USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > History of the San Francisco Committee of vigilance of 1851 : a study of social control on the California frontier in the days of the gold rush > Part 11
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The characteristics of the time are well illustrated by the experiences of Stephen J. Field, who became in later years chief justice of the state.10 He reached San Francisco at the elose of December, 1849, and within three weeks moved inland to the present site of Marysville. The town, then known as Yubaville, had already attracted nearly a thousand people. A day or two after Field's arrival a civic organization was effected, and the young lawyer was elected first alcalde. Hle was sworn into office by the judge of the Court of First Instance in Sacramento, and in order to cover all contingencies that might arise under the impending change of laws, the prefect of the district obtained for him the governor's appointment as a justice of the peace.
" Bran's History and Directory of Nevada County, 1867, p. 65, stated that the first mining ditch in California was projected at Nevada City, March, 1850.
8 Royce, California, pp. 287-290, 301.
9 The old officers were retained until successors could be elected (Califor- nia, Statutes, 1850, chap. 23, p. 77, sec. 2). Miners' alcaldes of this period are mentioned in Taylor, Eldorado, II, 17; A. B. Clarke, Travels in Mexico and California, 1852, p. 137. Many of Shinn's examples of camp organiza- tion also belong to these months.
10 See S. J. Field, Personal Reminiseences of Early Days in California, [1893], pp. 18-37, 243; Baneroft, California, VI, 463-464; Amy and Amy, Marysville Directory for 1856. p. 5. The Register of Suits before the First Alcalde of Marysville, January to May, 1850, preserved in the archives of Yuba County, confirms Field's Reminiscences.
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The new magistrate was aware that the functions of the alcaldes were strictly defined by statutes, but he found that in the irregular conditions of the interregnum they exercised almost unlimited power. He therefore took jurisdiction over every case that was brought before him, and did his best to preserve order in spite of his ignorance of Mexican law. The lack of a jail forced him to sentence convicted criminals to corporal pun- ishment, but this stern discipline was approved by the com- munity, which exhibited an excellent understanding of the meas- ures that were required for the administration of justice. The prompt methods of his court are shown by the proceedings in a case of burglary that occurred at four o'clock on an April morning. The alcalde issued warrants for the thieves, and they were pursued, arrested, indicted by a grand jury, convicted by a petit jury, sentenced, whipped, and turned out of town within twelve hours.
Various experiments in local organization were also products of the winter and spring of 1849 to 1850. The residents of Stock- ton, for instance, tried to effect municipal organization, and elected a council that proved to be an illegal body. It hastily adjourned when the councilmen discovered that they were per- sonally responsible for the obligations they had incurred.11
In November Sonora felt the need of a public hospital, and in order to raise funds for the purpose adopted a town govern- ment with a council of seven, and transferred the acting alcalde, C. F. Dodge, to the position of mayor.12 Sacramento, which had
11 History of San Joaquin County, 1879, p. 24. On Oct. 25, 1849, Thomas B. Van Buren, "prosecuting attorney of the District of San Joaquin," wrote to Halleck that as the citizens of Stockton had already contributed $7000 for the prosecution of criminals, purchased a prison ship, and under- taken municipal improvements, they desired help from the government in defraying further expenses ( Archives, "Unbound Docs.,"' 49).
12 On April 29, 1850, Major Sullivan was elected alcalde, "withont governmental authority and solely to meet an immediate emergency," His- tory of Tuolumne County [by Lang], 18, 25; Bancroft, California, VI, 469-470.
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tried unsuccessfully to install a form of town government in the spring of 1849, elected a council in July. It was, however, helpless to enforce order, as the people had failed to declare the boundaries of the city, and to fix the duties of the councilmen.13 After a struggle with the disorderly element, which preferred the existing state of lieense, a charter was adopted in October; but the officials were unchecked by any wise limitations of power, and quickly accumulated a heavy debt. The situation was not relieved until the spring of 1850, when a better charter was acquired from the legislature. The mountain camp known as Rough and Ready, near Nevada City, found itself with a large population early in 1850, and the residents in mass meeting appointed a committee of three to settle disputes and to admin- ister justiee. Edward F. Bean, writing in 1867, spoke of this as a "Committee of Vigilance and Safety." As he did not quote from contemporary documents it is possible that the title was applied in retrospect after the committees of later days had made current the use of the term.14
The dangers that attended the unstable conditions of Califor- nia society during the spring of 1850 were aggravated by certain changes for the worse in the population itself. These were due, in part, to the demoralization of large numbers of miners by hardships, exeitement, and dissipations. Many were broken in health by the physical strain of their work, and by their con- stant exposure to fever and malaria, scurvy and dysentery, and many more whose physical strength permitted them to drink without drunkenness in '49 plainly showed the effects of such
13 Placer Times, 1849, Aug. 11 91; Sept. 15 31. See also Bancroft, Coli- fornia, VI, 455-456; History of Sacramento County, 48-49.
