History of California

Chapter VI

The Foot­steps of the Stranger

At no point does the ear­ly his­to­ry of Cal­ifor­nia come in con­tact with that of the colonies of the East­ern coast of the Unit­ed States. The near­est ap­proach to such con­tact was in the year 1789, when Cap­tain Ar­guel­lo, com­man­der of the pre­sidio of San Fran­cis­co, re­ceived the fol­low­ing or­ders from the gov­er­nor of the province:–

“Should there ar­rive at your port a ship named Columbia, which, they say, be­longs to Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton of the Amer­ican States, you will take mea­sures to se­cure the ves­sel with all the peo­ple aboard with dis­cre­tion, tact, clev­er­ness, and cau­tion.” As the Columbia failed to en­ter the Cal­ifor­ni­an port, the Span­ish com­man­der had no chance to try his wits and guns with those of the Yan­kee cap­tain.

It would seem as though the Cal­ifor­ni­ans lived for a time in fear of their East­ern neigh­bors, since prayers were of­fered at some of the mis­sions that the peo­ple be pre­served from “Los Amer­icanos;” but af­ter the com­ing of the first two or three Amer­ican ships, when trade be­gan to be es­tab­lished, there arose the kindli­est feel­ing be­tween the New Eng­land traders and the Cal­ifor­ni­ans. The ship Ot­ter, from Boston, which came to the coast in 1796, was the first ves­sel from the Unit­ed States to an­chor in a Cal­ifor­nia port.

La Per­ouse, in com­mand of a French sci­en­tif­ic ex­pe­di­tion, was the first for­eign­er of promi­nence to vis­it Cal­ifor­nia. Of his vis­it, which oc­curred in the fall of 1786, he writes in his jour­nal: “The gov­er­nor put in­to the ex­ecu­tion of his or­ders in re­gard to, us a gra­cious­ness and air of in­ter­est that mer­its from us the liveli­est ac­knowl­edg­ments, and the padres were as kind to us as the of­fi­cers. We were in­vit­ed to dine at the Mis­sion San Car­los, two leagues from Mon­terey, were re­ceived up­on our ar­rival there like lords of a parish vis­it­ing their es­tates. The pres­ident of the mis­sions, clad in his robe, met us at the door of the church, which was il­lu­mi­nat­ed as for the grand­est fes­ti­val. We were led to the foot of the al­tar and the Te Deum chant­ed in thanks­giv­ing for the hap­py is­sue of our voy­age.”

La Per­ouse’s ac­count of the coun­try, the peo­ple, and the mis­sions is of great val­ue in giv­ing us a pic­ture of these times. In re­gard to the In­di­ans he said that he wished the padres might teach them, be­sides the prin­ci­ples of the Chris­tian re­li­gion, some facts about law and civ­il gov­ern­ment, “Al­though,” said he, “I ad­mit that their progress would be very slow, the pains which it would be nec­es­sary to take very hard and tire­some.”

Cap­tain Van­cou­ver, with two ves­sels of the British navy, bound on an ex­plor­ing voy­age round the world, was the next stranger to vis­it, Cal­ifor­nia. So much did he en­joy the cour­tesy of the Span­ish of­fi­cers that when his map of the coast came out it was found that he had hon­ored his hosts of San Fran­cis­co and Mon­terey by nam­ing for them two lead­ing capes of the ter­ri­to­ry, one Point Ar­guel­lo and the oth­er Point Sal.

As ear­ly as 1781 Rus­sia had set­tle­ments in Sit­ka and ad­ja­cent is­lands, for the ben­efit of its fur traders, and in 1805 the Czar sent a young of­fi­cer of his court to look in­to the con­di­tion of these trad­ing posts. Count Rezanof found the peo­ple suf­fer­ing and saw that un­less food was brought to them prompt­ly, they would die from star­va­tion. San Fran­cis­co was the near­est port, and though he knew that Spain did not al­low trade with for­eign coun­tries, the Rus­sian de­ter­mined to make the at­tempt to get sup­plies there. Load­ing a ves­sel with goods which had been brought out for the In­di­an trade of the north coast, he sailed south­ward. The sto­ry of his vis­it is well told by Bret Harte in his beau­ti­ful po­em, “Con­cep­cion de Ar­guel­lo.”

