USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 15
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"One great object of this Mission, as stated by the President," wrote Polk in the never failing journal in which he daily recorded alike the significant and trivial events of his administration, "would be to adjust a permanent boundary between Mexico and the United States, and that in doing this the Minister would be in- structed to purchase for a pecuniary consideration Upper Cali- fornia and New Mexico. He said that a better boundary would be the Del Norte from its mouth to the Passo, in latitude about 32º North, and thence West to the Pacific Ocean, Mexico ceding to the United States all the country East and North of these lines. The President said that for such a boundary the amount of pecu- niary consideration to be paid would be of small importance. He supposed it might be had for fifteen or twenty millions, but he was ready to pay forty millions for it if it could not be had for less. In these views the Cabinet agreed with the President unanimously."
If the report that Jackson had offered only $500,000 for the better part of this same territory only ten years before were
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true, it is apparent that California real estate was rapidly rising in value!
It was intended that Slidell's mission should be kept a profound secret. This was highly desirable both to protect the Herrera administration, and also to prevent Great Britain and France from delaying or defeating the negotia- tions. In spite of every precaution, however, the news of Slidell's coming preceded him to Mexico, and with it went the sinister rumor that he had at his command a million dollars with which to bribe President Herrera. The latter, therefore, was in a sorry predicament when the American Minister landed at Vera Cruz. To receive him and open negotiations meant a direct bid for revolution. To reject him not only meant the loss of a great financial opportunity, but also an affront to the United States that might easily lead to war.
In this dilemma Herrera chose the latter course. Slidell was refused recognition on purely technical grounds, for which there was no other justification than Herrera's fear of being overthrown. Slidell's rejection, however, while it defeated the chance of any support Herrera might have gained from the United States, did not win for him the popular favor he sought to obtain. The "plan" of San Luis Potosí had already been drafted by the followers of Paredes; and before Slidell left Mexico City, Herrera had gone out of power on the heels of a bloodless revolution, leaving the palace, as one writer has humorously said, "with the entire body of his loyal officers and officials, his mild face and his respectable side-whiskers-in one hired cab."
Slidell's attempt to open negotiations with the new government met with no more cordial reception than it had obtained from the old. His request to be received as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (a request made from Jalapa where Slidell had gone after leaving the City of Mexico) was refused with little courtesy and much emphasis by Castillo, Secretary of Foreign Relations in the Paredes Cabinet. The American envoy could stand no more. Against the wishes of President Polk, as it afterwards
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proved, he immediately demanded his passport and left for the United States, disgusted with the tortuous course of Mexican diplomacy, and thoroughly convinced that no government could be established in that country stable enough to carry out a consistent foreign policy. In this temper he came back to Washington to lay his report before a President already impatient to the breaking point with the sorry condition of Mexican affairs.
The failure of Herrera and Paredes to re-open negotiations with the United States, destroyed Polk's first hope of secur- ing California. As already pointed out, however, there were still three other possibilities of accomplishing the desired end. To one of these, indeed, Polk had already turned even before the failure of Slidell's mission became known.
Among the American residents of California was the New England merchant, Thomas O. Larkin, whose activities as publicity agent for California have already been spoken of.1 Larkin had come to Monterey in 1832 and rapidly built up a prosperous business. Incidentally, too, he had won for himself a favorable reputation among the leading Cali- fornians, as well as among his own countrymen. In 1843 he had been appointed United States Consul to California- the only person who ever held that office-and in this capacity found it possible to furnish his home government with very valuable information.
In Larkin's despatches, affairs of commerce and trade- the ordinary consular concerns-were subordinated to matters of larger import. The political and military strength of the province, its relations to Mexico, the feeling of the native Californians toward the United States, the arrival and reception of American immigrants, the influence and ambition of European nations in California questions- such were the topics most dwelt upon in the American Con- sul's communications to Washington. In turn, the govern- ment encouraged him to report every item that might be made to serve the nation's interests.
It was natural that Polk, cognizant of Larkin's high 1 See Ch. VIII.
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standing with the leading Californians and aware of his knowledge of California affairs, should have entrusted to him the chief responsibility of carrying out the President's second plan of acquiring the territory. The plan itself was definitely outlined to Larkin by Polk's Secretary of State, James Buchanan, in a despatch dated October 17, 1845. This communication, unfortunately too long to be quoted here in full, contained three suggestions for Larkin's guidance. These in brief were as follows:
(1) Though the United States would not foment a revolution in California, Larkin might assure the Californians that his gov- ernment would play the rôle of protector in case they sought to separate from Mexico.
(2) Should any attempt be made to transfer California to a European power, the United States would prevent the cession.