14 Bean's History and Directory of Nevada County, 359-361; Shinn, Mining Camps, 180, 225; Hittell, California, III, 279-280. The committee was not mentioned in the early sketch by A. A. Sargent in Brown and Dalli- son's Nevada, Grass Valley and Rough and Ready Directory, for . . . 1856, pp. 44 45, but it was described in the History of Nevada County, 1880, pp. 89-91, and that volume also spoke of an attempt to organize the independent . "State of Rough and Ready."
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a habit after twelve or eighteen months of license.15 The ranks of desperate and ruined men were constantly recruited from the victims of the universal passion for gambling. Games of chance ran openly in the shabby barrooms that lined the main street of every camp, and in the gaudy saloons of the larger settlements. Hundreds of professional gamblers fleeced the unwary, and in many places formed an allied group that successfully opposed all efforts towards social improvement.16 The feverish and spec- tacular gambling of the mining days is often cited as an evidence of the toleration of evil permitted by an indifferent society. But in justice to the members of that society, it must be remem- bered that within five years of state organization gambling was forbidden by statute, and that laws of increasing stringency were subsequently enacted in the effort to suppress it effectively.17
Another and a more dangerous influence came from abroad, for soon after the announcement of the discovery of gold vessels from Australia began to bring large numbers of ex-convicts from the British penal colonies. These immigrants were the products of the wretched system of deportation which had shipped in the same vessels the most abandoned criminals, together with women,
15 On the hardships of California life, see Brooks, Four Months, 102- 108; J. L. Tyson, Diary of a Physician, 1850, pp. 62-64; Johnson, Califor- nia and Oregon; or Sights in the Gold Region, 241-242; William Shaw, Golden Dreams and Waking Realities, 1851; Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities [by George Payson], 1853; California and Its Gold Mines [by Thomas Allsop], 1853, pp. 73-77; Eliza W. Farnham, California, In-doors and Out, 1856, pp. 366-368; Hittell, California, III, 168-171; "T. Turn- bull's Travels ... to California," Wisconsin State Historical Society, Pro- ceedings, 1913, pp. 220-225. Taylor noted little drunkenness in 1849 (Eldorado, II, 66). An epidemic of cholera added to the troubles of 1850 (Annals, p. 305).
16 The gamblers in Sacramento defeated early attempts at organization (Bancroft, California, VI, 456).
17 The first conneil of San Francisco made an unsuccessful attempt to forbid gambling in Jannary, 1848 ( Annals, 199). Games of chance were made illegal by the state legislature in 1855 ( Statutes, chap. 103, p. 124). See also Hittell, California, II, 730, 805-806; 1V, 69-70; and his General Laws of ... California, ed. 2, 1870, II. secs. 3322-3338; Royce, California. 425. Bothwiek reported gambling on the wane in San Francisco in 1852 (Three Years, 379).
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and even boys and girls as young as twelve years of age. The prison ships and settlements were disciplined with the lash, and were hotbeds of atrocious viee. Of the British conviet it was truly said: "The heart of a man was taken from him and he was given the heart of a beast."1> In Australia the prisoners were assigned to private masters, if such semi-liberty was con- sidered safe. When the period of their sentence had expired, or when good behavior warranted an earlier release, they were granted either full liberty, or tickets of leave that allowed them freedom under official supervision. Conditional pardons were also issued which permitted the holder to go at large in any country except Great Britain. Thus dangerous men were sent away to be a menace to other lands.