Rezanof was warm­ly wel­comed and gen­er­ous­ly en­ter­tained by Com­man­der Ar­guel­lo of the pre­sidio of San Fran­cis­co, but in vain did he try to trade off his car­go for food for his starv­ing peo­ple. The gov­er­nor and his of­fi­cers dared not dis­obey the laws of Spain in re­gard to for­eign trade. While they were ar­gu­ing and de­bat­ing, how­ev­er, some­thing hap­pened which changed their views. The Count fell in love with the com­man­der’s beau­ti­ful daugh­ter, Con­cep­cion. Then, as the po­em has it,–

“. . . points of gravest im­port yield­ed slow­ly one by one, And by Love was con­sum­mat­ed what Diplo­ma­cy be­gun.”

It seemed to the gov­er­nor that the man who was to be son-​in-​law in the pow­er­ful fam­ily of Ar­guel­lo could not be con­sid­ered as a for­eign­er, and there­fore the law need not ap­ply in his case. Thus the Count got his ship load of food and sailed away, promis­ing to re­turn as soon as pos­si­ble for his be­trothed wife. One of the most in­ter­est­ing pic­tures of ear­ly Cal­ifor­nia is the po­em which tells of this pa­thet­ic love sto­ry.

Count Rezanof was so pleased with the beau­ty and fer­til­ity of Cal­ifor­nia that his let­ters in­ter­est­ed the Czar, who de­cid­ed to found a colony on the coast. An ex­plor­ing ex­pe­di­tion was sent out, and the ter­ri­to­ry about Rus­sian Riv­er in Sono­ma Coun­ty was pur­chased of the In­di­ans for three blan­kets, three pairs of trousers, two ax­es, three hoes, and some beads. Fort Ross was the main set­tle­ment, and was the home of the gov­er­nor, his of­fi­cers and their fam­ilies, all ac­com­plished, in­tel­li­gent men and wom­en. Be­sides the sol­diers there were a num­ber of me­chan­ics and a com­pa­ny of na­tives from the Aleu­tian Is­lands, who were em­ployed by the Rus­sians to hunt the ot­ter. Up and down the coast roamed these wild sea hunters, even col­lect­ing their fur­ry game in San Fran­cis­co Bay and de­fy­ing the co­man­dante of the pre­sidio, who had no boats with which to pur­sue them, and so could do noth­ing but fume and write let­ters of re­mon­strance to the gov­er­nor of Fort Ross. Spain, and lat­er Mex­ico, looked with dis­fa­vor and sus­pi­cion up­on the Rus­sian set­tle­ment, but the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia were al­ways ready for se­cret trade with their north­ern neigh­bors.

In 1816 Ot­to von Kotze­bue, cap­tain of the Rus­sian ship Rurik, vis­it­ed San Fran­cis­co and was en­ter­tained by the co­man­dante, Lieu­tenant Luis Ar­guel­lo. With Cap­tain Kotze­bue was the Ger­man po­et, Al­bert von Chamis­so.

The Rus­sian cap­tain, with brighter faith and keen­er in­sight than any oth­er of the ear­ly vis­itors to the coast, says of the coun­try: “It has hith­er­to been the fate of these re­gions to re­main un­no­ticed; but pos­ter­ity will do them jus­tice; towns and cities will flour­ish where all is now desert; the wa­ters over which scarce­ly a soli­tary boat is yet seen to glide will re­flect the flags of all na­tions; and a hap­py, pros­per­ous peo­ple re­ceiv­ing with thank­ful­ness what prodi­gal na­ture be­stows for their use will dis­pense her trea­sures over ev­ery part of the world.”

In the writ­ings of Al­bert von Chamis­so can be found a most in­ter­est­ing de­scrip­tion of his vis­it. To him is due the hon­or of giv­ing to our Cal­ifor­ni­an pop­py its botan­ical name.

