USA > California > A memorial and biographical history of the coast counties of Central California > Part 7
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Colton, in his book, "Three Years in Cali- fornia," gives some detaclied but exceedingly graphic pictures of the California of nearly
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half a century ago, which lose nothing of their interest by contrast with the California of to-day. Thus, all old-timers will recognize the following: " A Californian is most at home in his saddle; there he has some claims to originality, if not in character, then in cos- tume. His hat, with its conical crown and broad rim, throws back the sun's rays from its dark, glazed surface. It is fastened on by a band which passes nnder his chin, and rests on a red handkerchief, which turbans his head, from beneath which his black locks flow out upon the wind.
" The collar of his linen rolls over that of his blue spencer, which is open under the chin, is fitted closely to his waist, and often ornamented with double rows of buttons and silk braid. His trousers, which are fastened around his loins by a red sash, are open to the knee, to which his buckskin leggins ascend over his white cotton drawers. His buckskin shoes are armed with heavy spurs, which have a shaft some ten inches long, at the end of which is a roller, which bristles out into six points, three inches long, against which steel plates rattle with a quick, sharp sound.
"His feet rest in stirrups of wood carved from the solid oak, and extremely strong and heavy. His saddle rises high, fore and aft, and is broadly skirted with leather, which is stamped into figures, through the interstices of which red and green silk flash out with gay effect. The reins of his bridle are thick and narrow, and the headstall is profusely ornamented with silver plate. His horse,
with his long flowing mane, arching neck, broad chest, full flanks, and slender legs, is full of fire. He seldom trots, and will gallop all day, without seeming to be weary. On his back is the Californian's home. Leave him this home, and you may have the rest of the world."
The main vehicle for transportation in use by Californians in early times was the ox-cart, or careta, of solid wooden wheels, already inentioned. Concerning this unique institu- tion so serviceable in the primitive pastoral period, when no other kind of carriage was attainable, and which has continued in use on some of the interior ranches, even to the present day, Colton thius writes: "On gala days it is swept out and covered with mats; a deep body is put on, which is archied with hoop-poles, and over these a pair of sheets are extended for a covering. Into this the ladies are tumbled, when three or four yoke of oxen, with as many Indian drivers and ten times as many dogs, start ahead. The hal- looing of the drivers, the barking of the dogs, and the loud laughter of the girls, make a a common chorns. The quail takes to the covert as the roaring establishment comes on, and even the owl suspends his melancholy note. What has his sad tone to do amid such noise and mirth? It is like the piping cry of an infant amid the revelry and tumult of the carnival."
" The wild Indians here (says Colton) have a vagne belief in the soul's immortality. They say, 'As the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so man, though he die, will again
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live.' But their future state is material; the wicked are to be bitten by serpents, scorched by lightning and plunged down cataracts, while the good are to hunt their game with bows that never lose their vigor, with arrows that never miss their aim, and in forests where the crystal streams roll over golden sands. Immortal youth is to be the portion of each, and age and pain and death are to be known no more." This is more like the idealized dream of the white man of civiliza- tion than the creed of the ignorant aborigine of California.
Under date of September 14, 1846, Colton makes this note of the advance guard of overland immigration: "A letter from the Sacramento received to-day informs ine of the arrival of 2,000 immigrants from the United States. They are under the guidance of experienced inen, and have been but a lit- tle over four months on the way."
The California of the period of which Col- ton writes was almost exclusively a pastoral country; and the interior was occupied by many thousands of Indians, a portion of whom had been partly Christianized by the missionaries, who had labored zealously, but with indifferent success, three-quarters of a century, in an almost hopeless attempt to make good Christians and good citizens of Indians, who, by nature were incapable of any high degree of moral, intellectual, or so- cial development. Besides these so-called mission Indians, which came to be known by the name of the mission with which they had been connected, as " Migueleños," " Barbar-
eñons," " Diegueños," etc., there were many wild or " unconverted " or gentile Indians throughout the interior of California.
But all the Indians, whether quasi-Chris- tianized or not, were distinguished from Mex- icans or from people of European descent, by being called, not altogether inaptly, bestias or gente sin razon, i. e., “ beasts, or people without reason ;" for their reasoning powers, or capacity for mental development seemed to have been extremely limited.
