USA > California > History of California, Volume V > Part 11
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Not only were the Californians stripped of their property but they were robbed of their good name. "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." Unjust and cruelly false statements were made concerning the Spanish citizens, their government, their officials and all pertaining to them, until the Americans, with the prejudice of the Anglo-Saxon against the Latin race, came to look with suspicion on everything that was Mexican and some even believed that a Mexican had no rights that an American was bound to respect. Nor was this prejudice restricted to Americans living in California. In the case of the United States vs. Argüello, Justice Daniel said: "It can hardly admit of a rational doubt in the mind of any man who con- siders the character of much of the population of the late Spanish domain in America-sunk in ignorance, and marked by the traits which tyranny and degra- dation, political and moral, naturally and usually engender-that proofs, or rather statements, might be obtained, as to any fact or circumstance which it might be deemed desirable or profitable to establish."
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What a statement for a learned justice of the supreme court of the United States to make concerning a people of whom he knew little outside the statements of those who wished to despoil them!
The Honorable Jeremiah S. Black, attorney-general of the United States, in a report to the president in 1860 on California Land Titles, says: "The archives thus collected furnish irresistible proof that there had been an organized system of fabricating land titles carried on for a long time in California by Mexican officials; that forgery and perjury had been reduced to a regular occupation; that the making of false grants with the subornation of false witnesses to prove them, had become a trade and a business."
In a series of letters published by William Carey Jones, the writer severely criticised the attorney- general's statements and theories, exposed with skill and fairness some of Black's blunders and false pre- tensions, and said: "If the matter shall ever be strictly examined, it will be found that the various acts of congress in relation to the claims to land in California, and the way that those acts have been administered, have had the effect in a large degree to substantiate what is false and discredit what is true." There is no doubt that many simulated grants were presented to the commission and in such a way as to deceive the very elect. The American occupation, and in particular, the discovery of gold, had made the land valuable, and in ignoring testimony regarding years of undisputed and notorious occupation, as was done in many cases, the government opened the door to fraud. All sorts of claims never before heard
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of were presented for confirmation; the testimony of Mexicans of the lower sort was used to strengthen bogus grants, and some well known and prominent Americans found the graves of their reputations in the land commission and in the United States district court. The astute attorney-general and the learned jurist should not have limited their strictures to men of Spanish blood.
The land act by unsettling land titles and causing ceaseless litigation worked disaster to California. Had the genuine grants been promptly confirmed and patented large tracts of the best lands would naturally have been sold in small divisions to settlers. As it was, the estates passed for the most part into the hands of speculators. Had the recommendations of Jones for the prompt survey and patent of well-known valid grants been followed, it would have been well for the country. The doubt, uncertainty, retarded prog- ress, litigation, with its legacy of hatred, destruction of property, and bloodshed, resulting from the operation of the law would have been avoided. Josiah Royce says of the land act: "The devil's instrument it proved to be by our friendly cooperation, and we have got our full share of the devil's wage for our use of it."*
*Royce, California, p. 469.
THE "MORMONS" IN THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
T HE activities of the "Mormons " or Latter-day Saints in the history of California, antedate for the most part the admission of this com- monwealth into the American Union. For this reason I have chosen to take a larger view of the subject than one suggested by existing boundary lines. California, up to February, 1848, was a Mexican prov- ince, comprising the present states of California, Nevada, and Utah; here named in the order of their elevation to sovereignty. Any important happening, therefore, within that general area, prior to the time when it was ceded by Mexico to the great republic, may properly be regarded as an event connected with the history of the Golden State. In fact, the period might be extended to September, 1850, when divisional lines were drawn by congress, the territory of Utah organized, and California admitted into the Union; the boundary between these two sections of the original domain being fixed in the Sierra Nevada.