In 1841, the sup­ply of ot­ter hav­ing be­come ex­haust­ed, the Rus­sians sold their prop­er­ty and claims about Fort Ross to the Swiss em­igrant, the ge­nial John Sut­ter. In 1903, through the agen­cy of the Land­marks So­ci­ety, this prop­er­ty and its still well-​pre­served build­ings came in­to the pos­ses­sion of the state of Cal­ifor­nia.

As ear­ly as 1826 there were a num­ber of for­eign­ers set­tled in Cal­ifor­nia. These were most­ly men from Great Britain or the Unit­ed States who had mar­ried Cal­ifor­nia wom­en and lived and of­ten dressed like their Span­ish-​speak­ing neigh­bors. Cap­tain John Sut­ter, the Swiss who bought out the Rus­sians of Fort Ross, came to Cal­ifor­nia in 1839. He ob­tained from the Mex­ican gov­ern­ment an ex­ten­sive grant of land about the present site of Sacra­men­to, and here he erect­ed the fa­mous Sut­ter’s Fort where all new­com­ers, were made wel­come and, if they de­sired, giv­en work un­der this kind­est of mas­ters. Around the fort, which was armed with can­non bought from the Rus­sians, he built a high stock­ade. He gained the good will of the In­di­ans and had their young men drilled dai­ly in mil­itary tac­tics by a Ger­man of­fi­cer.

Gov­er­nor Al­vara­do, at the time of his rev­olu­tion in 1837, had in his forces, un­der a lead­er named Gra­ham, a com­pa­ny of wan­der­ing Amer­icans, trap­pers and hunters of the rough­est type. Al­though there was no re­al war, and no fight­ing oc­curred, yet when Al­vara­do and his par­ty were suc­cess­ful, Gra­ham and his men de­mand­ed large re­wards, and be­cause the gov­er­nor would not sat­is­fy them they be­gan to per­se­cute him in ev­ery way pos­si­ble. Al­vara­do says: “I was in­sult­ed at ev­ery turn by the drunk­en fol­low­ers of Gra­ham; when I walked in my gar­den they would climb on the wall and call up­on me in terms of the great­est fa­mil­iar­ity, ‘Ho, Bautista, come here, I want to speak to you.’ It was ‘Bautista’ here, ‘Bautista’ there.”

To ex­press dis­sat­is­fac­tion they held meet­ings in which they talked loud­ly about their coun­try’s get­ting pos­ses­sion of the land, un­til Gov­er­nor Al­vara­do, hav­ing good rea­son to be­lieve that they were plot­ting a rev­olu­tion, ex­pelled them from the ter­ri­to­ry and sent them to Mex­ico.

The Unit­ed States took up the de­fense of the ex­iles and in­sist­ed on their be­ing re­turned to Cal­ifor­nia. It does not seem that the bet­ter class of Amer­icans who had been long res­idents of the coun­try sym­pa­thized with Gra­ham and his fol­low­ers, but from this time there were less kind­ly re­la­tions be­tween the Cal­ifor­ni­ans and the cit­izens of the Unit­ed States who came in­to the ter­ri­to­ry.

We come now to the sto­ry of the con­quest.

At the be­gin­ning of the year 1845 the Unit­ed States and Mex­ico were on the verge of war over Texas, which had been for­mer­ly a Mex­ican province, but through the in­flu­ence of Amer­ican set­tlers had re­belled, declar­ing it­self an in­de­pen­dent state, and had ap­plied for ad­mis­sion to the Amer­ican Union. Be­cause the ques­tion of slav­ery was con­cerned in this ap­pli­ca­tion, it caused in­tense ex­cite­ment through­out the Unit­ed States. The South was de­ter­mined to have the new ter­ri­to­ry come in as a slave-​hold­ing state, while the men of the North op­posed the an­nex­ation of an­oth­er acre of slave land.

