Part 8

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 Mexico ceded California to the United States. It was just at this time that gold was discovered, and the new territory took on great national importance. The discussion as to what should be done with it began in Congress in 1846, immediately involving the question of slavery. A furious conflict developed, so that nothing was accomplished in two successive sessions; even at the end of a third, in March 1849, the only progress made toward creating a government for the territory was that the national revenue laws had been extended over it and San Francisco had been made a port of entry. Meanwhile conditions grew intolerable for the inhabitants. Before the end of the war Mexican laws not incompatible with United States laws were by international law supposed to be in force; but nobody knew what they were, and the uncertainties of vague and variable alcalde jurisdictions were increased when Americans began to be alcaldes and grafted English common-law principles, like the jury, on Californian practice. Never was a population more in need of clear laws than the motley Californian people of 1848-1849, yet they had none when, with peace, military rule and Mexican law technically ended. There was a curious extra-legal fusion of laws, a half-breed legal system, and no definite basis for either law or government. Even the acts and theories of the officials were very inconsistent. Early in 1849 temporary local governments were set up in various towns, and in September a convention framed a free-state constitution and applied for admission to the Union. On the 7th of September 1850 a bill finally passed Congress admitting California as a free state. This was one of the bargains in the "Compromise Measures of 1850" that were intended to dispose of the question of slavery in the Territories. Meanwhile the gold discoveries culminated and surpassed "three centuries of wild talk about gold in California." For three months there was little excitement, then a wild rush. Settlements were completely deserted; homes, farms and stores abandoned. Ships deserted by their sailors crowded the bay at San Francisco--there were 500 of them in July 1850; soldiers deserted wholesale, churches were emptied, town councils ceased to sit, merchants, clerks, lawyers and judges and criminals, everybody, flocked to the foothills. Soon, from Hawaii, Oregon and Sonora, from the Eastern states, the South Seas, Australia, South America and China came an extraordinary flow of the hopeful and adventurous. In the winter of '48 the rush began from the states to Panama, and in the spring across the plains. It is estimated that 80,000 men reached the coast in 1849, about half of them coming overland; three-fourths were Americans. Rapid settlement, excessive prices, reckless waste of money, and wild commercial ventures that glutted San Francisco with all objects usable and unusable made the following years astounding from an economic point of view; but not less bizarre was the social development, nor less extraordinary the problems of state-building in a society "morally and socially tried as no other American community ever has been tried" (Royce). There was of course no home life in early California. In 1850 women numbered 8% of the population, but only 2% in the mining counties. The miners were an energetic, covetous, wandering, abnormally excitable body of men. Occasionally a kind of frenzy even would seem to seize on them, and lured by the hope of new deposits of unheard-of richness thousands would flock on unfounded rumours to new and perhaps distant localities, where many might perish from disease and starvation, the rest returning in poverty and rags. Such were the Kern River fever of 1855 and the greater "Fraser River rush" of 1858, the latter, which took perhaps 20,000 men out of the state, causing a terrible amount of suffering. Many interior towns lost half their population and some virtually all their population as a result of this emigration; and it precipitated a real estate crash in San Francisco that threatened temporary ruin. Mining times in California brought out some of the most ignoble and some of the best traits of American character. Professor Josiah Royce has pictured the social-moral process by which society finally impressed its "claims on wayward and blind individuals" who "sought wealth and not a social order," and so long as possible shirked all social obligations. Through varied instruments--lynch law, popular courts, vigilance committees--order was, however, enforced, better as times went on, until there was a stable condition of things. In the economic life and social character of California to-day the legacies of 1848 are plain.

Disputed land grants.

