USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 29
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The conquest of Sonora, however, proved much more difficult than the proclamation of the republic. Discontent and desertions seriously reduced the effectiveness of Walker's force. The activities of United States officials in California prevented the sending of badly needed reinforcements from that quarter. Supplies and provisions were almost ex- hausted; and the inhabitants of Lower California were becoming increasingly hostile to the American interlopers.
Walker planned to advance against Sonora by crossing the Peninsula of Lower California and then rounding the head of the Gulf. A more difficult and inhospitable route can scarcely be imagined.3 Mountains, desert, and the broad waters of the Colorado, all alike offered formidable obsta-
3 A. W. North, in his Camp and Camino in Lower California, states that the Indians of the district still recalled Walker's route as late as 1908. According to his account it ran "along the Colentura Arroya, swung around the northwest shoul- der of the mighty sierra of San
Pedro Martír and entered the Valle Trinidad." Thence it followed the ancient Indian trail "into the secret depths of the Arroyo Grande, across the desert, around the Sierra del Pintos, and down the Hardy River to the Colorado."
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cles to the struggling handful of men who attempted the march. Worn out and in rags, the company reached the river early in April. In seeking to ford the Colorado, most of the cattle were drowned, thus leaving the invading army with almost no source of food. Even Walker, though now actually in Sonora, saw the hopelessness of further conquest. Half of his men deserted and straggled northward to Fort Yuma. The remnant turned back over the weary route they had come, and on April 17th reached the small town of San Vicente, where a garrison of twenty-five men had been left at the beginning of the Sonora campaign.
This garrison had been destroyed by the bandit forces of Menendez; and the latter now began to threaten the reduced company under Walker with the same fate. The filibusters therefore turned their dispirited steps toward the American border, and though constantly menaced by the irregular troops under Menendez, succeeded in reaching the safety of American soil without having to face a serious engagement. The border was crossed May 8, 1854, at a point close to the modern Mexican resort of Tia Juana. Walker's "army" at this time consisted of thirty-three men. They were sent north to San Francisco, where in June their leader was brought to trial for violation of the neutrality laws of the United States. After deliberating for eight minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty!
So far as Mexican territory was concerned, this ended Walker's career as a filibuster. For a time he resumed his profession of journalism and also played an active part in California politics as a member of the Broderick wing of the Democratic party.4 A year later, however, his dreams of empire again drove him to re-enter the dangerous calling in which he had served his apprenticeship in Lower California,
On May 4th, 1855, Walker once more sailed out of the Golden Gate bent on "great deeds and high emprise." His goal was the troubled Republic of Nicaragua. Here he was
4 This was the anti-slavery wing of that party. The old time view that the filibustering expeditions
against Mexican territory were for the purpose of extending slavery is untenable.
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destined to meet with full tale of adventure, experience countless vicissitudes of fortune, and eventually realize to some extent the restless ambitions to which he had sur- rendered his career. Success, however, was only fleeting. On the morning of September 12, 1860, William Walker- Freebooter, Pirate, Soldier of Fortune, and International Outlaw, as he was variously called-was led out of the little Honduran town of Truxillo as a prisoner. Just beyond the town, in an angle of an abandoned fort, erect and unafraid, he was shot to death by a firing squad. Perhaps this was the fate Walker deserved. But one wonders what judgment history would have passed upon him if his dreams had be- come realities, even as one wonders what place Sam Houston would hold today if the Texas revolution had been a failure.
Following Walker's fiasco in Lower California, one other Californian sought to carry through the familiar plan of establishing an American colony in Sonora. The leader in the enterprise was Henry A. Crabb, one of Walker's former schoolmates in Nashville, who had came to the coast in 1849. Crabb soon won for himself a respected name in Northern California and was elected to a number of im- portant political positions.
Through his marriage into a Spanish family, which had formerly owned large holdings in Sonora, Crabb became interested in the political and economic future of that harassed state.5 In 1856 he organized a colonizing company and took some fifty persons from California into Sonora over the Los Angeles-Yuma trail. On this visit Crabb came in contact with Ignacio Pesquiera, the leader of one of the two rival political factions in the state. At that time Pesquiera was involved in a revolution against the local government, headed by Gandara, and sought to enlist Crabb's aid in the effort to unseat his rival.
