History of California before 1900
European exploration
When the first European explorers and settlers appeared, they found many indian tribes who lived in the pristine land of Oak woodlands, grassy hills, and broad beaches — in what is now California. Among the tribes were the Ohlone, Miwok, Modoc, Mohave, Chumash, and Maidu. California holds a variety of unique biosystems and each tribe specialized according to the particular environment. Coastal tribes were a major source of trading beads (wampum), which were produced from mussel shells using stone tools, while those in the northern Cascade Range traded obsidian, used for arrowheads, axe heads, and knives. Tribes in the Sierra Nevada foothills collected acorns from oak trees, ground them, and leached out the acidic tannin to make the flour edible.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
In June 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo led an expedition in two ships from the west coast of New Spain (modern Mexico) on behalf of the Spanish Crown. At this time it was believed that the peninsula of California was the legendary "Island of California," and Cabrillo's goals included plotting the northern end of the island, and then discovering a northern strait back to the Atlantic Ocean: the hoped-for Northwest Passage. On September 28, his party landed at San Diego Bay, claiming all the lands south of Point Loma, at the mouth of the bay, for Spain. Cabrillo continued sailing up the coast and his crewmen became the first Europeans in what later became Alta California. The expedition spent the winter anchored at one of the Channel Islands off the Southern Californian coast. Cabrillo died in early 1543, but the expedition continued under Bartolomé Ferrelo, who had been the chief pilot. Although other theories have been put forth, most historians accept that the expedition went no further north than Monterey Bay.
Sir Francis Drake
The history of California properly begins in 1579, when Sir Francis Drake landed somewhere above Spain's most northerly claim at Point Loma. In the 1500's, the Protestant English feared and resented the global power and influence of the Roman Church, especially as represented by their archenemies, the Spanish Hapsburgs. The English Crown authorized privateers — such as Drake — to raid Spanish shipping heavy laden with treasure from the New World. In 1577, Drake left England on his commission by Queen Elizabeth the Great boldly to circumnavigate the world. In 1579, having made it to the North Pacific, he purposely sailed north above the Spanish claims to locate a base whence future privateers — such as himself — could relieve the enemy Spanish "Papists" (as the English called them at the time) of their gold and silver. Before this time, the Caribbean was easy prey to daring English sailors, but the Pacific was out of reach.
Drake found an excellent port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time and kept friendly relations with the aboriginal natives. It is usually assumed that Drake's port was somewhere near the northern Bay Area — anywhere from Bodega to San Pablo Bay. A bronze plaque, fitting a description in Drake's own account, was discovered in Marin County and where it was found was then named Drake's Bay. The plaque was later declared a fraud. No one knows exactly where Drake's port was. Drake's brother endured a long period of torture at the hands of Spaniards in South America who sought intelligence from him about Drake's voyage. The precise location of Drake's port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards. It is unlikely the riddle of Drake's port will ever be unraveled, for Whitehall Palace burned in London and its records have never been recovered.
It is said that Drake left behind many of his men as a small colony, but planned voyages back to the colony were never realized. The land Drake claimed in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown was Nova Albion — that is in Latin, "New England."
Drake's voyage to the west coast of North America is important for a number of reasons. When Drake landed, his chaplain held Holy Communion, as in the words of Thomas Cranmer, "it is very meet and right and our bounden duty so to do." This was the first Protestant church service in all the New World. And this was seen as a chink in the armor of the feared Papal world order.
What is certain of the extent of Drake's claims and territorial challenge to Papacy and the Spanish crown is that his port was founded somewhere north of Point Loma; that all contemporary maps label all lands above the Kingdoms of New Spain and New Mexico "Nova Albion," and that all colonial claims made from the East Coast in the 1600's were "From Sea to Sea." The colonial claims were established with full knowledge of Drake's claims which they reinforced, and remained valid when the colonies became free states. These territorial claims would later become important during the negotiations ending the "Mexican War" between the United States and Mexico.
Father Junípero Serra
Although the English were the first to establish claims to what is now the west coast of the United States, Europeans virtually ignored the region for about two hundred years. The chain of missions nd tiny settlements north of the Californian peninsula was an effort of the Church under the quiet leadership of Father Junípero Serra. The Spanish at the time were uninterested in the far north, and feared that any conquest beyond the Californian peninsula would set them in direct conflict with the English who were now sailing regularly into the Pacific.