The port of San Francisco stood open to all the ships of the world, and until 1875 it was unguarded by any national legis- Iation that prevented the immigration of undesirable or criminal aliens. As early as 1838 a bill had been presented to Congress providing penalties for the master of a vessel who should trans- port to the United States convicts, Iunaties, or passengers suffer- ing from incurable diseases. The bill received no favorable con- sideration whatever, and as it was commonly supposed that individual states had power to regulate immigration into their own territory, some legislatures enacted statutes to prevent the landing of immigrants likely to become publie charges. In 1849, however, the Supreme Court declared that such laws of New York and Massachusetts were unconstitutional, as the Federal Government alone had power to regulate matters of eommeree and immigration.19 Following the examples of Eastern states,
18 Encyclopedia Britannica, ed. 11, VIII, "Deportation," p. 58. See also Archbishop Richard Whately, "Remarks on Transportation," in his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, ed. 4, 1855, p. 271; C. A. Brown- ing, England's Exiles, 1842; Charles White, Early Australian History, 1889; C. H. Northcott, Australian Social Development, 1918, pp. 37-44. 19 See U. S. Immigration Commission, Immigration Legislation, 1911, pp. 12, 24-28 (Reports, XXXIX, Cong. Docs., Ser. No. 5879, Doc. 758).
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and perhaps unaware of the decision of 1849, the first California legislature adopted a statute that made it a felony to bring into the state convicts from other countries.20 That law was nom- inally binding in California until as late as 1872, but it does not appear that there was an effective attempt to enforce it, and every vessel from Australia unloaded on the wharves of San Francisco men and women who had served their terms in the penal colonies, and gained freedom by means of conditional par- dons, or escaped while still under sentence.21
One advantage accrued to the Sydney men from their com- mon experience in dungeon and hold ; they knew each other with the intimacy of the underworld of erime, and maintained in California associations that had begun in English byways, flour- ished in the plague spots of the Southern Seas, and ripened into bonds of mutual offense and defense in the steerage of the trans- Pacific vessels. The gang organization quickly appeared among them, not in a highly developed form, as with the Hounds, but secret and evasive, yet none the less effective. Men and women from Sydney kept lodging houses in San Francisco, watermen from Sydney had boats to lend in time of need, blacksmiths were adept at cutting keys, bricklayers dropped useful hints about vaults and safes, clerks exchanged confidences as to the storage of coin and gold dust, even a warden of the port of San Fran- cisco, sometime inmate of a British prison, outlined a tempting scheme for looting the Custom House.22 Instinetive obedience was given to the men who proved themselves best able to take advantage of local conditions; to those who could decide which offices might be robbed, and which should be avoided; who could
20 California, Statutes, 1850, chap. 82, p. 202; Penal Code, 1872, § 173. 21 Between March 31 and December 30, 1849, 842 passengers from Australia and Tasmania landed in San Francisco, while 505 came from New Zealand. (See the "List of Passenger Arrivals," furnished by E. A. King, harbor master, in Society of California Pioneers, Twenty-fourth Anniversary, 1874, pp. 38, 47.)
22 Thomas Belcher Kay, see infra, p. 282.
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aeeeptably divide the spoils or provide bail and counsel for a hard-pressed subordinate; establish an alibi, or sit among the good men and true sworn to mete out justiee to the prisoner at the bar.
Such leaders there were, and we shall presently make intimate acquaintance with them. But in the winter of 1850 and the early months of 1851 their identity was a mystery to the law- abiding citizens of California, although the community was fully aware of the menace to order that arose from the presence of the "Sydney Dueks," or "Sydney Coves," as the Australians were popularly styled .?? The existence of organized bands of criminals was suspected, and with each fresh outrage their power and complexity of organization were magnified.24 There was no agency, however, publie or private, equipped to follow seattered elnes to a common eenter.
There were in the state other aliens even more unpopular than the men from Sydney. From the days of the conquest there had survived a mutual dislike between Mexican and American. The American especially resented the presence in the mines of new arrivals from Mexico and from South America who expected to share with enfranchised citizens the benefit of the mineral treasure on the publie land. Writing to the Secretary of War from Panama in January, 1849, General Persifor F. Smith had said : "I am informed that ships loaded with all the rabble of the Pacifie ports are on their way to California," and alluding to the "bands of plunderers organizing all along the coast for
23 Both terms gained early currency. The Alta. 1851, July 10 95, spoke of "Sydney Ducks, " and the Annals of San Francisco, published in 1855, used the expression "Sydney Coves" (p. 257).
24 Ou Nov. 20, 1850, the Alta stated that convicts were in California "by thousands" and were making the state a pandemonium (see also ibid, Feb. 20 21; April 11 21; infra, p. 233). The demoralizing effect of their presence was noted by Johnson, California and Oregon; or Sights in the Gold Region, 115; Delano, Life on the Plains and among the Diggings, 359; J. W. Revere, Keel and Saddle, 1873, p. 166; Burnett, Recollections, 342.