(3) To carry out the plans of the administration more effectu- ally, win the friendship of the Californians for the United States, and thwart the activities of European nations, Larkin was appointed the President's confidential agent and virtually in- structed to use his own discretion in handling the situation.
Two copies of this despatch were forwarded to Larkin. One went by sea and reached California early in 1846. The other was entrusted to Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie, a confidential agent of the United States government, who travelled across Mexico in the disguise of an invalid mer- chant seeking health. Fearing capture at the hands of the Mexicans, Gillespie destroyed his copy of the document after memorizing its contents. A third copy of the despatch was sent to Slidell to guide him in his negotiations with the Herrera administration.
The whole tenor of Buchanan's letter convinced Larkin that the President expected him to prepare the way for the peaceful annexation of California by the United States. He accordingly began systematically to carry out his mission. In the province at that time there were a number of Ameri- cans who had married California women and become Mexi- can citizens. To several of the most influential of these-
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men like Don Abel Stearns of Los Angeles, John Warner of San Diego, and Jacob Leese of Sonoma-he wrote confiden- tially of his new position, urging them to aid him in his pro- gram of winning over the Californians. Stearns, the domi- nant foreigner in the south, he appointed his secret assistant to manage the business in and around Los Angeles.
To a number of the native leaders in the north, with whom he stood on intimate terms, Larkin also revealed the general character of Polk's instructions. As these men were already weary of Mexican rule, it was not difficult to secure some measure of support for the idea of independence, especially as Larkin held before them the promise of sub- stantial reward from his own government. The real diffi- culty was not their affection for Mexico, but the inclination on the part of some to look to Great Britain instead of to the United States for aid. Those known definitely to favor the American program were urged by Larkin to attend the various juntas, which were then being held to meet the existing crisis in California affairs, and to bring their influence to bear upon the decisions of those bodies.
These efforts of the American Consul gave promise of success. Several of the principal Californians came over definitely to Larkin's position; and one of these, General Castro, as influential as any man in the province, even went so far as to draw up "a short history of his plans for declar- ing California independent in 1847 or 48 as soon as a suffi- cient number of foreigners should arrive." Equally en- couraging reports were received from the south, and it seemed only the matter of a year or two before California would renounce her allegiance to Mexico and voluntarily seek annexation to the United States. Two things, how- ever, broke in upon this plan of peaceful acquisition and ended the movement which Larkin had begun at President Polk's request. One of these was the uprising of the Ameri- can settlers in California known as the Bear Flag Revolt: the other was the Mexican War.
Before taking up the first of these movements in detail, it is well to point out that an independent California under
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Anglo-Saxon control was a subject of considerable specu- lation long before the Bear Flag movement, in its own way, sought to carry out the idea. In the years before 1846 this plan of independence found expression in three forms: a union of Oregon and California into an autonomous state; a union of California with the newly established Republic of Texas; and the erection of California by itself into an independent nation.
The first of these, the union of Oregon and California, was suggested by Thomas Jefferson, the father of trans- Mississippi expansion, as far back as 1812, when he ex- pressed the hope that the descendants of Astor's colonists on the Columbia would one day occupy the whole Pacific Coast, "covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and employing like us the rights of self-government."
In the early forties this idea obtained considerable promi- nence and commended itself to a number of careful observers. For example Wilkes, the commander of the United States exploring expedition, wrote:
"The situation in California will cause its separation from Mex- ico before many years. It is very probable that the country will become united with Oregon with which it will perhaps form a state that is designed to control the destiny of the Pacific."
A year or two later, Waddy Thompson, United States Minister to Mexico, was told of a definite plot to separate California from Mexico, and asked if his government would be willing to surrender title to Oregon so that California might unite with the latter to form a great republic. Among the American residents of both territories the plan was frequently discussed; and it was prophesied that if the union should ever be accomplished, a new empire would arise on the Pacific, whose capital, as at least one writer predicted, located on the Bay of San Francisco, "possibly on the site occupied by the miserable village of Yerba Buena," would become within the century one of the great commercial centers of the world. One man, indeed, Lansford W. Has-
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tings, whose activities as an emigrant guide have already been spoken of, had in mind the definite purpose of making himself president of the new republic!
A second proposal put forward between 1836 and 1845 was the union of Texas and California. The Texas Congress, in fact, at one time proposed to extend their national boundaries to embrace California, but the idea was given up because the territory was too large and sparsely popu- lated to be governed by a "young republic." Jackson also, as has been noted, urged the same plan upon the Texan Minister in 1837, but to no better purpose.