Crabb was apparently won over by Pesquiera's representa- tions (including a promise to seek Sonora's annexation to
5 Crabb's wife was a member of the Ainsa family, claiming descent from Juan Bautista de Anza, the
pioneer explorer from Sonora to California.
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the United States), and returned to California with the idea of gathering together an expedition to carry out the under- taking. Early in 1857 he organized the Arizona Coloniza- tion Company, and enlisted nearly a hundred men in the enterprise. Many of these were gold seekers from the mines in Tuolumne County; and others were recruited in San Francisco. At least half a dozen were men of marked political prominence in the state.6
The expedition reached San Pedro on January 24th. They then marched overland to El Monte, where provisions, wagons and horses were secured, and a few additional recruits enlisted from among the reckless Texas settlers who made up the little community. Leaving El Monte, the com- pany proceeded by way of San Gorgonio Pass and the Coachella Valley to Fort Yuma. Here the company re- mained until March. Crabb then led his men, by this time a fairly well-disciplined force, into the little Sonoran town of Sonoita. Here he learned with some surprise that the Mexican officials were preparing to resist his advance, and that his colonizing enterprise was sure to be attended with some difficulty.
The explanation of this unexpected Mexican hostility lay in Pesquiera's change of attitude. After Crabb's return to California from his first visit to Sonora, Pesquiera and Gandara had reconciled their differences and divided the spoils of office between them. Pesquiera, consequently, had no longer any use for Crabb's services, and feared lest his former relations with the American might prove a serious embarrassment if they became known. He therefore bent all his energies toward defeating the plans of the expedition and destroying those who composed it.
6 The personnel of the expedition, as given by the U. S. military com- mander at Fort Yuma, was as follows: General Crabb, ex-state senator, and leader of the Whig and Know-nothing parties. Colonel Wood, ex-member of the legislature, Fillmore national executive com- mittee, and Fillmore elector for California. Colonel McConn, ex-
member of the legislature of Cal- ifornia. Dr. T. J. Oxley, ex-member of the legislature; two terms served as Whig and Know-nothing leader. J. D. Cosby, State senator from Siskiyou. Captain Mckinney, for- merly in Colonel Doniphan's com- mand, and later member of California legislature. Lieutenant Henry, ex- member of California Legislature.
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Crabb, perhaps ignorant of Pesquiera's change of heart, or else regarding his expedition as a legitimate colonizing enterprise based on an established Mexican law, had diffi- culty in understanding the critical danger in which he and his men were now involved. Leaving Sonoita, the expedi- tion began its march from the border; but near the town of Caborca, they were fired upon by a party of Mexican troops lying in ambush. In a short time the entire company was fighting for its life in the narrow streets and adobe houses of the little pueblo.
After several of his men had been killed and others severely wounded, Crabb sought terms of surrender. The Mexican commander, Gabilondo, promised the Americans a fair trial and agreed to furnish proper medical attention for their wounded. Crabb unwisely accepted these terms. His men, one by one, crossed the street from the American position to a church occupied by the Mexican forces. No sooner had they laid down their arms than they were se- curely bound and taken to the Mexican barracks.
The surrender occurred about eleven o'clock on the night of April 6th. The next morning the Americans were taken out in squads of five and ten and mercilessly executed under Gabilondo's orders and at the instigation of Pesquiera. The details of the massacre are too barbarous to be repeated. For heartless cruelty the incident is unsurpassed, even by the slaughter of the French at St. Augustine, or the butchery of the Texans at Goliad. The bodies of the Americans were left unburied and subject to the most shameful and revolting treatment.7
Crabb himself faced death "as a gentleman should, as calmly and quietly as though he were going to a pleasant home." The Mexican commander had reserved for him a special form of execution. He was tied to a post, with his hands raised above his head and his back to the Mexican troops. In this position his body was riddled with nearly a
7 Only one of the party, a boy 14 years of age named Charles Evans, escaped. Other Americans, two of
whom at least were on American soil, were seized and killed by Mexican troops after the Caborca massacre.