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taking possession of the mines," he stated that he intended to enforce against aliens the laws that forbade trespassing on public lands. 25
As we have seen, every miner in California was a trespasser, until the lode law of 1866 formally opened the mineral lands to private ownership. The agreements under the miners' laws were made possible by the expectation that the government would tolerate, and would eventually approve the exploitation of such lands by citizens of the country if their use of it conformed to existing practices as to the division of the public domain. This expectation was fulfilled. The law of 1866, however, restricted the right to take up mining claims to "citizens or those who have declared their intention to become such."26 Had this limi- tation been formulated in 1848 or 1849 and enforced through legitimate diplomatie and legal methods, California might have escaped the violence that was caused by the determination of the Americans to exclude the foreign miners from privileges in which aliens had no presumptive rights, and to prevent the spoliation of the placers by cheap competition, and by the contraet labor of Indians, Negroes, Mexicans, Orientals, and Kanakas.27 As it was, the American miners were left to their own initiative in the matter, for General Smith did not order the arrest of foreigners, but contented himself with informing them that he could "not interfere to secure them in the infraction of
25 See Hittell, California, III, 705 note 2; Bancroft, California, VI, 403; Cong. Does., Ser. No. 573, Doc. 17, pp. 708, 712. As early as December, 1847, immigration from Sonora had been prohibited by Colonel Mason, because he considered the people of that province undesirable residents of California (ibid., 450). The order was not enforced after the discovery of gold, and nearly 8000 came overland from Mexico in 1849 (Browne, Debates, Appendix, p. xxiii).
26 See Lindley, Treatise on the American Law Relating to Mines, I, 493, 508-526; Thompson, U. S. Mining Statutes, I, 29-30; Yale, Legal Titles to Mining Claims, 34-42; J. S. Hittell, Resources of California, ed. 6, 1874, p. 424 (but compare his earlier statement, ibid., ed. 1, 1863, p. 354).
27 The natural resentment caused by the efforts to exploit extensive claims by cheap contract labor was noted by Katharine Coman in Economic Beginnings of the Far West, 1912, II, 282.
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the law. ""> His attitude, however, was generally understood, and the Americans took means of their own to oust unwelcome intruders.
The inevitable result was the development of constant friction, not only with undesirable immigrants, but also with inoffensive companies from France, Germany, and England. Some eamps expelled foreign miners under threat of death, there was occasional retaliation and bloodshed, and much injustiee was done by the miners' courts to prisoners of alien birth. The attack made by the Hounds on the Chilenos of San Francisco was an extreme example of anti-foreign sentiment. In that instance the community rose en masse to punish the outrage, but throughout the state, from the earliest days of American occupa- tion, there was steady opposition to the immigration of large bodies of foreign laborers. Professor Royee denounced the atti- tude of the Californians in this respect as an example of narrow and unworthy prejudice.2? Their conduct, however, should not be dismissed with facile condemnation or palliation for this par- ticular problem has proved most complicated and enduring in its perplexities. Indeed it should be related to the whole question of foreign immigration into the United States, as well as to the mingling of races on the Pacific Coast. For the purposes of this
2. Tyson, Geology and Industrial Resources, 75. General Riley, after touring the mines in 1849, reported that the current rumors of auti-foreign hostilities had been much exaggerated (Cong. Docs., Ser. No. 573, Doc. 17, p. 788). Holinski was enthusiastic over the "fraternité universelle" that united the many nationalities in the state (La Californie, 165-169), but Gerstäcker wrote that foreigners could not get justice in the remote regions (Travels, a translation from the German, 1954, p. 267). See also Édouard Auger. Toyage en Californie, 1854, pp. 112-113; Charles de Lambertie, Voyage pittoresque en Californie et au Chili, 1853, pp. 254-264; Kelly, Excursion to California, II, 23, 33-34; Johnson, California and Oregon; or Sights in the Gold Region, 225; Ryan, Personal Adventures, II, 296-299; Borthwick, Three Years, 74, 306, 363; Daniel Levy, Les Français en Cali- fornie, 1884, pp. 88-105. The impressions of a traveler from Chili are given in Vicente Pérez Rosales, Recuerdos del pasado, 1910, pp. 259-370. 29 Royce. California, pp. 236-239, 356-368; Hittell treated the subject more calmly (California, II, 736-737, III. 162-163, 262-264 ).