However, owing to the calm vision of the Franciscan Father Serra, Spanish authorities became convinced that ecclesiastical missions to the Indians of the north could succeed. Winning the backing he needed, Father Serra founded his first mission of San Diego de Alcalá at the top of the Californian peninsula in 1769. Later that year, the Spanish commander Gaspar de Portolá, leading a small military force, marched north out of California with Father Serra at the front. Boldly crossing Point Loma, they left the Spanish claim, and marching up the Pacific coast, they reached Monterey in 1770, where Serra founded the second mission, San Carlos Borromeo. Here father Serra made his headquarters (which were moved a year later to Carmel). Their route would later become the famous dirt trail, El Camino Real, the "King's Highway," which is now marked by bell-shaped street lights — where they have not been stolen. Today, a major highway, U.S. 101, roughly follows it.
Father Serra continued founding missions while walking barefoot from his headquarters in Carmel. The missions were placed one day's journey (by foot and mule) apart along El Camino Real. Commander Portolá became the first European proven to view San Francisco Bay, discovering it from the land. in 1776, the mission at San Francisco de Asís, the town of Yerba Buena and the Presidio of San Francisco were founded. The Presidio was a small detachment at the entrance to the bay to protect it from American and English traders. Most missions remain or have been rebuilt in the original style, and many have congregations established since 1900. The highway and missions have become a romantic symbol of an idyllic and peaceful past. Today, Father Serra is known as the "Blessed," and roman Catholics of modern Californian hope for his full beatification.
In the early 1800s, fur trappers of the Russian Empire, which had already claimed Alaska, briefly explored the west coast, and set up trading posts as far south as Fort Ross. They hunted for seal pelts as far south as the Channel Islands across from modern Santa Barbara. A prominent marriage between a leading californio family and an imperial noble almost caused Russian trade to advance into Southern California. The scion from Russia died of disease while crossing Siberia to get a dispensation from Eastern Orthodox hierarchs to marry a Catholic. His would-be bride entered a convent after his death.
To support the agricultural and pastoral work of the missions, the Spanish encouraged settlement with large land-grants, called ranchos, that largely remained empty of people. These were used for ranches with cattle and sheep. Hides for leather were to remain the primary export of California until the mid-19th century. The people of these ranchos were called rancheros.
The missions lasted almost fifty years, until Mexico declared indpendence and the last mission was founded in 1821.
Mexican California
Spanish California lasted fifty sleepy years until Mexico declared its independence in 1821. California, with so few people and so little development became, by 1822, part of Mexico. The secular Mexican government, eager to reduce the power of the Church, confiscated all mission property almost immediately. The missions were abandoned, and many of the churches fell into ruins.
California Republic
Bear Flag Revolt
During the period of Mexican rule, American sailing companies maintained trade with Indians and gathered pelts, and in 1840 young Richard Henry Dana wrote of his own experiences aboard ship off California in the 1830's. Mexico paid little attention to its far-flung northern possession until June of 1846 when American settlers in the Sacramento Valley revolted and raised the Bear Flag over in Sonoma. Thus ended thirteen years of Mexican rule.
Its Bear Flag was said to be designed by a nephew of Abraham Lincoln, and it shows the unique golden Californian grizzly bear atop a single broad red stripe over a white field — evocative of the flag of England. And like the Bonnie Blue Flag flown in Florida against the Spanish, it bears a single star.
In 1846, California had a Spanish-speaking population of 4,000 — the population of a small village streching along the 850-mile coastline. Before the Mexican War, this grew slowly with emigration mainly from the U.S. The Republic, under President William B. Ide, applied to the U.S. for protection from Mexico and California entered the war on the side of the U.S.
Commodore John Drake Sloat, acting on instructions from Washington, DC, ordered his naval troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, and preserve order since war had broken out over the admission of Texas into the U.S. After 24 days, the Bear Flaggers joined the war effort and replaced the Bear Flag with the Stars and Stripes.
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
During the war, a number of skirmishes were fought in southern California between Mexican troops and California Volunteers. Slightly later, the Republic applied to the U.S. for protection from Mexico. The U.S. won in battle California and the territory which later became the states of Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
When looking at a map of California, the southern border does not run straight east to west, as other borders in the western U.S. do. Rather, it runs at an angle from Arizona to just south of San Diego Bay. American claims dating to colonial times and back to Sir Francis Drake, only went as far as south Point Loma — just north of the Bay's mouth. San Diego Bay is the only natural harbor in California south of San Francisco, 500 miles to the north. To claim all of this strategic Bay, the border was slanted to include it. Likewise, New Mexico was never part of any American claim. However, it lay sandwiched strategically between the republics of California and Texas, so it too was included. In an unusual step, the U.S. diplomatic team offered to pay Mexico a handsome sum for the lands already theirs by prior claim and conquest.