BRANNAN AND THE "BROOKLYN"
The first "Mormons" to set foot upon the coast of California, came by sea from New York, around Cape Horn, to the Bay of San Francisco. This was in 1846. They sailed on the ship Brooklyn, leaving New York early in February, and landing at Yerba Buena (now San Francisco) on the last day of July. They numbered two hundred and thirty-five men, women, and children, and were under the leadership of Samuel Brannan. The company was well supplied with farming imple- ments, mechanics' tools, and all the equipment neces- sary for a new settlement, which they proposed to
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found somewhere on the Pacific coast. These colonists, who were probably the first American sea-faring immi- grants to reach California, carried with them a printing press, type, paper, and other materials, with which they afterward published "The California Star," the second newspaper established in the province. Brannan in New York, had edited a paper called "The Prophet," published in the interest of the Latter-day Saints. He and his associates put up a printing office, and issued a copy of the "Star," within fourteen days. The company settled on the San Joaquin river, where they plowed, put in crops, and built houses of adobe, or sun-dried brick.
A MODERN EXODUS
The departure of the Brooklyn company from New York was incidental to a general westward move- ment on the part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the "Mor- mon" Church, which was then in its sixteenth year, and had its headquarters at Nauvoo, Illinois, on the east bank of the Mississippi river. Prior to the exodus from Illinois, the Church had migrated successively from three other states of the Union: namely, New York (where it had its origin), Ohio, and Missouri. The removals from Missouri and Illinois were compul- sory, resulting from religious and political differences between the Latter-day Saints and other inhabitants of those states.
In Illinois the Saints had prospered for a season, purchasing lands, building cities, establishing schools and newspapers, erecting a temple, sending missionaries
BRIGHAM YOUNG
Brigham Young, born at Whitingham, Vermont, June Ist, 1801, joined the "Mormon" Church at Mendon, New York, in 1832, and became its leader at Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844. He directed the exodus, or western migration of his people, and from July 1847, when he entered Salt Lake Valley, to the day of his death, August 29, 1877, the life of this famous Pioneer forms the backbone of the history of Utah, the State that he founded.
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through the United States, to Canada, and to Europe, and starting thence a stream of emigration that has done much to people, with the bone and sinew of Great Britain, Scandinavia, and other countries, the region of the Rocky mountains. The significance of this emigrational movement, from the "Mormon" point of view, is the gathering of scattered Israel, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy-a step preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah. In and around the city of Nauvoo, these proclaimers of a new gospel dispensation gathered to the number of about twenty thousand. Then came a repetition of their former painful experiences. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church, born at Sharon, Vermont, December 23, 1805, fell a victim to mob violence at Carthage, Illinois, June 27, 1844. His brother, Hyrum Smith, was slain at the same time.
This double tragedy, supplemented by the fiercest kind of opposition, including house-burnings and other depredations, brought about the exodus from Illinois, and the pilgrimage into the wilderness. That exodus had been contemplated by Joseph Smith, who, shortly before his death, had begun to plan for the removal of the Church into the great west. He had even organized an exploring expedition to the Rocky mountains, designated by him as the future home of his people. The execution of the project fell to his successor, Brigham Young, and the men surrounding him.
The Latter-day Saints began to leave Illinois about the first of February, 1846. Many of them crossed the frozen Mississippi on the ice. Most of their
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wagons were drawn by oxen, and some were driven by women and children. Moving slowly, and founding temporary settlements along the way, about the middle of June the first companies reached the Missouri river, and encamped at Council Bluffs, on the Pottawat- tamie Indian lands. There was no city-only the Bluffs, where Indian chiefs sometimes met in council. The Missouri river was then the frontier of the nation, and the migrating "Mormons" were upon the threshold of the wilderness, the extreme western fringe of civilization.
Beyond lay the broad plains where the savage red man roamed. Farther on were the snow-capped summits of the Rocky mountains; and farther still, the sun-burnt valleys and dry plateaus of "The Great American Desert," renamed by Frémont "The Great Basin," and separated from the Pacific coast by the towering Sierra. West of that rocky barrier the land was fertile, sloping down to the sea; but eastward, for many a weary league, it was a waste, almost treeless and waterless.