The slavery question was not settled for California in 1850. Until the Civil War the division between the Whig and Democratic parties, whose organization in California preceded statehood, was essentially based on slavery. The struggle fused with the personal contests of two men, rivals for the United States Senate, William McKendree Gwin (1805-85, U.S. senator, 1850-55 and 1857-61), the leader of the pro-slavery party, and David Colbreth Broderick (1819-1859), formerly a leader of Tammany in New York, and after 1857 a member from California of the United States Senate, the champion of free labour, who declared in 1860 for the policy of the Republican party. Broderick's undoing was resolved upon by the slavery party, and he was killed in a duel. The Gwin party hoped to divide California into two states and hand the southern over to slavery; on the eve of the Civil War it considered the scheme of a Pacific coast republic. The decade 1850-1860 was also marked by the activity of filibusters against Sonora and Central America. Two of these--a French adventurer, one Gaston Raoux, comte de Raousset-Boulbon (1817-1854), and William Walker, had very picturesque careers. The state was thoroughly loyal when war came. The later 'fifties are characterized by H.H. Bancroft as a period of "moral, political and financial night." National politics were put first, to the complete ignoring of excessive taxation, financial extravagance, ignorant legislation and corruption in California. The public was exploited for many years with impunity for the benefit of private interests. One legacy that ought to be briefly noted here is that of disputed land grants. Under the Mexican régime such grants were generous and common, and the complicated formalities theoretically essential to their validity were very often, if not usually, only in part attended to. Titles thus gained would never have been questioned under continued Mexican government, but Americans were unaccustomed to such riches in land and to such laxity. From the very first hundreds "squatted" on large claims, contesting the title. Instead of confirming all claims existing when the country passed to the United States, and so ensuring an immediate settlement of the matter, which was really the most important thing for the peace and purse of the community, the United States government undertook through a land commission and courts to sift the valid from the fraudulent. Claims of enormous aggregate value were thus considered and a large part of those dating from the last years of Mexican dominion (many probably artfully concocted and fraudulently antedated after the commission was at work) were finally rejected. This litigation filled the state and federal courts for many years. The high value of realty in San Francisco naturally offered extraordinary inducements to fraud, and the largest part of the city was for years involved in fraudulent claims, and its peace broken by "squatter"-troubles. Twenty or thirty years of the state's life were disturbed by these controversies. Land monopoly is an evil of large proportions in California to-day, but it is due to the laxness of the United States government in enabling speculators to accumulate holdings and not to the original extent of Mexican grants.

In state gubernatorial elections after the Civil War the Democrats won in 1867, 1875, 1882, 1886, 1894; the Republicans in 1871, 1879, 1890, 1898, 1902, 1906, 1910. Features of political life and of legislation after 1876 were a strong labour agitation, the struggle for the exclusion of the Chinese, for the control of hydraulic mining, irrigation, and the advancement by state-aid of the fruit interests; the last three of which have already been referred to above. Labour conditions were peculiar in the decade following 1870. Mining, war times and the building of the Central Pacific had up to then inflated prices and prosperity. Then there came a slump; probably the truth was rather that money was becoming less unnaturally abundant than that there was any over-supply of labour. The turning off of some 15,000 Chinese (principally in 1869-1870) from the Central Pacific lines who flocked to San Francisco, augmented the discontent of incompetents, of disappointed late immigrants, and the reaction from flush times. Labour unions became strong and demonstrative. In 1877-1878 Denis Kearney (1847-1907), an Irish drayman and demagogue of considerable force and daring, headed the discontented. This is called the "sand-lots agitation" from the favourite meeting-place (in San Francisco) of the agitators.