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hundred balls. His head was then cut off and preserved in mescal as a trophy of the occasion.
Certain American historians have shown a peculiar tendency to applaud the massacre of American citizens at Caborca as a justifiable outburst of Mexican patriotism. Such an attitude is difficult to account for. Crabb and his men were not executed by patriots, driven to a terrible act of vengeance by a violation of their country's rights. The true explanation of the tragedy lies in Pesquiera's antag- onism to the Ainsa family, with which Crabb was allied, and in his desire to restore his tarnished reputation and destroy those whose testimony might convict him of traitorous dealings. John Forsyth, American Minister to Mexico at the time of the massacre, correctly summed up the motives of the massacre, as follows:
"I think there is little reason to doubt that Mr. Crabb was invited to Sonora, and that he was the victim of deception, treach- ery, and surprise.
"The sequel of history, I fear, will prove that the extermination of himself and of his party was designed to cover up the complicity and treason of some of the Mexican public men of Sonora. This is only surmise on my part, colored, however, by some dark hints that have come to me to that effect. It is not easy, upon a different hypothesis, to account for the conduct of Crabb. He was a man of sense and energy, and cannot be supposed to have gone with his eyes open into the snare that was set for him. He must have been betrayed."
Elsewhere, Forsyth, who was decidedly hostile to Crabb's expedition, made this interesting comment,
"The expeditionists have certainly chosen an unfortunate time for their movements as regards the interests of the United States in their relations with Mexico. The invasion is calculated to produce an unhappy influence, adverse to the efforts which I have con- stantly and perseveringly made to eradicate from the Mexican mind the deeply-seated distrust of Americans, and to establish in its stead a confidence in the friendly and honorable sentiments of our government and people towards them. My observation has taught me to believe that nothing but this distrust and fear of our
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people has prevented the States bordering on the United States- especially those like Chihuahua and Sonora, overrun by savages and receiving no protection from the Mexican government-from breaking their feeble ties with the central government, and seeking in annexation with us, that security for life and property of which they are now wholly destitute. The people of Mexico have been taught to believe from the examples cited to them in California and Texas, that their property titles, especially to land, would not be respected by their new rulers. I have the opinions of the most intelligent men I meet here, that this circumstance alone has saved to the republic of Mexico the fidelity of Tamaulipas, New Leon, Chihuahua, and Sonora."
Crabb's death marked the end of expeditions from Cal- ifornia into Mexican territory. The coming of a more settled state of society and the outbreak of the Civil War brought this particular phase of the State's history to a close. Sonora, "the land of romance, the land of tragedy, the dream-land of the filibuster," was destined to retain her Mexican statehood, instead of adding another name to the long list of those Mexican provinces which the United States acquired in the days when "manifest destiny" was something more than a popular phrase.
The latest and most comprehensive treatment of the California filibustering movements is,
Scroggs, William O., Filibusters and financiers (New York, 1916.)
Earlier authorities consulted in the preparation of this chapter are:
Wells, William V., Walker's expedition to Nicaragua, a history of the Central American war (New York, 1856.); and Walker, General William, The war in Nicaragua (New York, 1860).
Both of these volumes deal with Walker's Sonora and Lower California exploits. The best account of Crabb's expedition is in House Executive Documents, 35 cong. 1 sess. doc. 64.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FIRST DECADE OF POLITICS
DURING the decade immediately following the establish- ment of state government in California, politics never at- tained a very high level. Only a lukewarm interest was taken in national affairs, except as an action of Congress or the President promised to affect some matter of local concern. Even in the workings of their own state govern- ment, the people showed such little interest that political control passed almost entirely out of their keeping into the hands of a few skillful, energetic men, whose bitter rivalry for control of party machinery added an exciting, though unedifying, element to the otherwise monotonous course of local politics.
