The land itself was worthwhile for agricultural pursuits. Gold however was not the only thing worthwhile in California.

His adventures getting there and back remain family lore to this day, and one of his female descendants has jewelry made from California gold he found. One of those miners was an ancestor of this author. An American carpenter from New Jersey discovered some gold flakes along a tributary of the American River at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, and his discovery created a “rush” of miners. Gold in the mountains of California had been moving down the waterways to the Sacramento River for centuries due to natural erosion. It is amazing that the Spanish who originally settled California never discovered gold there when the rest of the Spanish Empire was one great big gold and silver grabbing operation. The conquest was legal under the right of conquest and ratified by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. With the metapolitical attitudes so powerfully supporting Manifest Destiny everything fell into place. The US government also sent a large army to attack Central Mexico. Soon all the places in California were under US control no matter how the Mexican Alta California government was organized and who was really in charge. Other columns were headed to California by land and sea. They were able to do so because the United States was unofficially backing the American emigrants with a well-armed battalion of soldiers under the command of Captain John C. In Sonoma, a group of 30 American men arrested the local leader Mariano Vallejo and proclaimed California an independent republic. On the other hand, the Americans had no problems organizing. The Mexican government, including the government of Alta California was poorly organized, and it was uncertain exactly who was overall in charge. As the tensions which led to war between the US and Mexico increased, the Mexican Military Governor of Alta California, José Castro, attempted to force all Americans out.Ĭastro didn’t know what he was in for. By 1846 many Americans had settled near Sonoma, California. They were called “Bostons” by the Californios mainly because the Americans were originating from New England. Later, American trappers were blazing trails from Saint Louis to San Francisco. This metapolitical idea focused American efforts to annex California and all that was between the western US and the Pacific coast.Īmericans had been visiting San Francisco via their clipper ships at least as early as 1796. The concept was famously known as Manifest Destiny. The Democratic Party, a good portion of their Whig rivals, and many of the most prestigious newspapers and cultural creators in the US favored the United States stretching across North America to the Pacific. Mexican California was very poorly ruled from Mexico City, and Vallejo himself was in favor of US Annexation.Īmericans were favoring expansion also. In California, Russians were encroaching from their post at Fort Ross, near San Francisco. Around the Great Salt Lake, Mormons were making a self-governing republic of their own. All of Mexico’s provinces north of the current border between Mexico and the United States were either under threat from other powers or had already succeeded from Mexico itself. It was sparsely settled, highly disorganized politically, and ruled in the name of Mexico by “Hispanics” of white blood, such as Mariano Vallejo (1807-1890). In the 1840s, California was still a province of Mexico. And the metapolitical and legal environment was more important than the fighting itself.Ĭaptain John C. However, the military operations - with the fighting, maneuvering, and acts of valor - took place within a legal and metapolitical environment. As a result, it had to be fought for, both capturing the territory, and then keeping it. California turned out to be the ultimate prize won during the Mexican War.Ī prize this big is not something that really just falls into the lap of a people, even one as resourceful as the Americans.

San Francisco Bay is the West Coast’s finest harbor. Silicon Valley drives much of the new information economy. California hosts the American motion picture industry which is unrivaled in the entire world. California wines are fantastic in both quantity and quality. Its agribusiness surpasses almost all others and is able produce high value, specialized crops such as almonds and raisins. Indeed, California’s economy is one of the largest in the world.

Of all the states it contains the largest economy. California is the jewel in the crown of the American Union.

Counter 1 and 2 bostons