The only white occupants of this arid, rock-ribbed wilderness were a few rough mountaineers, living in lonely log forts, with their Indian wives and half-breed children, hunting the bear, trapping the beaver, trading with the natives, and acting as guides for emigrant trains or chance travelers to or from the western ocean. Several thousand Americans had settled among Spaniards and Indians along the Pacific coast, but none had settled here-Salt Lake valley, with its environs, was a spot desired by none, shunned by all.
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This desolate inter-mountain region belonged to Mexico, and was part of the province of Upper Cali- fornia, distinguished by its title from Lower California, the peninsula still bearing that name. Eastward there was another Mexican province-New Mexico-which included Arizona. North of these provinces was Ore- gon, including Washington, Idaho, and other parts. Oregon was a bone of contention between the United States and Great Britain, both countries claiming it. Such was the posture of affairs in the west at the period of the Mormon exodus.
Just before the beginning of that movement, an agent of the Latter-day Saints, acting under instruc- tions from President Brigham Young, went to the city of Washington, to solicit governmental aid for his people. No gift of money or of other means was asked-only employment in freighting provisions and naval stores to Oregon, or to other points on the Pacific. The agent, Jesse C. Little, who seems to have presented his petition after the exodus began, stated that many of his co-religionists had already left Illinois for Cali- fornia, and that thousands of others, in the United States and in the British Isles, would go there as soon as they were able.
Let me here interject that Upper California, or that part of it in the region of the Rocky mountains, became the theme of a "Mormon" hymn, sung on both sides of the Atlantic, during the period of the early settlement of the Great Basin.
President Polk received Little kindly, and promised to do what he could for the homeless people. War was then pending between the United States and
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Mexico, and in April of that year hostilities began on the Texan border. By this time the "Mormon" vanguard was well on its way across Iowa, heading for the Missouri river. After the victories of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, won by General Zachary Taylor on the ninth and tenth of May, it was decided to strike the enemy at three points simultaneously: General Taylor to continue operations along the Rio Grande; General Scott to invade Mexico from the Gulf coast; and General Stephen W. Kearny, with a third army, to march overland and capture the Mexi- can provinces in the west. A portion of Kearny's force was to be recruited from the "Mormon" camps on the frontier. Five hundred able-bodied men were to be called for, or given the privilege of volunteering in their country's cause. They were to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and march to the Pacific coast; the term of enlistment being twelve months.
THE MORMON BATTALION
The first intimation had by the "Mormon" leaders respecting this purpose of the government, was the appearance at Mt. Pisgah, one of their temporary settle- ments in Iowa, of an army recruiting officer, Captain James Allen, who issued a circular, making known the wishes of General Kearny concerning the troops to be raised. Allen then went on to the Bluffs, to confer with President Young and other leading men of the Church. Coming at such a time, without warning, and embodying a proposition so different from the one submitted by Agent Little at Washington, the call created at first some consternation. A force of team-
COLONEL COOKE
Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, U. S. A., a native of Virginia, born in 1809, was graduated from West Point in 1827, and saw service in Illinois and in Kansas before the Mexican War, during which he commanded the Mormon Battalion in its march from Santa Fe into Southern Cali- fornia. During the Civil War he fought for the Union; was retired in 1873, after forty-six years of continuous army service, and died March 20, 1895.
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sters, with wagons to freight stores and supplies, was one thing; a battalion of five hundred fighting men was quite another. In the midst of an exodus rife with dangers and hardships, the services of that number of able-bodied men could ill be spared.
But there was no hesitation. "You shall have your battalion, Captain Allen," said President Young, "and if there are not young men enough, we will take the old men; and if they are not enough, we will take the women;" a touch of grim humor tempering the stern- ness of the resolve. Colonel Thomas L. Kane, U. S. A., who came with Agent Little to the Bluffs, in his account of the enlistment of the battalion, summarized the incident thus: "A central mass meeting for council, some harangues at the more remotely scattered camps, an American flag brought out from the store-house of things rescued and hoisted to the top of a tree-mast, and in three days the force was reported, mustered, organized, and ready to march."