After 1840, however, the activities of Hastings and other potential filibusters gave new impetus to the proposed union of Texas and California. The movement was also stimulated by the demoralized conditions existing in the latter province. So strong was the idea by 1844 that the American Chargé at Mexico City warned Calhoun, then as Secretary of State actively interested in the annexation of Texas, that his plans would be completely thwarted if Texas and California should ever be united. In such case, said Calhoun's informant, Oregon and the disaffected pro- vinces of northern Mexico would join the movement. Texas would then no longer seek admission to the United States, but as head of the new confederation "would prove a dangerous rival both to the cotton interests of the South and the manufactures of the North."
A little later, Sam Houston, either to frighten the dilatory United States Congress into favorable action on Texas an- nexation, or with the dream of an empire before his eyes, brought forward the plan of uniting Texas, California, and Oregon with Chihuahua and Sonora to form a great re- public which would "not be less than a rival power to any of the nations now in existence." Had the United States failed to annex Texas, unquestionably Houston would have attempted to carry out his plan of uniting the latter with California, thus giving to the enlarged republic a dominant position on the Pacific and assuring for it a great com- mercial future.
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With the annexation of Texas by the United States, the proposed union of Texas and California automatically fell to earth. This, however, did not mean the end of the movement for the independence of California by the Amer- ican residents of the province, a program distinctly differ- ent from that undertaken by Larkin (as sketched in the preceding pages), and tacitly approved by the administra- tion. The former plan looked to foreigners for its impetus and direction ; the Polk-Larkin plan relied upon native leader- ship and initiative for its success. With careful handling there was no reason why these two movements should prove antagonistic to each other. But too great haste by the Americans (the most of whom of course were ignorant of the program Larkin had set on foot), or disregard on their part for the feelings of the Californians, would certainly drive the latter back into the arms of Mexico, defeat the project of a peaceful separation from the home government, and bring about civil war, not between California and Mexico, but between Americans and Californians.
CHAPTER XIV
CALIFORNIA, GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
IN the preceding chapter the course of California events was brought down to the outbreak of the Bear Flag Revolt. It is now necessary to consider the rumored designs of Great Britian to annex the province and the influence these exerted upon Polk's policy of annexation.
As already pointed out, it is almost a truism to say that nearly every acquisition of territory by the United States has been hastened by the reported designs of some European nation upon that territory. Jefferson saw a grave menace in the French control of Louisiana; Jackson was even more concerned over the British activities in Texas; Polk professed to be alarmed at the English designs on California; Frémont and the Bear Flag insurgents asserted that their uprising alone saved that territory from British hands. How far were these fears regarding British designs on California justified by actual conditions, or based upon reasonable grounds?
One of the earliest indications of English interest in Cali- fornia appeared in 1839 with the publication of Alexander Forbes' "History of California." Forbes, who was British Vice-Consul at Tepic, had never been in California but was pretty thoroughly informed as to conditions there, and knew also of the demoralization existing in the Mexican govern- ment. His book, which had a wide circulation in the United States as well as in England, contained much historical infor- mation; but its real purpose, as Forbes frankly stated, was to encourage the colonization of California by British subjects. The author even went so far as to outline in considerable detail a plan for the cession of the province as a means of satisfying a debt of $50,000,000, represented by Mexican bonds in the hands of English investors. These creditors
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were to be organized into a company to take over California and exercise in it much the same powers of sovereignty that the British East India Company enjoyed in India.
Forbes' history, coming at a time when American sus- picions of Great Britain were already aroused, created a popular impression that what the author advocated had actually been begun. The Baltimore American, for example, expressed this general sentiment in the following words:
"The vast indebtedness of Mexico to Great Britain is well known. As a convenient mode of cancelling her obligations, noth- ing is more probable than that the former would willingly part with a territory which she cannot occupy, and to which, in the course of things, she could not long extend even a nominal claim. The policy of the British government looks toward nothing more favor- ably than to the acquisition of territory in different parts of the world. The possession of California would strengthen her in carry- ing out her pretensions to the Oregon country, which she not only claims, but already occupies by the agency of trading companies. The whole coast of the Pacific would thus be in the grasp of a powerful nation-a nation that never lets slip an occasion of ex- tending the limits of her domains. To make the Rocky Mountains the boundary of the United States on the west; to hold the spacious valley between the ridge and the ocean, running down to the bot- tom of the peninsula of California, thus possessing the seaboard, by means of which the commerce with China and the East In- dies would be secured to British interests-this would be an at- tainment worthy of no small effort on the part of Great Britain."