Very probably, the fact that it was an impossibility to make full-fledged citizens of the Indians of California, influenced the Mexican Governinent to secularize the mis- sions and grant the lands, which they had claimed, to gente de razon, - settlers who were capable of citizenship, and of self-gov- ernment. The liberal policy, adopted a dozen years before the transfer of the Territory to the United States. of granting land to actual settlers was a wise one; and under it Cali- fornia increased in population and prosperity. As the missionaries had demonstrated, she was especially adapted to pastoral pursuits. And, although they showed that her fertile valleys were also fitted for horticulture and agriculture, it was better that her territory should be divided up into many ranches managed by their owners, even if devoted to stock-raising, than that it should be under the sway of a comparatively few friars, who, though they controlled vast numbers of In- dian laborers, could never, with such material, as the result showed, build a State or a real commonwealth, with all that that term im-
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plied. And, as in a civic sense, the era of ranches, or of actual settlers on large farms, was an advance on the mission regime, so the later division of the big ranches into small holdings, and the substitution of diversified industries for the single occupation of stock- raising, are another and a longer step in the process of State evolution.
In 1846, when Colton was appointed al- calde of Monterey by Commodore Stockton, California's beautiful and luxuriant valleys were all unfenced and unoccupied, save by scattered rancheros and their countless herds of cattle, horses or sheep; now they are very generally cultivated in grain or fruit, and not infrequently fenced; then the roads were few and the only modes of locomotion were on horseback or on foot, except that caretas, with solid wooden wheels, hauled by oxen with yokes strapped to their horns with raw- hide thongs, were used by the rancheros to convey their families from ranch to ranch, or from ranch to town, or to church on Sundays, or dias de fiesta. Now the principal valleys of the State are traversed by railroads and cities are gridironed by street-car lines. Thus Commodore Sloat was compelled, in return- ing to the Atlantic States, to sail around Cape Horn, a distance of 15,000 miles; and Lientenant Gillespie found the quickest and safest route by which he could bring dis- patches from Washington to Consul Larkin and to the military and naval commanders on this coast, was by way of Vera Cruz and across Mexico to Mazatlan, and from thencc by a United States sloop-of-war to Monterey;
while Frémont, with an armed mounted force had been sent out by Government to explore or find a path across the continent on our own territory. Now a courier can travel from ocean to ocean in palace cars by one of several continental routes in five or six days.
On entering upon his duties as alcade of Monterey, Colton records that when he went ashore from the flag-ship, the Congress, lie was hospitably received at the house of Con- sul Larkin. " This," he adds, " is the more appreciated from the fact that there is not a public table or hotel, in all California. High or low, rich or poor, are thrown together on the private liberality of the citizens. Though a quasi war exists, all the amenities and courtesies of life are preserved; your person, life and liberty are as sacred at the hearth of the Californian as they would be at your own fireside."
All Americans who lived in California in the early times will bear witness to the truthfulness of this picture. He further says: " My jurisdiction (as alcalde) extends over an immense extent of territory, and over a most heterogeneous population. Almost every nation has, in some emigrant, a representative here-a representative of its peculiar habits, virtues and vices. And then he gives a list, which includes with their characteristics, the Californian, the Indian, the trapper of the West, the Mexican, Spaniard, Englishman, Frenchman, German, Irishman, Russian and Mormon. " All have come here with the expectation of finding but little work, and less law. Through this discordant mass, he
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exclaims: " I am to maintain order, punish crime and redress injuries."
He gives a few prices current thus: " Un- bleached cottons, fifty cents the yard; shirt- ings, seventy-five; plain knives and forks, $10 the dozen; the cheapest tea, $3 the pound. The duty on a cheap straw hat is $3."
Of the bigness of the ranches in those days, when land was not of much value, he says: " It sounds strange to an American, and much more to an Englishman, to hear Cali- fornians talk of farms. They never speak of acres or even miles; they deal only in leagues. A farm of four or five leagues is considered quite small. It is not so large, in the con- ception of this people, as was the one-acre farm of Horace in the estimation of the Ro- mans. Captain Sutter's farm in the valley of the Sacramento is sixty miles long. The Californians speak in the same way of the stock on their farms;" a thrifty ranchero having 2,000 horses, or 15,000 cattle, etc. Some families had from fourteen to twenty odd children.