Eight North­ern leg­is­la­tures protest­ed against its ad­mis­sion. Twelve lead­ing sen­ators of the North de­clared that “it would re­sult in the dis­so­lu­tion of the Unit­ed States and would jus­ti­fy it.” On the oth­er hand, the South re­solved that “it would be bet­ter to be out of the Union with Texas than in it with­out her.” The South won its point. Texas was ad­mit­ted, and at once a dis­pute with Mex­ico arose over the bound­ary lines, and war at length fol­lowed, be­ing brought on in a mea­sure by the en­trance of Unit­ed States troops in­to the dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ry. Dur­ing the long dis­cus­sion over Texas the Unit­ed States was hav­ing trou­ble with Great Britain over Ore­gon, which was then the whole coun­try ly­ing be­tween the Mex­ican province of Cal­ifor­nia and the Rus­sian pos­ses­sions on the north coast (now Alas­ka). Be­fore the in­ven­tion of steam cars and the con­struc­tion of rail­roads, the Pa­cif­ic coast re­gion had been thought of lit­tle val­ue. The pop­ular idea was ex­pressed by Web­ster when he said: “What do we want of this vast, worth­less area, this re­gion of sav­ages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shift­ing sands and whirl­winds of dust, of cac­tus and prairie dogs?” But now the Unit­ed States was wak­ing up, and things looked dif­fer­ent. Of Ore­gon the Amer­icans were de­ter­mined to have at least a por­tion. Cal­ifor­nia, so far away from Mex­ico and so poor­ly gov­erned, they would like to take un­der their pro­tec­tion,–at least the re­gion around the great Bay of San Fran­cis­co.

As ear­ly as 1840 the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment urged its con­sul at Mon­terey, an Amer­ican named Larkin, se­cret­ly to in­flu­ence the lead­ing Cal­ifor­ni­ans to fol­low the ex­am­ple of Texas, se­cede from Mex­ico, and join the Unit­ed States, where he was to as­sure them they would re­ceive a broth­er’s wel­come. Just as he felt he might be suc­cess­ful his plans were over­thrown.

One morn­ing in 1842 there came sail­ing in­to Mon­terey Bay two Amer­ican men-​of-​war. Sud­den­ly, to the con­ster­na­tion of those watch­ing from the shore, one of the ships was seen to fire up­on an out­go­ing Mex­ican sloop. Af­ter mak­ing it cap­tive the three ves­sels pro­ceed­ed to the an­chor­age. Great was the ex­cite­ment in Mon­terey. Nei­ther the co­man­dante nor the Amer­ican con­sul could imag­ine the rea­son for such strange con­duct. It was soon ex­plained, how­ev­er, by the ar­rival of a ship’s boat bring­ing an of­fi­cer who de­liv­ered to the au­thor­ities a de­mand for the sur­ren­der of the fort and place to the Amer­ican com­man­der of the Pa­cif­ic fleet, Com­modore Jones, who was on board one of the new­ly ar­rived ves­sels.

The Mex­ican of­fi­cials and the of­fi­cers of the army were as­ton­ished; so, too, was the Unit­ed States con­sul. They knew of no war be­tween these coun­tries. Since he had nei­ther men nor arms to re­sist this strange de­mand, Al­vara­do, who was act­ing for the ab­sent gov­er­nor, gave or­ders to sur­ren­der, and the next day the Mex­ican flag and forces gave place to those of the Unit­ed States.

Af­ter the cer­emo­ny of tak­ing pos­ses­sion, Com­modore Jones had a talk with the Amer­ican con­sul, Mr. Larkin, and learned to his dis­may that the let­ters up­on which he had act­ed and which in­di­cat­ed that war had been de­clared were mis­lead­ing, and from the lat­est news it was ev­ident that there was peace be­tween the two coun­tries.

The com­modore saw at once that he had made a se­ri­ous mis­take, “a breach of the faith of na­tions,” as it was called, which was li­able to in­volve the Unit­ed States in grave dif­fi­cul­ties. How best to un­do his rash ac­tion was now his thought.