Curiously enough, the first California Legislature had met, performed its duties, and adjourned almost a year before California became a state. The capital had temporarily been fixed at San José by the constitutional convention, and here the two houses met on December 15, 1849, with sixteen members in the Senate and thirty-six in the Assembly.1
The chief work of this Legislature consisted in drafting a code of laws, providing revenue to meet the government's immediate needs, and electing William Gwin and John C. Frémont to the United States Senate. The body also at- tained a certain unique position in the state's history as the "Legislature of a Thousand Drinks," a name which owed its origin (so it is said) to the oft repeated motion of Senator Thomas J. Green, late of Texas, "to adjourn and take a thousand drinks."
The chief issues in state politics after the government 1 Each legislator received $16 a every twenty miles travelled to and day during the session, with an al- from the state capital. lowance of the same amount for
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was in actual operation included the location of a permanent capital; a conflict of interests between the mining counties on the one hand and the agricultural and commercial sec- tions on the other; the grievances of the South against the North, especially in connection with the levying of taxes, appointments to office, and apportionment of public funds; the question of state aid for stage and immigrant roads across the mountains; the sale of water front lots in San Francisco; the difficulty of enforcing law; and the protection of frontier counties from Indian depredations.
The permanent location of the state capital caused con- siderable stir both in the Legislature and among the rival cities contesting for the prize. San José and Monterey were the best known of these; but two as yet in embryo cities also offered their appeal. One of these, called by its spon- sors New York on the Pacific, made up in name what it lacked in size; the other, like the ancient city of Nehemiah, "was large and great; but the people were few and the houses not yet builded." 2
The site of this second prospective capital was a tract of land on the Straits of Carquinez belonging to General Vallejo. The latter offered to donate 156 acres to the state for public purposes and within two years provide $370,000 in cash for the erection of buildings, if the capital should be located on the proposed grant. A popular election authorized the change from San José to Vallejo, as the new site was called, and after a good deal of wrangling and some further offers from Vallejo, the Legislature accepted the General's proposal.
When the Legislature came together in January, 1852, however, some six months after Vallejo had agreed to pro- vide proper accommodations for its sessions and living quar- ters for its members, they found none of these things done. Nor was Vallejo able to live up to the other obligations he had undertaken. So the state government, after much confusion, departed bag and baggage from the Carquinez metropolis to Sacramento. It was not until 1854, however, that this city was made the permanent capital.
2 Suggested by William T. Foster in the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1920.
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When it became known that the government proposed to move to Sacramento the people of that city chartered a river steamer, the Empire, to convey the members of the Legislature to the new scene of their labors. The departure from Vallejo was thus described by a humorous and disrespect- ful correspondent of one of the contemporary newspapers:
"Bright and early therefore the next day the whole town was in commotion. Carpets were torn up from the floor, stoves and the long stove pipes came down on the run, the china chairs were tumbled in a heap out of the State House and carried in homogene- ous masses on men's heads down to the wharf. The bar-keepers, finding their occupation was gone, decided to stick by the Legisla- ture as their only safeguard, and decanters and tumblers, bars and bar fixtures, stoughton bitters, silver twirlers and champagne baskets went pell mell into confusion and down aboard the boat, mixed in with legislators, judges and private gentlemen who merely came in to see what the two houses were doing! The barber put his razor, his indiscriminate hair brush, and his supply of one towel into his pocket, shouldered his chair, and marched down to the Empire also. Here and there only was a long face marking some spectator who was gazing bewildered in the turmoil, and saying to himself, 'Fallen is Vallejo-Vallejo the magnificent.' While in the midst of the confusion the shrill notes of the washer- woman were heard, who was hurling elegant epithets against everything in general, the gay deceivers of the Legislature in par- ticular, and now and then interlarding her remarks with moral reflections touching unpaid bills, etc."
The rivalry between the mining and agricultural dis- tricts of the state was a far more serious affair than the question of the location of the capital. The friction, indeed, which arose out of this conflict of interests, especially that created by the question of taxation, was largely responsible for the frequent efforts at state division attempted during this period. For while San Francisco and other non-mining sections in the North had in some degree the same grievances as the South, yet the latter suffered far more keenly from the unjust burdens of taxation and the unequal distribution of state favors.