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study it has been necessary only to outline the situation and to show that it resulted in a marked increase of local disorders.
Another result was the passage by the first legislature of a bill which imposed a license of twenty dollars a month on miners who were not citizens either by birth or by the provisions of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.30 The attempt to enforce that law provoked resistance on the part of the foreigners and actual riot in the southern mines.31 Some of the Latin Americans were driven from the camps to range the mountains as solitary out- laws, or in robber bands, that later gave much trouble to the authorities.32
In reviewing the difficulties of the state during this time, we cannot ignore the hostility that constantly existed between the Indians and the white men. Long before Americans came to California the two races had lived in active confliet and the Indians had attacked the Spaniards and suffered punishment for their raids even during the most successful period of the mission era. The coast region was fairly protected under the Mexican rule, but the interior valleys and the mountains had been left to the undisturbed possession of the savage tribes, yet in spite of this compromise Indian horse thieves constantly stampeded large bands of animals and slaughtered them for food.
With the advent of the Americans, hostilities grew more acute, for overland parties armed for self-protection and imbued with the hatred bred from centuries of frontier warfare, traversed
30 California, Statutes, 1850, chap. 97, p. 221; repealed, Statutes, 1851, chap. 108, p. 424.
31 See Shinn, Mining Camps, 212-218; History of Tuolumne County [by Lang], 28-34, 39-47; Hittell, California, III, 128-131, 706-710. Sir Henry V. Huntley said that there would have been less objection to the tax or foreigners if the government had in return given them any protection (California, 1856, p. 218).
32 See Baneroft, California, VI, 469. Joaquin Murietta, a noted bandit, who was killed in 1853, began his career in revenge for the mistreatment of his wife, and a whipping given him by miners in 1850. See Banerott. California, VII, 203 note 13; Hittell, California, III, 712-726; J. M. Scanland, "Joaquin Murrieta, " Overland Monthly, ser. 2, XXVI (1895). 530-539 ; J. R. Ridge, Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, ed. 3, 1871.
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mountain routes where the Indian considered himself master. During the first years of the gold excitement he was an ever present menace to the isolated miners, and the unprotected state of the country prompted an alert defense that often degenerated into wanton butchery.
On which side lay the initial aggression is a question for the expert in the special field of Indian affairs;33 bnt no research ean palliate the fact that for every overt act on the part of a thieving or murderous Indian, a deadly vengeance was levied upon the men, women, and children of the offender's raee. Even in the neighborhood of the older settlements the most deplorable conditions prevailed, as military forees were insufficient to protect life and property, and Colonel Mason had been obliged to advise the residents to organize armed pursuit of Indian horse thieves and to kill them withont compunction.34 On the other hand, when a friendly Indian appealed to the alcalde of San José for protection, he too was told that no aid could be given by govern- ment, and that he might defend his own life in case of attaek.35 General Riley attributed Indian hostility in 1849 to the execution of certain chiefs in 1848, and to the barbarities of immigrants, especially of those from Oregon, who had brought to California the bitterness which resulted from the Indian massacres in that territory.30
33 See Bancroft, California, VII, 474-494, and Index under "Indian Hostilities"'; Hittell, California, III, 884-981. Early conflicts between Indians and Americans were noted in the California Star, 1847, March 13 11; April 10 36: Brooks, Four Months, 131-152; Kelly, Excursion to Califor- nia, II, 141-148; S. Weston, Life in the Mountains .. . of California, 1854, pp. 7 14: Biographical Sketch of William B. Ide [by Simeon Ide], 1880, pp. 224-230. The subject has been studied by W. H. Ellison, in a doctoral dissertation, The United States Indian Policy in California, 1846-1860, 1918. MS in the University of California Library.
3+ See Cong. Does., Ser. No. 573, Doc. 17, pp. 355, 643, 645, 689.
35 Charles White, alcalde of San Jose, to Mason, April 29, 1848, Archives, "Unbound Does .. '' 43.
3G See Cong. Does., Ser. No. 573, Doc. 17. p. 790; Tyson, Diary of a Physician, 62-63; Johnson, California and Oregon; or Sights in the Gold Region, 170-186. Governor Burnett, who came from Oregon, frankly said that the extermination of the Indians was practically inevitable (Journals of the California Legislature, 1851, p. 15).
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