “ convenient and fit harbour ” (about 38° 30'), where the ship was grounded for repairs, and where the expedition had considerable intercourse with the natives. One of the accounts complains, in extravagant fashion, of the chilly air and of the fogs of the region, and, in general, we get information from the accounts about the “ white banks and cliffs, which lie toward the sea,” and hear about what we now know as the Farallones, the rocky islets that lie just outside what we call the Golden Gate. While the other details of the stories, as given, are obviously in large part imaginary, there can be no doubt that Drake did land near this point on the coast, and did find a passable harbor, where he stayed some time. It is, however, almost perfectly sure that he did not enter or observe the Golden Gate, and that he got no sort of idea of the existence of the great Bay ; while for the rest, it is and must remain quite uncertain what anchorage he discovered, although the chances are in favor of what is now called Drake’s Bay, under Point Reyes. This result of the examination of the evidence about Drake’s voyage is now fairly well accepted, although some people will always try to insist that Drake discovered our Bay of San Francisco.1

The name San Francisco was probably applied to a port on this coast for the first time by Cermenon, who in a voyage from the Philippines in 1595 ran ashore, while exploring the coast near Point Reyes. It is now, however, perfectly sure that neither he nor any other Spanish navigator before 1769 applied this name to our

1 On this voluminous controversy I pretend to no sort of independent opinion. See Bancroft, vol. i. pp. 81-94, for both result and references.

present bay, which remained utterly unknown to Europeans during all this period. The name Port of San Francisco was given by Vizcaino, and by later navigators and geographers, to the bay under Point Reyes, characterized by the whitish cliffs and by the rocky islets in the ocean in front of it. The coincidence of the name San Francisco with the name of Sir Francis Drake is remarkable, but doubtless means nothing. Christian names are, after all, limited in number ; and those who applied this name to the new port were Spaniards and Catholics, while Drake was a freebooter and an Englishman.1