Colton's journal, August 12, 1846, records the arrival at Monterey, thirty days from Mazatlan, of the United States ship Warren, bringing the exciting news that war had been declared between the United States and Mex- ico, which he says " produced a profound sensation." " It was an extinguisher on the hopes of those who had looked to Mexico for aid, or who had clung to the expecta- tion that the American Government would repudiate our possession of California and order the squadrou withdrawn."
October 1, the French man-of-war Brill- ante arrived, bringing J. A. Morenhout as French Consul to Monterey. Afterward M. Morehout became vice-consnl at Los Angeles, where he resided many years and where he died in July, 1879.
As war between the United States and Mexico was now being waged vigorously, Commodore Stockton determined to raise as large a force as possible, and go south and take a hand in the fight, on the west coast of Mexico. But the unsettled state of affairs in California prevented him from carrying out his intentions. Although the better class of Californians as a rule did not countenance these uprisings, and took no part in them, the disturbances caused considerable tronble to the new officials. They were mostly fo- mented by restless, dissatisfied and irrespon- sible persons, to whom the new rule was dis- tasteful.
Frémont, with his headquarters at Mon- terey, was very active in raising recruits, and in securing horses for his battalion, which afterward became somewhat famous. There are still many old-timers, both in central and southern California, who remember well the exploits and marches of Frémont's battalion : and quite a number of its members are still living in 1892.
The battalion numbered over 400 men, mostly frontiersmen and expert marksmen, and was really a formidable military force. September 4, 1846, the first jury trial under the new regime took place, at Mon- terey. The plaintiff, Isaac Graham, an
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Englishman, charged Carlos Roussillon, a Frenchman, with stealng lumber. One-third each of the jury were respectively, Ameri- cans, Mexicans and Californians, and the wit- nesses represented about all the languages known in California. Hartnell, the linguist, acted as an interpreter; there were no law- yers. The trial lasted all day, the jury de- liberated an hour, acquitted the defendant of intentional theft, but ordered him to pay for the lumber, and decreed that the plaintiff should pay the costs of court.
On the night of November 15, Consul Larkin, while on his way from Monterey to San Francisco, was captured at Gomez' ranche, by a squad of Castro's men, the object being, apparently, to hold him as a hostage to be exchanged for certain Californians who had broken their parole. Larkin was well treated, however. Later, he was sent south and turned over to Flores, at Los Angeles, where he was finally released, January 9, '47, just before Stockton's occupation of Los Angeles; and he arrived back in Monterey early in the next month. Larkin witnessed, as a prisoner, the desperate fight between the Californians and Americans, at Natividad, where the former were dispersed. On the 17th of November, Frémont with his force set out from Monterey in search of Castro's men, but did not find them. At San Juan he completed the organization of his battalion for service in the south.
January 22, 1847, Commodore Shubrick, on the Independence, arrived at Monterey, to take command of the United States Naval
forces on the Pacific coast; and a few days later came Captain Tompkins, with a com- pany of artillery, on the Lexington; and Feb- ruary 8, General Kearny, came up from San Diego, on the Cyane.
Commodore Stockton, January 16, had appointed Frémont as Governor, Russell as Secretary of State, and a number of citizens as a Legislative Council; but this latter body never met, as some of its members de- clined to serve.
Referring to the conflict of authority which had arisen, between Stockton and Frémont on the one hand, and Shubrick and Kearny on the other, and to the difficulty of obtain- ing funds in the department for current ex- penses, Lieutenant Colonel Cook, under date of March 12, at San Luis Rey, wittily wrote: " General Kearny is supreme, somewhere up the coast; Colonel Frémont is supreme at Pueblo de los Angeles; Commodore Stockton is commander-in-chief at San Diego; Com- modore Shubrick the same at Monterey ; and I at San Luis Rey; and we are all supremely poor, the Government having no money, and no credit; and we hold the territory because Mexico is poorest of all." On February 23, 1847, Colonel R. B. Mason, of the dragoons, and Lieutenant Watson, of the navy, arrived at Monterey, bringing later orders from Washington, directing that Kearny, and, in his absence, Mason, should be recognized as civil and military governor; and that to the commander of the naval forces should be committed the regulation of the import trade, and of the conditions on which ves-
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sels should be allowed to enter the ports of the Territory, etc .; and a joint notice or cir- cular was published fixing Monterey as the capital on the first of March, 1847. A separate proclamation by General Kearny, as governor, in English and Spanish, at the same date, addressed to the people of Cali- fornia, was published.