The date of enlistment was the 16th of July. Five hundred and forty-nine persons, including several families of women and children, who went with their husbands and fathers, composed the Mormon battalion. The five companies were commanded, respectively, by Captains Jefferson Hunt, Jesse D. Hunter, James Brown, Nelson Higgins, and Daniel C. Davis. The volunteers were equipped at Fort Leavenworth, and marched thence to Santa Fe, which town had already surrendered to General Kearny.
At Santa Fe, by the general's order, Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, of the regular army, took command of the battalion, which then began its arduous march
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across the dreary plains and rugged mountains of New Mexico, into southern California. Their route was by way of the Rio Grande, the Gila, the Colorado, and the San Pedro. They tramped, from the Missouri to the Pacific, a distance of over two thousand miles, pioneering much of the way through an unknown wilderness. Colonel Cooke said of this achievement: "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry." Short rations, lack of water, with excessive toil in road-making, well-digging, and forced marching, caused much suffering, some sickness, and several deaths in the battalion. Even before reaching Santa Fe, many were disabled and prevented from going farther. These invalid detachments-less than one hundred men, with most of the women and all the children-were put in charge of Captains Brown and Higgins, and ordered to Pueblo, now in Colorado. The main body, including four or five women who accom- panied their husbands, pushed on to the Pacific coast, arriving near San Diego late in January, 1847.
General Kearny, by a more direct route, had reached the coast some time earlier, though with only a few men, having disbanded most of his force on learning that California was already in possession of the United States; Colonel John C. Frémont, the explorer, aided by Commodores Sloat, Montgomery, and Stockton, and the American settlers of Sacramento valley, having all but subdued the country before Kearny arrived. Cooke's command had driven out the Mexican garrison of Tucson, but they had no other opportunity to engage the enemy. Their most exciting experience was a "battle with the bulls," on the San Pedro river,
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where they were attacked by an army of wild cattle, and narrowly escaped dispersion, if not destruction, from the fierce horns and hoofs of the innumerable horde.
Fort-building and garrison service were the principal occupations of these volunteers during their remaining months of service. They were quartered at San Diego, San Luis Rey, and Los Angeles, and performed their duties in such a manner as to call forth the commen- dation of the United States officers, and at the same time to win the good will of the conquered Californians. While in garrison they were permitted to accept outside employment, offered them by civilians in the towns where they were stationed. They made and burnt the first bricks in San Diego, and probably in all California. A squad of the battalion men served as General Kearny's escort, when, in May, he set out for Washington, accompanied by Colonel Frémont, the latter charged with insubordination, for refusing to recognize the general's authority.
In July, at the expiration of their year's term of enlistment, the battalion was honorably discharged at Los Angeles. There, at the urgent request of Governor R. B. Mason, Kearny's successor as military comman- dant, eighty-one of them rëenlisted, and were ordered back to garrison San Diego; their comrades setting out to rejoin their families or friends, left upon the far away frontier. Some of these discharged soldiers were next heard of in connection with the California gold discovery.
Governor Mason, in his report to the adjutant- general, September 18, 1847, said: "Of the services of
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the battalion, of their patience, subordination, and general good conduct, you have already heard; and I take great pleasure in adding that as a body of men they have religiously respected the rights and feelings of this conquered people; not a syllable of complaint has reached my ear of a single insult offered or outrage done by a Mormon volunteer. So high an opinion did I entertain of the battalion, and of their special fitness for the duties now performed by the garrisons in this country, that I made strenuous efforts to engage their services for another year."
Henry G. Boyle, one of the volunteers, gives to history the following items of information: "I think I white-washed all San Diego. We did their blacksmith- ing, put up a bakery, made and repaired carts, and, in fine, did all we could to benefit ourselves as well as the citizens. We never had any trouble with the Califor- nians or Indians, nor they with us. The citizens became so attached to us, that before our term of service expired they got up a petition to the governor to use his influ- ence to keep us in the service. The petition was signed by every citizen in the town."
