1. In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain and established a federal republic that welcomed all citizens as it sought to create a civil society through secularization and land grants.
2. In the 1840s, as American settlers moved into California driven by Manifest Destiny, tensions rose which ultimately led the U.S. to declare war on Mexico in 1846 and seize California through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
3. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California sparked the Gold Rush, attracting hundreds of thousands of prospectors and completely transforming California socially and economically.
2. In 1821 Mexico became independent from Spain. They were modeled under a Federal Republic and welcomed all citizens. Effort to create a civil society through secularization of the missions, foreign trade, and land grants. California at first was kind of a Botany Bay for soldiers because it did not attract very many people. No more than 7000 people lived in California. Chapter 3: Mexican California
3. Years before the War Americans were moving into the land of California and people were getting that feeling of bringing California to the United States under the Manifest Destiny. The story of America taking California started with an Army Captain name John Charles Fremont and who was the son-in-law of Senator Thomas Hart Benton. In January 1846 he considered himself the Pathfinder of the Manifest Destiny and felt that California was a ripe for seizure. Chapter 3: Mexican California
4. The United States had declared War on Mexico on May 13, 1846. Mexico surrendered to the United States and there was a peace treaty called the Treaty of Guadalupe. Mexico lost a third of its country to the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1848. In exchange Mexico received $15 million. Chapter 3: Mexican California
5. After the Americans took California from Mexico in 1848 there was a debate on whether to keep it as a free or slave state. There was the idea of creating a Yankee-Latino culture where the two would mix together like Yankees marrying the Californios. Persecuted in the East and the Mid-West Mormons reached San Diego, California in January 1847 and they were used along with New York Volunteers under John Sutter’s leadership was on a mission to build California. On the morning of January 24, 1848 carpenter James Marshall discovered a shiny golden nugget. (It was gold!) Chapter 4: Striking it Rich
6. Once gold was discovered California would never be the same again. Of course gold was going to attract many people to migrate over to California. On December 5, 1848 Congress received the message that gold was discovered. President James K. Polk made the announcement and overnight the Gold Rush began. Chapter 4: Striking it Rich
7. Life in California during the Gold Rush was rough, nasty, brutish, and short. Numbers of the forty-niners would die either in or out from the mines and accidents were frequent. In addition there were fatal diseases, some drank too much, and frequent violence which resulted each person to be armed. Murder rates at the time was high and many were lynched. The Gold Rush also represented the second extensive exposure of a personal feud between Anglo-Saxons and Hispanics. At the same time many Hispanics were more experts compared to the Anglo-Saxons in hunting for gold and would act as tutors towards the Anglo-Saxons. Chapter 4: Striking it Rich
8. Many Californios adjusted successfully to the new American state, but it would not last very long because many of the Mexican Prominent families would be in debt and forced to sell their land to lawyers eventually being poor. By 1850 a year after the beginning of the gold rush, California was also growing in churches and synagogues. In 1852 there were plans to build a state prison at Point San Quentin on San Francisco Bay. By 1854 the first cell block “the Stones” was ready. By the time of the Gold Rush California was producing other things such as wine, where and cattle where the cattle was sold and slaughtered in the mines. Chapter 5: Regulation, Railroad, and Revolution
9. In the 1850s there was a rapid expansion of the railroad service in the U.S. In 1860 the railroad track was about thirty thousand miles connected to cities of the east and mid-west. In 1857 Engineer Theodore Judah came up with a plan for a railroad in California in a pamphlet titled: Practical Plan for Building the Pacific Railroad. Theodore Judah was able to convince both the Senators and Congressmen of California to have railroads built in California. Pacific Railway Act of 1862 was passed which gave the Union Pacific the right to build west from Omaha and the Central Pacific the right to build east from Sacramento. Eventually both the Central and Union Pacific became two of the largest landowners in the west. Chapter 5: Regulation, Railroad, and Revolution
10. Judah felt like the odd man compared to the Big Four who was with him in constructing the railroads, so after the Big Four awarded the contract to a dummy corporation Judah left. California had always imported labor when needed. Charles Crocker needed cheap labor and found thousands of Chinese which whom they would be called “Crocker’s Pets.” Around the 1870s when the U.S. was going through a Depression eighteen Chinese people were murdered in Los Angeles. By the 1880s California already had railroads, corporations, and large landowners that called all the shots. Chapter 5: Regulation, Railroad, and Revolution
11. Kevin Starr. CALIFORNIA. Modern Library. 2005 Pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_California.svg http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/tour/usterritory-lg.gif http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnCharlesFr%C3%A9mont.png http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/guadalupe-hidalgo/images/treaty-page-1.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stringer156_nugget.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HBD_DD1.jpg Sources