Gold Rush
In 1848, gold was discovered in the Sierra foothills — at Sutter's Mill — about 40 miles east of Sacramento. John Sutter was a Swiss German settler who colonized an area around the Sacramento River and Sutter Creek, north and inland from the sparsely-settled Spanish land-grants. James W. Marshall, an American who was Sutter's carpentry, discovered the gold which started a gold rush of emigrants, mostly from the U.S.
The merchants supplying the miners settled in towns along what is now State Highway 49, and especially in Sacramento (the state capital) and San Francisco. The nearest deep-water seaport, was San Francisco Bay, just inland from the narrow strait known as the "Golden Gate," and San Francisco became the home for new established bankers who financed exploration for gold. Gold is still found in many watersheds, in amounts near 3/4 oz./ton, an amount that would be economical to mine, were it not for California's pollution laws, and a Federal court's prohibition on hydraulic mining, which strips hills and mountains of all forests, vegetation, leaving behind huge barren mounds of tailings upstream from muddy, silt-dammed rivers for hundreds of miles to the sea.
The Gold Rush that began in 1849 permanently established California as a viable political entity. Before, the Rush, there were too few people there even to make it a state, which is one reason the military government was established. The far-away Pacific Coast should have be long in acquiring the population necessary to maintain a proper government. The Gold Rush changed all that and hundreds of thousands of people flocked there, walking the trails across the continent, or braving the long journey all the way around South America.
Before California was formally admitted into the U.S. as part of the Compromise of 1850, it occupied an ambiguous place politically. Nominally a free Republic, it was overseen by a military governor for most of the period. It was not quite a republic, not quite a military district, and not quite a federal territory. Finally, in 1850, it was admitted in the Compromise of 1850 as a slave-free state to balance the earlier admission of Texas on the eve of the Mexican War.
Statehood
State capitals
California entered the U.S. in 1851. Its first capital was Monterey. This was soon moved to the little town of Benicia on a beautiful hill perched overlooking the inland Carquinez Strait which links San Pablo to Grizzly and Suisun Bays deep in the interior. A lovely brick statehouse was built in old American style complete with white cupola. Although strategically sited between the Gold Rush territory of the Sierra Foothills and the financial port of San Francisco, the site was too small for expansion, and so the capital was moved further inland past the Delta to the riverside port of Sacramento. Sacramento was the site of Sutter's large farm and his fort. The town was founded while Sutter was away, at the river's edge and downhill from the fort. Sutter was indignant since this place, shaded by water-needy Cottonwood trees was often under water. Indeed, every hundred years or so, the whole Great Valley from Chico to Bakersfield, was one great freshwater sea. However, lots were already sold, so there the town of Sacramento stayed. At the end of the century, the streets were raised a full story, so buildings in Old Town are now entered through what were once doors to the balconies shading the sidewalks below.
California and the American Civil War
After California's admission into the U.S. in 1851, the Southern American states declared independence from the North, and the U.S. Civil War broke out. California was split between the Union and Confederate (Southern) sides, but its isolation kept participation down to a minimum. Officially on the Union side, the State of California sent several thousand volunteer troops and a large amount of gold to help fund the Union war effort. A large number also fought with the South. At this time, the U.S. had a number of military bases to protect the Indians. Some were bereft of troops who were sent east to the war, such as Ft. Tejon, which lies in the Tejon Pass, protecting San Joaquin Valley from the south and east. (California's 400-mile long Great Valley's parts are called — from north to south — the Sacramento Valley, the Central Valley, and the San Joaquin Valley.) New forts were founded to protect ports and to hold Confederate soldiers and sympathizers, such as Fort MacArthur, at the head of San Pedro Bay and especially the coastal fortifications of San Diego and San Francisco Bays. Fort Tejon is now the site of Civil War reenactments of battles back east by descendants of the North and South. One Civil war-era fort, on a rocky island just inside the Golden Gate, later became an infamous Federal penitentiary, Alcatraz. It is now a popular tourist destination and the subject of several books and movies.
Rise of industry
After the Civil War, California continued to grow. Independent miners were largely displaced by large corporate mining operations. Railroads began to be built, and both the railroad companies and the mining companies began to hire large numbers of laborers. Many of them were put out to work, when the Mines and railroads recruited laborers from China whom they disparagingly called "coolies." The unemployed American laborers rioted for losing their jobs, and the Chinese laborers rioted for mistreatment. Novelist Jack London writes of the struggles of workers in the city of Oakland in his visionary classic, Valley of the Moon, a title evoking the pristine situation of Sonoma County between sea and mountains, Redwoods and Oaks, fog and sunshine. Not far away, Robert Louis Stevenson also settled for a time in California to recover his health near the hot mineral springs and geysers on the edge of Napa Valley.