He apol­ogized to the Mex­ican com­man­der and gave back pos­ses­sion of the fort. Next, he had the un­hap­py task of tak­ing down the Amer­ican flag and re­plac­ing it with the cac­tus and ea­gle ban­ner of Mex­ico, to which the guns of his ves­sels gave a salute of hon­or. From Mon­terey he sailed away to San Pe­dro. There he wait­ed while he sent a mes­sen­ger to Gov­er­nor Michel­tore­na, who was liv­ing in Los An­ge­les, ask­ing per­mis­sion to call up­on him and apol­ogize in per­son. This re­quest was grant­ed, and Com­modore Jones and his staff came up to Los An­ge­les, where they were the guests of their coun­try­man, Don Abel Stearns, who, as he had been work­ing with Con­sul Larkin to win the Cal­ifor­ni­ans to the Unit­ed States, was most anx­ious to un­do the mis­chief of the flag rais­ing. For the ben­efit of this his­to­ry, Dona Ar­ca­dia Ban­di­ni, who was the beau­ti­ful Span­ish wife of Mr. Stearns, tells the sto­ry of the vis­it:–

“We gave a din­ner to the gov­er­nor, the com­modore, and their at­ten­dants. Ev­ery­thing was very friend­ly; they seemed to en­joy them­selves, and the uni­forms of the two coun­tries were very hand­some. On the next day but one the gov­er­nor gave a ball. It was to be at his home, which was the on­ly two-​sto­ry house in Los An­ge­les. To show the Amer­icans how pa­tri­ot­ic the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia were, the gov­er­nor re­quest­ed in the in­vi­ta­tions that all the ladies wear white with a scarf of the Mex­ican col­ors,– red, green, and white. Of course we glad­ly com­plied, though some of us had to work hard to get our cos­tumes ready.

“The day of the ball came, but with it came rain, such a storm as I nev­er had seen. As it drew to­ward evening the wa­ter came down faster and faster. The gov­er­nor had the on­ly car­riage in Cal­ifor­nia, and this he was to send for the com­modore, Mr. Stearns, Isado­ra, and my­self; but the poor young of­fi­cers had to walk, and their faces were long when they looked out at the rain and then down at their fine uni­forms and shin­ing boots.

“Our Cal­ifor­nia hors­es were not trained to pull loads and would not work in the rain, so when the car­riage came for us it was drawn by a num­ber of the gov­er­nor’s Cho­lo sol­diers. We got in quite safe­ly, and it was on­ly a short dis­tance we had to go, but as I was get­ting out the wind sud­den­ly changed and down came a tor­rent of wa­ter on me. It was clear that I could not go to the ball in that con­di­tion, but the gov­er­nor im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered the sol­diers to pull the car­riage back to my home, where I soon made an­oth­er toi­let. The ball was de­light­ful. The gov­er­nor and the com­modore vied with each oth­er in ex­chang­ing com­pli­ments and cour­te­sies.”

It was a sad fact, how­ev­er, that in spite of apolo­gies, din­ners, and balls, Con­sul Larkin now found it dif­fi­cult to per­suade his Cal­ifor­nia neigh­bors that the Unit­ed States looked up­on them as broth­ers, and they be­gan to re­gard with sus­pi­cion the host of Amer­ican em­igrants who were com­ing in­to the ter­ri­to­ry.

In 1842 Lieu­tenant Fre­mont, un­der or­ders from the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment, made the first of his won­der­ful jour­neys over deserts and rough moun­tain ranges in­to the great un­known West. Soon he was to be­come fa­mous, not on­ly in his own coun­try but in Eu­rope, as the “Pathfind­er,” the road mak­er of the West. Al­ready many an Ore­gon em­igrant had blessed the name of Fre­mont for mak­ing plain the trail for him­self and his loved ones.