The outcome of these years was the Constitution of 1879, already described, and the exclusion of Chinese by national law. In 1879 California voted against further immigration of Chinese by 154,638 to 883. Congress re-enacted exclusion legislation in 1902. All authorities agree that the Chinese in early years were often abused in the mining country and their rights most unjustly neglected by the law and its officers. Men among the most respected in California (Joaquin Miller, H.H. Bancroft and others) have said most in praise and defence of the Chinaman. From railroad making to cooking he has proved his abilities and trustworthiness. He is found to-day in the mines and fisheries, in various lines of manufacture, in small farming, and in all branches of domestic service. The question of the economic development of the state, and of trade to the Orient, the views of the mercenary labour-contractor and of the philanthropist, the factor of "upper-race" repugnance, the "economic-leech" argument, the "rat-rice-filth-and-opium" argument, have all entered into the problem. Certain it is that though the unprejudiced must admit that exclusion has not been at all an unmixed blessing, yet the consensus of opinion is that a large population, non-citizen and non-assimilable, sending--it is said--most of their earnings to China, living in the main meanly at best, and practically without wives, children or homes, is socially and economically a menace outweighing the undoubted convenience of cheaper (and frequently more trustworthy) menial labour than the other population affords. The exclusion had much to do with making the huge single crop ranches unprofitable and in leading to their replacement by small farms and varied crops. Many of the Chinese now in the state are wealthy. Race feeling against them has become much less marked.

One outcome of early mission history, the "Pious Fund of the Californias," claimed in 1902 the attention of the Hague Tribunal. (See ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL, Hague cases section.) In 1906-1907 there was throughout the state a remarkable anti-Japanese agitation, centring in San Francisco (q.v.) and affecting international relations and national politics.

GOVERNORS OF CALIFORNIA (State)[6]

I. SPANISH

Gasper de Portolá served 1767-1770 Filipe de Barri " 1771-1774 Felipe de Neve " 1774-1782 Pedro Pages " 1782-1791 Jose Antonio Romeu " 1791-1792 *José Joaquin de Arillaga " 1792-1794 Diego de Borica " 1794-1800 *José Joaquin de Arillaga " 1800-1804 José Joaquin de Arillaga " 1804-1814 *José Diario Arguello " 1814-1815 Pablo Vicente de Sola " 1815-1822

II. Mexican

Pablo Vicente de Sola served 1822 *Luis Antonio Arguello " 1822-1825 José Maria Echeandía " 1825-1831 Manuel Victoria " 1831 José Maria Echeandía[7] " 1831-1832 Pio Pico[8] " 1832 José Figueroa " 1832-1835 *José Castro " 1835-1836 *Nicolas Gutierrez " 1836 Mariano Chico " 1836 Nicolas Gutierrez " 1836 Juan Bautista Alvarado[9] " 1836-1842 Carlos Antonio Carrillo[10] " 1837-1838 Manuel Micheltorena " 1842-1845 Pio Pico " 1845-1846

III AMERICAN (a) _Military_

John D. Sloat appointed 1846 Richard F. Stockton " 1846-1847 Stephen W. Kearny " 1847 R.B. Mason " 1847-1849 Bennett Riley " 1849

(b) _State_.

Peter H. Burnett 1849-1851 Democrat *John H. McDougall 1851-1852 " John Bigler 1852-1856 " John M. Johnson 1856-1858 Know Nothing John B. Weller 1858-1860 Lecompton Democrat Milton S. Latham 1869 (6 days) " " *John G. Downey 1860-1862 " " Leland Stanford 1862-1863 Republican Frederick F. Low 1863-1867 " Henry H. Haight 1867-1871 Democrat Newton Booth 1871-1875 Republican *Romualdo Pacheco 1875 " William Irwin 1875-1880 Democrat George G. Perkins 1880-1883 Republican George C. Stoneman 1883-1887 Democrat Washington Bartlett 1887 " *Robert W. Waterman 1887-1891 Republican Henry H. Markham 1891-1895 " James H. Budd 1895-1899 Democrat Henry T. Gage 1899-1903 Republican George C. Pardee 1903-1907 " James N. Gillett 1907-1911 " Hiram W. Johnson 1911- "

The mark * before the name of one of the Spanish governors indicates that he acted only _ad interim_, and, in the case of governors since 1849, that the officer named was elected as lieutenant-governor and succeeded to the office of governor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For list of works on California, see University of California _Library Bulletin_, No. 9, 1887, "List of Printed Maps of California"; catalogue of state official publications by State Library (Sacramento, 1894). The following may be cited here on different aspects:--

TOPOGRAPHY.--J. Muir, _Mountains of California_ (New York, 1894); H. Gannett, "Dictionary of Elevations" (1898), and "River Profiles," publications of _United States Geological Survey_; G.W. James, _The Wonders of the Colorado Desert_ (2 vols., Boston, 1906).