The Trancontinental Railway and the Panama Canal created more permanent links to the east coast of the United States; the Spanish-American War established that the United States, would forsake their most cherished principles which they for against British mercantilism, and launch its career as an international capitalist power. Military bases were established to help protect the new U.S. possessions in the Philippines.
Feats of engineering
Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, there are several daring feats of engineering in Californian history. First is the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which runs from little-known eastern California through the Mohave Desert to dry Los Angeles far to the south. Finished in 1911, it was the brain-child of the self-taught William Mulholland and is still in use today. It attracts controversy from time to time for draining much of Mono Lake — an especially otherworldly and beautiful biosystem — and for depriving farmers in the Owens Valley of water. Others are the building of Hoover Dam (which is in Nevada, but provides power and water to Southern California), Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and the California Aqueduct, bringing water from northern California to dry and sprawling southern California. Another project was the draining of Lake Tulare, which during high water was the largest fresh water lake inside and American state. This created a large wet area amid the dry San Joaquin Valley and swamps abounded at shores. By the 1970's, it was completely drained, but attempts to resurrect itself during heavy rains.
Land grants
An important development in the early twentieth century was the success of a series of lawyers who selfishly exploited differences between Spanish law and Anglo-Saxon common law to cut up the old Spanish land grants and acquire the land for themselves and their business allies. One famous seizure was the part of the Santa Ana grant that became the city of Anaheim, which was divided and sold to Germany and American farmers. A number of other Spanish land-grants were protected for their owners for a time, notably Irvine Ranch in Orange County.
Oil, movies, and the military
In the 1920's, oil was discovered, first by Newhall, in northern Los Angeles County, wheer the last Californian Grizzly was shot in 1927. Soon, more oil was found all over the L.A. Basin and other parts of California. It soon become the most profitable industry in the southern part of the state.
The middle of the twentieth century saw the rise of the studio system founded by industrious Polish Jews seeking a life in the land of opportunity. MGM, Universal and Warner Brothers all acquired land in Hollywood, which was then a small housing tract known as "Hollywoodland" on the outkirts of Los Angeles. Pepole were attracted to the mild semi-arid climate, cheap land, and a wide variety of geography within a short drive by truck. Many westerns of this era were shot in the Owens Valley, east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, wherein rises Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. Desert movies were shot in the Mohave or in Death Valley, the lowest point and hottest place in the western hemisphere. Pirate movies were shot in Carmel. Winter movies were shot in the San Bernardino Mountains. Movies set in the Mediterranean or the eastern U.S. were shot on location, or in outdoor sets on studio land, with simulated rain or snow as needed.
During World War II, California's mild climate became a major resource for the war effort. Numerous air-training bases were established in Southern California, where most aircraft manufacturers expanded or established factories. Major naval shipyards were established or expanded in San Diego, Long Beach and San Francisco Bay. San Francisco was the home of the liberty ships.
Baby boomers and free spirits
After the war, hundreds of land developers bought land cheap, subdivided it, built on it, and got rich. This replaced oil in Southern California as the principal industry. In 1954, Disneyland opened in Anaheim. The population of California expanded dramatically, from 3 million, to nearly 20 million by 1970. This was the coming-of-age of the baby boom.
In the late 1960s the baby-boom generation reached draft age, and many risked arrest to oppose the war in Vietnam. There were numerous demonstrations and strikes, most famously on the prestigious Berkeley campus of the University of California, across the bay from San Francisco. In 1965, race riots erupted in Watts, in Los Angeles' South Central District. Some comentators predicted revolution. Then the federal government promised to withdraw from the Vietnam War, which at last happened in 1974. The radical political movements, having achieved a large part of their aim, lost members and funding.
California still was a land of free spirits, open hearts, easy-going living. Popular music of the period bore titles such as "California Dreamin'," "If You Go to San Francisco, be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair," and "Hotel California." These reflected the Californian promise of easy living in a paradisiacal climate. The surfing culture burgeoned. Many took low-paying jobs and joined the surfers living in trailers at the beach and many others forsook ambition and joined the hippies free living in cities. Most famous of hippy hangouts was the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Cities, especially San Francisco became famous for their gentility and tolerance. A distinctive and idyllic Californian culture emerged for a time. California became known elsewhere in the U.S. jokingly as the "land of fruits and nuts," but Californians themselves knew this as a pleasant life.