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Even as early as the constitutional convention a group of southern delegates had favored state division and sought the establishment of a territorial government for the counties they represented. In doing this they were actuated largely by the fear that the South, with its relatively scant popula- tion and its large land holdings, would be compelled, if united with the North, to bear a disproportionate share of the state's financial burden, while having but little voice in its government or share in its political rewards. This fear, fed also in some degree by the traditional antipathy of South to North inherited from the old days of Mexican control, found ample justification as the state government got under way.
In Governor McDougal's annual message of January 7, 1852, he pointed out that taxation throughout the state was in no sense proportionate either to population, or repre- sentation in the Legislature. The six southern counties, with a population of approximately 6,000, annually paid to the state $42,000 in taxes on real estate and personal prop- erty; the twelve counties chiefly devoted to mining, which represented 120,000 persons, escaped with only $21,000. In poll taxes the southern counties contributed nearly $4,000 to the state treasury: the mining counties, though assessed over $50,000 under this form of tax, actually paid only $3,500. Yet the southern counties, which, combined, paid twice the taxes of the mining sections, had only twelve representatives in the Legislature, while the mountain counties sent forty-four.
Figures of a similar nature were compiled from time to time by southern newspapers for the benefit of their already disgruntled constituents, and as a protest against the mani- fest injustice of the tax and representative apportionments.
"The overwhelming influence of the North in the legislature is seen in every act which has been passed within two years," said one Los Angeles newspaper in 1851. "The northern counties are engaged almost entirely in mining and contain very little land liable to taxation. As a consequence the burdens of taxation fall principally upon the South-burdens which our people are poorly able to bear."
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Another southern paper declared that the injustice
"worked by this unequal apportionment will account for the almost unanimous feeling of the southern people in favor of a separation from the north, and the establishment of a territorial govern- ment."
Again the Star sarcastically remarked that the Legislature at Sacramento gave never a thought to the insignificant "Cow Counties " of the South until it became necessary to raise additional revenue for state purposes.
Nor was the dissatisfaction confined to the question of taxation and representation alone. The non-mining sec- tions, North as well as South, were united in the feeling that the mining population, and their representatives at the capital, were ignorant of the state's needs and lacked interest in its welfare.
"They make laws for their own government," said the Daily Alta in speaking of the miners, "and in all things live, move, and almost think separately and apart, as though no bond of connec- tion or sympathy existed between their interests and those of the commercial cities and other sources of wealth of our infant state."
But while the non-mining counties in the North felt in some degree the injustice of these matters, they at least were able to secure sufficient benefits from the state, in the form of appropriations, special legislation, and appoint- ments to public office, to offset whatever inequalities they complained of. And as time went on, their growth in popu- lation enabled them also to obtain a fair degree of equality of representation with the mining counties.
The South, however, found no such compensation for its grievances, and for at least a decade continued the agitation for a division of the state. In 1851 this movement reached such serious proportions that a "Convention to Divide the State of California," was summoned to meet in Los Angeles on November 10. The call to this convention thus summed up the view-point of the South:
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"Whatever of good the experiment of a State government may have otherwise led to in California, for us of the Southern Counties it has proved only a splendid failure. The bitter fruits of it no county has tasted more keenly than Los Angeles. With all her immense and varied natural resources, her political, social and pecuniary condition at this moment is deplorable in the extreme- her industry paralyzed under the insupportable burden of taxa- tion; her port almost forsaken by commerce; her surplus products of no value on account of the enormous price of freights; her capital flying to other climes; a sense of utter insecurity of property per- vading all classes; and everything tending to increase and fasten upon her, in the guise of legislation, a state of actual oppression. A prey to incessant Indian depredations from without, and destitute of internal protection for our lives and property under laws as applicable to our wants and the character of the population, and withal a continued ruinous taxation impending over us, our future is gloomy indeed, as a community, if we shall fail in this appeal to our brethren of the North for the only redress consonant with our mutual interests-a Separation, friendly and peaceful but still complete, leaving the North and South to fulfill their grand destinies under systems of laws suited to each. . . . "
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