CLIMATE, &c.--_U.S. Department of Agriculture, California Climate and Crop Service_, monthly reports; E.S. Holden, _Recorded, Earthquakes in California, Lower California, Oregon, and Washington Territory_ (California State University, 1887); _United States Department Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletins,_ Alexander G. McAdie, "Climatology of California" (Washington, 1903). There is a great mass of general descriptive literature, especially on Southern California, such as Charles Dudley Warner, _Our Italy_ (New York, 1891); Kate Sanborn, _A Truthful Woman in Southern California_ (New York, 1893); W. Lindley and J.P. Widney, _California of the South_ (New York, 1896); J.W. Hanson, _American Italy_ (Chicago, 1896); T.S. Van Dyke, _Southern California_ (New York, 1886), &c.

FAUNA, FLORA.--Muir, _op. cit._; _United States Geological Survey, 19th Annual Report_, pt. v., H. Gannett, "Forests of the United States"; idem, _20th Annual Report,_ pt. v., "United States Forest Reserves"; _United States Division of Forestry, Bulletin_ No. 28, "A Short Account of the Big Trees of California" (1900), No. 38, "The Redwood" (a volume, 1903), also _Professional Papers, e.g._ No. 8, J.B. Leiberg, "Forest Conditions in the Northern Sierra Nevada" (1902); _California Board of Forestry, Reports_ (1885- ); _United States Censuses,_ reports on forests; _United States Biological Survey, North American Fauna,_ No. 16, 1899, C.H. Merriam, "Biological Survey of Mt. Shasta"; _United States Department Agriculture, Contributions from United States National Herbarium,_ iv., 1893, F.V. Coville, "Botany of Death Valley Expedition"; _State Board of Fish Commissioners, Reports,_ from 1877; _United States Fish Commissioners, Annual Reports,_ from 1871, and _Bulletins_ from 1882; J. le Conte, "Flora of the Coast Islands" (1887), being _Bulletin_ No. 8 of California Academy of Sciences; consult also its _Proceedings_, _Memoirs_, and _Occasional Papers;_ G.J. Peirce, _Studies on the Coast Redwood_ (publication of Leland Stanford jr. University, 1901).

AGRICULTURE.--_California Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletins_ from 1884; _Reports of the State Dairy Bureau_, from 1898; _State Board of Horticulture, Reports,_ 1889-1894; _United States Censuses,_ 1890 and 1900, reports on irrigation.

INDUSTRIES.--J.S. Hittell, _Resources of California_ (7th ed., San Francisco, 1879); J.S. Hittell, _Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast_ (San Francisco, 1882); T.F. Cronise, _Natural Wealth of California_ (San Francisco, 1868); E.W. Maslin, _Resources of California,_ prepared by order of Governor H.H. Markham (Sacramento, 1893); _United States Treasury, Bureau of Statistics,_ report by T.J. Vivian on "Commercial, Industrial, Agricultural, Transportation and Other Industries of California" (Washington 1890, valuable for whole period before 1890); _United States Censuses,_ 1890 and 1900, reports on agriculture, manufactures, mines and fisheries; _California State Board of Trade_ (San Francisco), _Annual Report_ from 1890. On Mineral Industries:--J.R. Browne, Report on "Mineral Resources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky Mountains" (_United States Treasury,_ 2 vols., Washington, 1867-1868); _United States Geological Survey, Annual Reports, Mineral Resources;_ consult also the bibliographies of publications of the _Survey_, issued as _Bulletins; California State Mining Bureau, Bulletins_ from 1888, note especially No. 30, 1904, by A.W. Vodges, "Bibliography relating to the Geology, Palaeontology and Mineral Resources of California" (2nd ed., the 1st being _Bulletin_ No. 10, 1896); _California Débris Commission_, _Reports_ (in _Annual Reports Chief of Engineers, United States Army,_ from 1893).