In 1846 Cap­tain Fre­mont, con­duct­ing an ex­plor­ing and sci­en­tif­ic ex­pe­di­tion, en­tered Cal­ifor­nia with six­ty men and en­camped in the val­ley of the San Joaquin. Lat­er he moved down in­to the heart of the Cal­ifor­nia set­tle­ments and en­camped on the Sali­nas Riv­er. Pos­si­bly, know­ing that war would soon be de­clared be­tween his coun­try and Mex­ico, he had de­ter­mined to see as much of the en­emy’s po­si­tion as pos­si­ble, not car­ing par­tic­ular­ly what the Mex­ican au­thor­ities might think.

As a nat­ural re­sult, Gen­er­al Cas­tro, com­man­der of the Cal­ifor­nia forces, ob­ject­ed; Fre­mont de­fied him, and there seemed a like­li­hood of im­me­di­ate war. There was no ac­tu­al fight­ing, how­ev­er, and in a day or two Fre­mont con­tin­ued his jour­ney to­ward Ore­gon.

He had gone but a lit­tle way when he was over­tak­en by a cap­tain of the navy named Gille­spie, bring­ing him let­ters from the of­fi­cers of the gov­ern­ment at Wash­ing­ton. Up­on read­ing these, Fre­mont im­me­di­ate­ly turned about and marched swift­ly back to Sut­ter’s Fort, where he en­camped. Just what or­ders the mes­sages from Wash­ing­ton con­tained, no one knows; but it is thought that per­haps they in­formed Fre­mont that war would be de­clared very soon and that the gov­ern­ment would be pleased if he could qui­et­ly get pos­ses­sion of Cal­ifor­nia.

If this was so, he had the best of rea­sons for his lat­er ac­tions. If not, then in his ea­ger­ness to ob­tain for his coun­try the valu­able ter­ri­to­ry he so well ap­pre­ci­at­ed and in his de­sire to win for him­self the hon­or of gain­ing it, he brought on a war that caused the loss of many lives and much prop­er­ty, and the growth of a feel­ing of bit­ter­ness and dis­trust be­tween Amer­icans and Cal­ifor­ni­ans that has not yet en­tire­ly passed away. Still it is by no means cer­tain that Cal­ifor­nia could have been won with­out fight­ing, even had Fre­mont and the Amer­ican set­tlers been more pa­tient.

Soon many Amer­icans were gath­ered about Fre­mont’s camp; but though there were a num­ber of ru­mors as to what Gen­er­al Cas­tro was go­ing to do to them, there was no ac­tion con­trary to the pre­vi­ous kind­ly treat­ment all had re­ceived from the hands of the Cal­ifor­ni­ans. Still the em­igrants felt that as soon as war was de­clared an army from Mex­ico might come up which would not be so con­sid­er­ate of them and their fam­ilies as had been their Cal­ifor­nia neigh­bors.

Hav­ing good rea­son to feel cer­tain that Fre­mont would stand back of them if they be­gan the fight, a com­pa­ny of Amer­icans at­tacked one of Cas­tro’s of­fi­cers, who, with a few men, was tak­ing a band of hors­es to Mon­terey. Se­cur­ing the hors­es, but let­ting the men who had them in charge get away, they hur­ried them to Fre­mont’s camp, where they left them while they went on to Sono­ma. Here they made pris­on­er Gen­er­al Valle­jo, com­man­der of that de­part­ment of the ter­ri­to­ry, to­geth­er with his broth­er and staff.

Gen­er­al Valle­jo was one of the lead­ing Cal­ifor­ni­ans of the north, a man of fine char­ac­ter, qui­et and con­ser­va­tive, gen­er­ous to­ward the needy em­igrants and fa­vor­able to an­nex­ation with the Unit­ed States. When he saw the rough char­ac­ter of the men sur­round­ing his house that Sun­day morn­ing, he was at first some­what alarmed. A man named Sem­ple, who was one of the at­tack­ing par­ty, de­scrib­ing the event in a Mon­terey pa­per some­time af­ter­ward, says: “Most of us were dressed in leather hunt­ing shirts, many were very greasy, and all were heav­ily armed. We were about as rough a look­ing set of men as one could well imag­ine.” When they as­sured the gen­er­al that they were act­ing un­der or­ders from Fre­mont, he seemed to feel no more anx­iety, gave up his keys, and ar­ranged for the pro­tec­tion of the peo­ple of his set­tle­ment. He was first tak­en to Fre­mont’s head­quar­ters, then for safe keep­ing was sent on to Sut­ter’s Fort.