Economic power house
Conversely, during the same period, the Golden State also attracted commercial and industrial expansion of astronomical rates. By 1980, California became recognized as the world's eight largest economy. Millions of workers were needed to fuel the expansion. The high population of the time caused tremendous problems with urban sprawl, traffic, pollution, and crime. These issue received much attention in the media, but little or nothing has been done, other than to expand the civil and discretionary powers of police. This has led some free spirits to speculate that California and much of the U.S. have become a de facto police state.
In the 1970s, the wars in southeast Asia inspired a new wave of newcomers, many of whom settled in California. Most were worked hard and lived under difficult circumstances.
High-tech expansion
In this period, high technology companies in Northern California began a spectacular growth that continued for the next thirty years. The major products included personal computers, video games, and network systems. The majority of these companies settled along a highway stretching from Santa Clara to San Jose, the so-called "Silicon Valley," named after the material used to produce the integrated circuits of the era. This era seems to have reached its end; the most coveted jobs are either "offshored" to India at ten percent of the labor costs in the U.S., or "onshored" by recruiting newcomers from among the billions in India and China. New laws have removed caps to visas, especially since the adoption of NAFTA. Although, the actual numbers may never be accurately known, approximately 100 million persons from the third world have entered the U.S. since 1960, settling at first mainly in California and the southwest, but now throughout the continent. By 2010, Hispanics should certainly be the majority of the population residing in California. California is a different place.
A victim of its own success?
Although, the air and pollution problems have become less visible because of new laws, health problems associated with pollution have continued to rise. The brown haze associated with nitrogen oxide from automobiles may have abated somewhat, but amounts of deadly ozone have grown. Respiratory allergies are near universal, and asthma is widespread. The crustal clear blue skies — trademarks of California 100 years ago — are long gone. Pollution from storm water drains began to kill organisms near the inhabited seacoast, inspiring numerous conservation organzations. The former paradisiacal lagoons at creek mouths along the coast have disappeared under urban building projects.
In the 1980s, power problems were again predicted, since nuclear power plants that had been projected were not built. Although California still had more power than it needed, executives of utility companies which were owned by or which associated with Enron, wanted more power and larger multi-million-dollar paychecks at taxpayers' expense. The result in spring and summer of 2000 was chaotic real-time manipulation of electricity distribution by commercial power utilities, particularly the black-outs planned in advance to force the Californian legislature to capitulate to their demands. The issue has not resolved as of 2004. Millions of Californians have left the state, unable to afford the high costs needed to keep up their accustomed standard of living. Millions more have taken their places from the third world.
In the 1990s, a deadly (to grapevines, at least) phylloxera epidemic swept through California vineyards, devastating wine grapes, and causing billions of dollars of damage. Few Californians had time to notice. Crowding into California's large sprawling cities has led to skyrocketing housing prices and lower wages. Homes that in the sixties fetched tens of thousands of dollars may fetch millions of dollars, especially in the Bay Area and the Silicon Valley. Residents in California must work long hours and spend long commutes to work just to make ends meet; they have little time to consider much else.
State seal
California's official state seal depicts the Goddes Minerva gazing over an idyll of mountains, oak trees and the mighty sea below — and gold. California, from north to south between the mountains and the sea s covered with pastoral hills of green oaks and expanses of golden grass. California is indeed the Golden State and promises a life in paradise and prosperity. If the golden promise was fulfilled for more than a century, it may be that the wealthy king Midas has really touched this daughter of the golden west.
21st century politics
In the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Democratic incumbent Gray Davis defeated challenger Bill Simon with a plurality of 47.4%. Days after the election, it was discovered Davis had hid a record $34.6 billion budget deficit. Davis' approval rating dropped to 24%, the lowest ever in the history of the California Field Poll. Nearly two million Californians signed petitions calling for a recall election against Davis. The effort against Davis marked the first time since the 1911 inclusion of a recall clause into the State Constitution that a California governor faced a recall election. There had been 31 attempts in that time.
There were two parts to the recall ballot. The first part asked whether or not Davs should be recalled. The second part asked, if the recall occurred, which candidate besides Davis should be the new governor. 135 candidates ran to replace Davis.
On October 7, 2003, Davis was successfully recalled, with 55.4% of the voters supporting the recall (see results of the 2003 California recall). With a plurality of 48.6% of the vote, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen as the new governor. Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante received 31.5% of the vote, and Republican State Senator Tom McClintock received 13.5% of the vote.
See also: Los Angeles, California#History, San Francisco, California#History