GOVERNMENT.--E.F. Treadwell, _The Constitution of the State of California ... Annotated_ (San Francisco, 1902); _Johns Hopkins University, Studies in History and Political Science,_ xiii., R.D. Hunt, "Genesis of California's First Constitution"; _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,_ xii., R.D. Hunt, "Legal Status of California, 1846-1849"; Reports of the various officers, departments and administrative boards of the state government (Sacramento), and also the _Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly,_ which contains, especially in the earlier decades of the state's history, many of these state official reports along with valuable legislative reports of varied character.

HISTORY.--Accounts of the valuable archives in Bancroft, and by Z.E. Eldridge in _California Genealogical Society_ (1901); elaborate bibliographies in Bancroft with analyses and appreciations of many works. Of general scope and fundamental importance is the work of two men, Hubert H. Bancroft and Theodore H. Hittell. The former has published a _History of California, 1542-1890_ (7 vols., San Francisco, 1884-1890), also _California Pastoral, 1769-1848_ (San Francisco, 1888), _California Inter-Pocula, 1848-1856_ (San Francisco, 1888), and _Popular Tribunals_ (2 vols., San Francisco, 1887). These volumes were largely written under Mr. Bancroft's direction and control by an office staff, and are of very unequal value; they are a vast storehouse of detailed material which is of great usefulness, although their judgments of men are often inadequate and prejudiced. As regards events the histories are of substantial accuracy and adequacy. Written by one hand and more uniform in treatment and good judgment, is T.H. Hittell's _History of California_ (4 vols., San Francisco, 1885-1897). The older historian of the state was Francisco Palou, a Franciscan, the friend and biographer of Serra; his "Noticias de la Nueva California" (Mexico, 1857, in the _Doc. Hist. Mex.,_ ser. iv., tom, vi.-viii.; also San Francisco, 1874, 4 vols.) is no longer of importance save for its historical interest. Of the contemporary material on the period of Mexican domination the best is afforded by R.H. Dana's _Two Years Before the Mast_ (New York, 1840, many later and foreign editions); also A. Robinson, _Life in California_ (New York, 1846); and Alexander Forbes, _California: A History of Upper and Lower California from their First Discovery to the Present Time_ (London, 1839); see also F.W. Blackmar, "Spanish Institutions of the Southwest" (_Johns Hopkins University Studies,_ 1891). A beautiful, vivid and reputedly very accurate picture of the old society is given in Helen Hunt Jackson's novel, _Ramona_ (New York, 1884). There is no really scientific separate account of mission history; there are books by Father Z. Engelhart, _The Franciscans in California_ (Harbor Springs, Michigan, 1899), written entirely from a Franciscan standpoint; C.F. Carter, _Missions of Nueva California_ (San Francisco, 1900); Bryan J. Clinch, _California and its Missions: Their History to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo_ (2 vols., San Francisco, 1904); Francisco Palou, _Relacion Historica de la Vida ... del Fray Junipero Serra_ (Mexico, 1787), the standard contemporary source; the _Craftsman_ (Syracuse, N.Y., vol. v.), a series of articles on "Mission Buildings," by G.W. James. On the case of the Pious Fund of the missions see J.F. Doyle, _History of the Pious Fund_ (San Francisco, 1887); _United States Department of State,_ "United States _v._ Mexico. Report of J.H. Ralston, agent of the United States and of counsel in the matter of the Pious Fund of the Californias" (Washington, 1902). On the "flush" mining years the best books of the time are J.Q. Thornton's _Oregon and California_ (2 vols., New York, 1849); Edward Bryant's _What I Saw in California_ (New York, 1848); W. Shaw's _Golden Dreams_ (London, 1851); Bayard Taylor's _Eldorado_ (2 vols., New York, 1850); W. Colton's _Three Years in California_ (New York, 1850); E.G. Buffum's _Six Months in the Gold Mines; from a Journal of Three Years' Residence in Upper and Lower California_ (London, 1850); J.T. Brooks' _Four Months among the Gold Finders_ (London, 1849); G.G. Foster, _Gold Regions of California_ (New York, 1884). On this same period consult Bancroft's _Popular Tribunals_; D.Y. Thomas, "A History of Military Government in Newly Acquired Territory of the United States," in vol. xx. No. 2 (New York, 1904) of _Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law_; C.H. Shinn's _Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government_ (New York, 1885); J. Royce, _California ... A Study of American Character, 1846-1856_ (Boston, 1886); and, for varied pictures of mining and frontier life, the novels and sketches and poems of Bret Harte. See also P.H. Burnet, _Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer_ (New York, 1880); S.J. Field, _Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California_ (privately published, copyright 1893).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In December 1904 Salton Sea was dry; in February 1906 it was occupied by a lake 60 m. long.