Mean­while the par­ty which had been left in charge of af­fairs at Sono­ma chose one of their num­ber, a man named Ide, as their lead­er. Re­al­iz­ing that they had be­gun a war, they felt the need of a flag, and not dar­ing to use that of the Unit­ed States, they pro­ceed­ed to make one for them­selves. For their em­blem they chose the strongest and largest of the an­imals of Cal­ifor­nia, the griz­zly bear. The flag was made of a Mex­ican re­bosa or scarf of un­bleached muslin about a yard in width and five feet long. To the bot­tom of this they sewed a strip of red flan­nel; in one cor­ner they out­lined a five-​point­ed star, and fac­ing it a griz­zly bear. These were filled in with red ink and un­der them in black let­ters were the words “Cal­ifor­nia Re­pub­lic.” The tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment of the fol­low­ers of the Bear Flag is gen­er­al­ly known as the “Bear Flag Re­pub­lic.”

As soon as it seemed prob­able that the Cal­ifor­ni­ans un­der Gen­er­al Cas­tro were march­ing to at­tack the Amer­icans, Cap­tain Fre­mont joined his coun­try­men, and from that time the Unit­ed States flag took the place of the ban­ner of the bear. A lit­tle lat­er Cap­tain Fre­mont took the pre­sidio and port of San Fran­cis­co, and to him is due the hon­or of nam­ing beau­ti­ful Gold­en Gate.

About two weeks af­ter the cap­ture of Sono­ma, Com­modore Sloat, with two ves­sels of the Unit­ed States navy, en­tered the har­bor of Mon­terey. Al­though he had come for the pur­pose of tak­ing the ter­ri­to­ry for his coun­try, and had or­ders to see to it that Eng­land did not get pos­ses­sion of Cal­ifor­nia ahead of him, yet he had been cau­tioned to deal kind­ly with the Cal­ifor­ni­ans, and he hes­itat­ed to take de­cid­ed steps. It took him six days to make up his mind, and then he came to a de­ci­sion part­ly on ac­count of the ac­tions of Fre­mont and his men. Slow­ly up the flagstaff on the fort of Mon­terey rose the Stars and Stripes. Un­fold­ed by the sea breeze, the beau­ti­ful flag of the Unit­ed States waved again over the land of the padres, and this time to stay. A few days lat­er Com­modore Stock­ton reached Cal­ifor­nia to take com­mand in place of Com­modore Sloat, who re­turned home. Stock­ton ap­point­ed Fre­mont com­man­der of the Amer­ican forces on land, and to­geth­er they com­plet­ed the con­quest of the ter­ri­to­ry.

It was un­for­tu­nate that Com­modore Stock­ton had so late­ly ar­rived from the East that he did not ful­ly un­der­stand the state of af­fairs. As he be­lieved the wild ru­mors which, false­ly, ac­cused the Cal­ifor­ni­ans of treach­ery and cru­el­ty, his procla­ma­tions were harsh and un­just to the proud but kind­ly peo­ple whom he was con­quer­ing. Many of the late his­to­ri­ans find much to blame in the treat­ment giv­en by the Amer­icans to the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia. Sever­ity was of­ten used when kind­ness would have had far bet­ter ef­fect.

Los An­ge­les and San Diego were tak­en by Stock­ton and Fre­mont with­out any fight­ing, and leav­ing a few troops in the south, both com­man­ders re­turned to Mon­terey. They were soon re­called by the news that the peo­ple of Los An­ge­les had risen against the harsh rule of Cap­tain Gille­spie, who had been left in com­mand; that the Amer­icans had sur­ren­dered but had been al­lowed to re­tire to San Pe­dro, and that all the south was in a state of ac­tive re­bel­lion.