Within the next few years such warnings as that issued by the Baltimore American against British designs on Cali- fornia appeared in many other magazines and newspapers, without geographic distinction, throughout the United States. As the tension between the two countries increased during Tyler's administration and the public mind became more and more inflamed with anti-British feeling, these warnings grew both in number and intensity, until in January, 1846, even the American Whig Review, one of the most thoughtful journals of its day, frankly declared that the purpose of England in California was so inconsistent
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with the interests and safety of the United States that this country could not permit its accomplishment under any circumstance.
Much more significant than the popular fear of English domination in California during these years, was the genuine anxiety prevalent in government circles lest British officials should defeat the American plans for annexation, and set up some form of British control that would shut the United States away from the Pacific and fix the Rocky Mountains as the westward limit of her development.
This suspicion of British designs served as the background for much of the American policy toward California and Mexico for some years prior to 1846. Its influence appears certainly as early as 1842, when Commodore Jones, over-zealous for the interests of the United States, seized the port of Monterey. As described in a previous chapter, this action was due to the erroneous belief that war between Mexico and the United States had actually broken out. The haste with which Jones moved, however, was not so much to forestall Mexico, as to checkmate the secret plans of England. In explaining his intended course, the American commander, while on his way to Monterey, wrote the Secretary of Navy as follows:
"The Creole affair, the question of the right of search, the mis- sion of Lord Ashburton, ... the well founded rumor of a ces- sion of the Californias, and lastly the secret movements of the English naval force in this quarter . . . have all occurred since the date of your last despatch. Consequently I am without in- structions . .. upon what I consider a vital question to the United States . .. [namely] the occupation of California by Great Britain under a secret treaty with Mexico."
Jones was by no means the only one in government circles who looked askance at the California plans of European nations. From Mexico City, Waddy Thompson, the Ameri- can Minister, insistently called the attention of the State Department to the menace of British and French aggression in California, and urged this as an additional necessity for
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the annexation of the province by the United States. In fact nearly every letter Thompson sent, whether to Webster, or to President Tyler, carried this note of warning.
"I have information upon which I can rely," he wrote under date of July 30, 1842, "that an agent of this government is now in England negotiating for the sale, or what is precisely the same things, the mortgage of Upper California for the loan of fifteen millions. In my first despatch I glanced at the advantages which would result to our country from the acquisition. Great as these advantages would be, they sink in comparison with the evils to our commerce and other interests, even more important, from the cession of that country to England."
A later despatch of January 30th, 1843, had this to say of the situation :
"I know that England has designs on California and has actually made a treaty with Mexico securing to British creditors the right to lands there in payment of their debts and that England will interpose this treaty in the way of a cession of California and that in ten years she will own the country."
Thompson's successors in charge of the American lega- tion in Mexico, without exception, emphasized, as he had done, the danger of British control in California. For example, in October, 1844, Duff Green, Calhoun's confidential agent in Mexico, wrote to his superior in the following vein:
"Permit me to call your attention to the Mortgage on the Cal- ifornias. [In a previous paragraph Green fixed the amount of this mortgage at twenty-six million]. I am told that it contains a con- dition that if the money is not paid in 1847, the creditors shall take possession of the country. The British Consul General here is the agent of the creditors. I have endeavored to obtain a copy of the Deed, but cannot do it without paying fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars for it. Permit me to say that it is important that you should obtain this through our minister here or in London, as the possession of California will necessarily command the settle- ments on the Columbia."
Soon after this, rumor of a new plan for ceding California to Great Britain, through secret negotiations between Santa
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Anna and the English Minister, reached Calhoun from Shannon, who was then in charge of American interests in Mexico. Santa Anna had just experienced one of his nu- merous reverses. A revolutionary party, after overturning the government, had seized his person and taken from him a number of compromising documents. The new adminis- tration had published certain parts of these documents to discredit Santa Anna with the Mexican people, and laid the rest in secret session before Congress.
"From a portion of this correspondence," wrote Shannon, "the fact has been disclosed that a negotiation was going on between President Santa Anna and the English Minister for the sale and purchase of the two Californias. . . . The English Minister has no doubt in this matter acted under instructions from his govern- ment; it may therefore be assumed that it is the settled policy of the English government to acquire the two Californias. You are aware that the English creditors have now a mortgage on them for twenty-six millions."
The reports of English ambitions, which reached Washing- ton and the American public from Mexico, were amply supplemented by direct information from the Pacific Coast. The upshot of the situation is not difficult to understand. By 1845 there were few Americans, either in their own country or in California, who were not honestly convinced that the fate of the trans-Rocky Mountain west lay in the balance between the United States and Great Britain. The same conviction prevailed in official circles and grew stronger as the months passed on.
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