[2] During the interval from 1850 to 1872 the yearly rainfall at San Francisco ranged from 11.37 to 49.27 in.; from 1850 to 1904 the average was 22.74, and the probable annual variation 4 in.

[3] The means for Los Angeles and Red Bluff, of Redding and Fresno, of San Diego and Sacramento, of San Francisco or Monterey and Independence, are respectively about the same; and all of them lie between 56° and 63° F. The places mentioned are scattered over 3½° of longitude and 6½° of latitude.

[4] Small masses of water made to fall great distances and the use of turbines are important features of such plants. One on the North Yuba river at Colgate, where there is a 700 ft. fall, serves Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco, at high pressure yielding in San Francisco (220 m. away) 75% of its power. Other plants are one at Electra (154 m. from San Francisco), and one on the San Joaquin, which delivers to Fresno 62 m. distant.

[5] The 1905 census of manufactures deals only with establishments under the factory system; its figures for 1905 and the figures for 1900 reduced to the same limits are as follows:--total value of products, 1905, $367,218,494; 1900, $257,385,521, an increase of 42.7%; leading industries, with value of product in millions of dollars--canning and preserving, first in 1905 with 23.8 millions, third in 1900 with 13.4 millions; slaughtering and meat-packing, second in 1905 with 21.79 millions, first in 1900 with 15.71 millions; flour and grist mill products, third in 1905 with 20.2 millions, fourth in 1900 with 13.04 millions; lumber and timber, fourth in 1905 with 18.27 millions, second in 1900 with 13.71 millions; printing and publishing, fifth in 1905 with 17.4 millions, sixth in 1900 with 9.6 millions; foundry and machine shop products, sixdth in 1905 with 15.7 millions, fifth in 1900 with 12.04 millions; planing mill products, seventh in 1905 with 13.9 millions, twelfth in 1900 with 4.8 millions; bread and other bakery products, eighth in 1905 with 10.6 millions, eleventh in 1900 with 4.87 millions.

[6] As months and even years often elapsed between the date when early governors were appointed and the beginning of their actual service, the date of commission is disregarded, and the date of service given. Sometimes this is to be regarded as beginning at Monterey, sometimes elsewhere in California, sometimes at Loreto in Lower California. All the Spanish and Mexican governors were appointed by the national government, except in the case of the semi-revolutionary rulers of 1831-1832 and 1836 (Alvarado), whose title rested on revolution, or on local choice under a national statute regarding gubernatorial vacancies.

[7] Acting political chief, revolutionary title.

[8] Briefly recognized in South.

[9] Revolutionary title, 1836-1838.

[10] Appointed 1837, never recognized in the North.