Land­ing at San Pe­dro, Stock­ton wait­ed a few days, then fear­ing the en­emy was too strong for his forces, sailed away to San Diego. Here the Amer­icans re­ceived a hearty wel­come, and much-​need­ed as­sis­tance, from the Span­ish fam­ilies of Ban­di­ni and Ar­guel­lo.

Mr. Ban­di­ni es­cort­ed a body of the Unit­ed States troops to his home ran­cho on the penin­su­la of Low­er Cal­ifor­nia, where he gave them cat­tle and oth­er food sup­plies. For this aid to the in­vaders he was forced to re­move his fam­ily from their home there, and on the jour­ney up to San Diego. Mrs. Ban­di­ni made what was prob­ably the first Amer­ican flag ev­er con­struct­ed in Cal­ifor­nia. As they neared San Diego the of­fi­cer in com­mand dis­cov­ered that he had ne­glect­ed to take with him a flag. He did not wish to en­ter the set­tle­ment with­out one, and when the mat­ter was ex­plained to Mrs. Ban­di­ni, who was jour­ney­ing in a car­reta with her maids and chil­dren, she of­fered to sup­ply the need.

From the hand­bag on her arm came nee­dle, thim­ble, thread, and scis­sors, and from the cloth­ing of her lit­tle ones the nec­es­sary red, white, and blue cloth. Un­der the di­rec­tion of the young of­fi­cer she soon had a very fair-​look­ing flag, and be­neath its folds the par­ty marched in­to the town. That night the band of the flag­ship Congress ser­enad­ed Mrs. Ban­di­ni in her San Diego home, and the next day Com­modore Stock­ton called to thank her in per­son. The flag, it is said, he sent to Wash­ing­ton, where it is still to be found with oth­er Cal­ifor­nia tro­phies.

The most se­vere bat­tle of the war in the state of Cal­ifor­nia was fought on the San Pasqual ran­cho in San Diego Coun­ty. The forces en­gaged were those of Gen­er­al An­dres Pi­co, who com­mand­ed the Cal­ifor­ni­ans, and Gen­er­al Stephen Kearny, who had marched over­land, en­tered the ter­ri­to­ry on the south­west, and was on his way to join Stock­ton. Hear­ing that the coun­try was con­quered and the fight­ing over, the Amer­ican of­fi­cer had sent back about two hun­dred of his men, but he was af­ter­ward re­in­forced by Cap­tain Gille­spie and fifty men sent by Stock­ton to meet him. Sev­er­al Amer­ican of­fi­cers were killed in the bat­tle of San Pasqual, and their brave com­man­der severe­ly wound­ed.

Com­modore Stock­ton, on his march from San Diego to Los An­ge­les, twice en­gaged the en­emy, once at the cross­ing of the San Gabriel Riv­er and once on the La­gu­na ran­cho just east of the city. The Cal­ifor­ni­ans be­haved with great brav­ery. All of them were poor­ly armed, many hav­ing on­ly lances and no fire-​arms, and what pow­der they had was al­most worth­less; yet three times they dashed up­on the square of steadi­ly fir­ing Unit­ed States marines.

This was the last bat­tle in the ter­ri­to­ry. The Cal­ifor­ni­ans re­treat­ed across the hills to the present site of Pasade­na. Here, at the lit­tle adobe house on the banks of the Ar­royo Seco, they sep­arat­ed. Gen­er­al Flo­res, their com­man­der, was to ride with his staff through the stormy night, down El Camino Re­al to­ward Mex­ico. Gen­er­al An­dres Pi­co, up­on whom de­volved the du­ty of sur­ren­der, was to ride with his as­so­ciates to the old Cahuen­ga ranch house, the first sta­tion on the high­way from Los An­ge­les to San­ta Bar­bara. There he met Cap­tain Fre­mont, and the treaty was signed which closed hos­til­ities. The terms pro­posed by Fre­mont were fa­vor­able for the Cal­ifor­ni­ans and did much to make way for a peace­ful set­tle­ment of all dif­fi­cul­ties.