On the 31st of May, General Kearny and escort, and Frémont, with nineteen members of his original exploring party, and others, left Montery for the East, overland, arriving at Fort Leavenworth on the 22d day of Au- gust. A month or two later, Commodore Stockton and party also left for the East, ar- riving at St. Joseph in November, and at Washington about December 1st.
Colonel R. B. Mason, on the departure of Kearny, became his successor as military governor. January 28, 1847, the United States vessel Lexington brought to Monterey Company F of the Third Artillery, and also guns and military supplies. Among its offi- cers were names which have since become famous. Its lieutenants were E. O. C. Ord and William T. Sherman, and H. W. Hal- leck, the latter of the engineer corps. Its captain, H. S. Burton, was temporarily at- tached to General Stevenson's regiment, but on the mustering out of the latter in Califor- nia, at the close of the war in 1848, he re- turned to his own command. This company did garrison duty at Monterey for some time. Lieutenant (afterward General) Sherinan acted as assistant adjutant-general under Governor Mason.
There may be yet living citizens who re- member pleasantly the presence, forty-five years ago, in Monterey, of this artillery com- pany, with its genial officers. While they were stationed here, gold was discovered, turning things upside down in California, and electrifying the world.
CHAPTER XI.
DISCOVERY OF GOLD.
N an address in New York, April 6, 1892, Senator Jolin Sherman gave extracts from the following letter from his brother, Lieutenant W. T. Sherman, which gives an interesting and characteristic picture of the Monterey of that period. It is dated ---
" MONTEREY, August 24, 1848. "Gold in immense quantities has been dis- covered. All the town and farms are aban- doned, and nobody left on the coast but soldiers, and now that the New York Volun- teers are disbanded, there remain in service but two companies. Our men are all desert- ing, as they can earn, by so doing, in one day, more than a soldier's pay for a month. Everything is high in price, beyond our reach, and not a nigger in California bnt what gets more pay than we officers do. Of course, we are running into debt, merely to live. I have not been so hard up in my life, and really see no chance of extricating myself. All others here in the service of the United States are as badly off. Even Colonel Mason himself has been compelled to assist in cook- ing his own meals. Merchants are making fortunes, for gold : such as I sent you can be
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bought at $8 or $10 an ounce, and goods command prices thirty times higher than in New York. * *
* This gold is found in the beds of streams, in dry quarries, in fact, mingled with the earth, over a large extent of country, and the whole cannot be extracted in centuries. I have not the least doubt that $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 have al- ready been extracted, and men are getting from' their individual labor from $5,000 to $8,000 a month! This is not fiction. It is the truth. I went with Governor Mason and saw the evidences of it myself."
EFFECTS OF THE GREAT GOLD DISCOVERIES.
Of course the discovery of gold (in Jann- ary, 1848) disturbed the quiet course of events at Monterey, as it did in every other community in California. Bancroft says (Vol. VI., p. 63), " At the capital, a letter from Larkin gave the impulse, and about the same time, upon the statement of Swan, four Mormons called at Monterey, en route for Los Angeles, who were reported to carry 100 pounds avoirdupois of gold gathered in less than a month at Mormon Island. This was in June. A fortnight after, the town was depopulated, 1,000 starting from that vicinity within a week!"
Governor Mason tried to check desertion of the military forces under his command, but practically gave up the attempt. Gen- eral Sherman, in his memoirs (I., 46) says: " I of course could not escape the infection, and at last convinced Colonel Mason that it was our duty to go up and see with our own
eyes, that we might report the truth to our Government." Mason's official report of August 17, to the adjutant-general at Wash- ington, which carried great weight in con- vincing people in the East, because of its official character, of the richness of the mines, was based largely on what he saw during this trip.
