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started businesses here converted to Catholicism, married locals and successfully assimil-
ated into ranchero society.
Impressed by California's untapped riches and hoping to fulfill the promise of Manifest
Destiny (the USA's imperialist doctrine of extending its borders from coast to coast), Pres-
ident Andrew Jackson sent an emissary to offer the financially strapped Mexican govern-
ment $500,000 for California in 1835. Though American settlers were by then showing up
in Alta California by the hundreds, Jackson's emissary was tersely rejected. Soon, a polit-
ical storm was brewing.
In 1836, Texas seceded from Mexico and declared itself an independent republic. When
the US annexed Texas in 1845, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations and ordered all for-
eigners without proper papers to be deported from California. In turn, the US declared war
on Mexico and began an invasion. US naval units quickly occupied every port on Califor-
nia's coast, including Monterey, then the capital of Alta California.
Militarily speaking, California remained a sideshow while the war was mostly fought in
Mexico. The capture of Mexico City by US troops in September 1847 put an end to hostil-
ities. By signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, the Mexican
government ceded much of its northern territory (including Alta California) to the USA,
just in time for California's Gold Rush to begin.
Top California History Books
California: A History
(Kevin Starr)
Journey to the Sun
(Gregory Orfalea)
City of Quartz
(Mike Davis)
Eureka! California's Gold Rush
Gold was discovered at Sutter's Creek, in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, on January
24, 1848. By the next year, surging rivers of wagon trains were creaking into California
filled with miners, pioneers, savvy entrepreneurs, outlaws and prostitutes, all seeking their
fortunes. In 1850, when California was fast-tracked for admission as the 31st US state, the
foreign population had ballooned from 15,000 to 93,000.
With each wave of new arrivals, profits dropped and gold was harder to find. When sur-
face gold became scarce, miners picked, shoveled and dynamited through mountains. Hills
were stripped bare, erosion wiped out vegetation, streams silted up and mercury washed