THE UTAH PIONEERS
The original enlistment of the battalion had caused the postponement of a project formed by the "Mormon " leaders before reaching the Missouri river- namely, the sending of a company of pioneers to explore the Rocky mountains and look out a home for the main body of their people. Had it not been for that enlist- ment, Upper California would have been penetrated by
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the founders of Utah as early as the summer of 1846. Owing to the postponement, they did not enter Salt Lake valley until a year later.
From the east to the Pacific coast, there were three routes of travel, two of them by sea. One doubled Cape Horn, one crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and the third was from the frontier over the plains. Westward travel on the overland route usually started from Independ- ence, Missouri, the main outfitting point on the frontier. Most of the emigrants traveled in companies for mutual aid and protection. The regular route was up the Platte river, along the Sweetwater, and through South Pass, now in Wyoming. West of this point, those going to Oregon would turn north, while those bound for California would follow Bear river, skirt the north- ern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and then cross the country to the Sierra Nevada.
The people at Council Bluffs, after the departure of the battalion, crossed to the west side of the Missouri, and built, by permission of the Omaha Indians, the little town of Winter Quarters, now Florence, Nebraska. From that point the pioneers, about the middle of April, 1847, set out upon their journey to the Rocky mountains. They numbered one hundred and forty- three men, three women, and two children. Their leader was Brigham Young. The men were armed with rifles and small weapons, and a cannon was taken along to overawe hostile Indians. In their covered wagons they carried plows, seed grain, and a year's supply of provisions. They also took with them a case of sur- veyor's instruments, afterward used in laying out Salt Lake City. One of the party invented an odometer,
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to measure the distance traveled. In all there were seventy-two wagons, drawn by horses, mules and oxen. Mounted men were few. Most of the pioneers, like the emigrants who followed them, walked the greater part of the way, a distance of over a thousand miles. They were required to be watchful and prayerful, to sacredly observe the Sabbath, and respect the rights of the red men.
Most travelers to the west passed up the south bank of the Platte. The pioneers chose the north bank, and broke a new trail, now covered for hundreds of miles by the Union Pacific railroad. Streams too deep to ford were crossed by means of a leather boat, which served as a wagon box while traveling. Rafts were also used, made from cottonwood trees growing along the banks. Some of the streams were only about two feet deep, but at the bottom were beds of quicksand, dangerous to teams, and almost pulling a wagon to pieces. As a rule, the Indians-mostly Pawnees and Sioux-were friendly, though some of them set fire to the prairie, burning the grass needed by these travelers as feed for their animals, and ran off horses belonging to the company. As a means of protection at night, the wagons were corraled in a circle or an oval, with the tongues outside; a fore wheel of each wagon locked in a hind wheel of the one ahead. The stock were kept inside the enclosure thus formed. The prairie swarmed with buffalo, but the pioneers killed game only when they needed it for food. Now and then the skull of a dead bison, bleaching on the plains, served as a post office, in which to leave letters for friends who were following.
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The pioneers crossed the Platte at Fort Laramie, a station of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, hiring for that purpose a ferry-boat, from a Frenchman in charge of the post. In the Black Hills they constructed a ferry of their own, and helped over the river at that point several companies of Missourians, bound for Oregon; receiving their pay in flour, meal, and bacon at eastern prices. At Laramie they were reinforced by a small party of "Mormon" emigrants from Mississippi.
West of the Rocky mountain "divide" they met Colonel James Bridger, builder and part proprietor of Fort Bridger, the second permanent trading post on the overland route. Bridger's "fort" was nothing more than a double log house, surrounded by a stock- ade of posts, driven into the ground. It was situated on a number of small islands, in Black's fork of Green river, where the colonel held lands under a grant from the Mexican government. He advised President Young not to settle in the Great Basin, until it had been demonstrated that grain could be raised here, and banteringly offered a thousand dollars for the first ear of corn that ripened in Salt Lake valley. Other mountaineers were equally pessimistic in their reports concerning this region.
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