RADICAL ECONOMIC CHANGES.
The radical economic changes wrought throughout California by the discovery near by, and the production, in such enormous volume, of that commodity by which the value of all other commodities was measured, could be but imperfectly understood abroad. The sudden and violent changes in the value of all property, caused by the sudden abun- dance and consequent cheapening of gold, upset, financially, many people, sometimes in the most unexpected manner. That many, and often those who were most reckless, were made rich; and that many, and not infre- quently those who were the most careful, were made poor, were facts of common occur- rence, which should not cause surprise.
People living in old communities, where values have acquired stability, often criticise the judgment of those who, in a new placer- mining country, are overwhelmed or bank- rupted, or who have not made the fortunes they might have made; when these same smug critics, if placed in similar positions, would very likely have met a similar fate. The world's material values are seldom dis- turbed by the discovery of placer or surface mines of gold, so enormously rich as those
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found in California and Australia about the middle of the present century, and which added to the world's stock of gold in twenty- five years an amount equal to that already in the hands of man, or more than three thousand million dollars.
Consul Larkin sent from Monterey, June 1, 1848, the first official account of the dis- coveries of gold in California; and a month later he and Commodore Jones sent letters by Lieutenant E. F. Beale, to Secretary of State Buchanan, giving further information about the wonderful richness and extent of the placers; all of which set the people of the East, and of the world, aflame with ex- citement, causing a movement from all parts of the world toward the new El Dorado equaled only in magnitude by the crusades of the middle ages.
News of the ratification of a treaty of peace between the United States and Mexico was received in California, August 8, 1848, and was duly celebrated by the people on the 11th of the same month.
General Persifer F. Smith arrived at San Francisco, and suspended or superseded Colo- nel Mason as military commander of Califor- nia, February 26, 1849. The latter returned east, and died the same year at St. Louis, aged about sixty years.
April 12, Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett Riley of the Second United States Infantry, arrived at Monterey on the Iowa, with his brigade, numbering about 650 men. He brought orders from the Secretary of War to take
charge of the administration of civil affairs in California.
The situation of California at this time, as Bancroft well says (VI., 276), was not like "that of Oregon, which was without laws until a provisional government was formed; but was nearly identical with that of Louisi- ana, whose laws were recognized as valid until constitutionally repealed." The laws of Mexico were in force in California at the time of the conquest by the United States, and theoretically should remain in force until abolished or replaced by new ones enacted under United States authority, -unless, in- deed, the country should be governed wholly by military rule, which would not have long been tolerated by the people.
Of course after the conquest of California, and until a new civil government was estab- lished, there were many irregularities and anomalies in the administration of the affairs of the conquered Territory. Alcaldes, whether appointed by the military or naval commander, or elected by the people, continued, as under the Mexican system, to be very important officers, each in their several localities. And till new laws and new rules were provided under the new regime, naturally these officers, even when Americans, continued to perform their duties according to Mexican customs, modified at times by common sense and their own intuitions of natural justice, and in doubtful cases the right of appeal to the governor was allowed. Their provisional or de facto government, partly based on antece- dent conditions, and partly evolved from the
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necessities of the situation, probably answered the exigencies of the people nearly as well as a regularly established territorial or provis- ional government would have done.
CHAPTER XII.
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
N the 3d of June, 1849, General Riley, who succeeded Governor Mason as mili- tary governor of California, in accord- ance with instructions from Washington, issued his proclamation to the people, calling on them to elect delegates to a convention to meet at Monterey, September 1, to formulate a State Constitution, which was deemed an urgent necessity, as the provincial govern- ment, existing since the conquest of Califor- nia by the United States, was, in the nature of things, only temporary and transitional in its character, and by no means adequate to the needs of so incongruons and rapidly growing a population as that which now occupied the Territory. The discovery of the richest and most extensive placer gold fields that had hitherto ever been known in any age or country, had drawn people here from every part of the civilized world, so that the population had now become thoroughly cos- mopolitan. Spanish or Mexican civilization, which had supplanted to a considerable ex- tent the savagery or lack of all civilization of the Indians, was now in turn overrun, not only by "hordes of Yankees," as Governor Pio Pico phrased it, but by a flood of immi- gration from every nation under the sun.
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