Collection: Books and Periodicals

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Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 713  

HISTORY OF NORTHERN . CALIFORNIA. 27 secure his travels while here, but till now rt has never been revealed that he was clothed by the government that he represented with any powers of a revolutionary character. While his attitude had been defiant of California authority and his hoisting of the American flag on Gabilan Peak, almost in sight of the California capital, a bold affront to Castro, California’s military chieftain, yet there is no evidence, as yet, that his acts were other than the effervescence of an individual disposed to magnify the importance of his mission. The effects of Fremont’s acts were two-fold. The Californians believing him to be acting under instructions from his government, naturally believed that he was here for the purpose of fomenting a revolutionary spirit among foreigners resident here, and they were more disposed than ever to enforce the laws prohibitory of indiscriminate immigration. The American settlers finding themselves more and more the objects of suspicion by the California authorities, naturally took it for grauted that as Fremont had been the instrument of inciting the authorities to a more rigid enforcement against thei of existing immigration laws, he knew what he was about, and would stand by them if trouble came. Aside from the fact that all knew that war was imminent between the United States and Mexico, California wae rent and torn by internal discord. The Territorial government had ever been, at best, a weak one, but during the past decade it had gone froin bad to worse, until chaos seemed to brood over the Territory from Sonoma to San Diego. The government was divided; one part being administered from Los Angeles and theother from Monterey, and each wing in open revolt against the authority of the other. In the very teeth of a threatened danger trom without, Governor Pio Pico at Los Angeles and General Castro at Monterey were seemingly only intent on each other’s overthrow. The action of Fremont, already referred to, in flaunting the stars and stripes upon Gabilan Peak seems to have brought General Castro to sumething like a correct appreciation of the fact that there was great need of unification and effort among California authorities. This he tried to impress upon Pico in the south, but the suspicious governor saw fit to construe the efforts of Castro to get the military upon a defensive basis, into a menace to himself; and the people of the entire South seemed to be in entire accord with him on the subject. In truth, the people of the lower and upper portion of the Territory seem to have been as completely estranged and soured against each other as if their origin had been from distinct races. Hence, was witnessed the pitiful endeavor of Pio Pico to gather together a force sufficient to proceed to Monterey tor the purpose of subjugating Castro, at the very time the latter was equally intent upon gathering a force to meet what he conceived to be a great danger on the northern frontier. To California, the early months of 1846 seems to have been a dark period to all fruitful of junto meetings and dark-room cabals, when all were suspicious of each other, and it seemed politic for no man to let his right hand know what his left hand was doing. “While this condition of doubt and uncertainty was unmistakably true as related to the Californians, it was only less true, in a modified degree, as related to the Americans then resident here. While they were united in heart and sentiment, they were completely out at sea without chart or compass, in the face of a brewing storm. If Fremont’s action in Monterey County had encouraged them to believe that he had authority to raise the standard of revolution in California, that belief must have received a chill when he, a few weeks later, with his sixty men started northward to Oregon, with the avowed purpose of returning Kast by that route. That this was not a strategic movement on his part is evidenced by letters he wrote at the time both to his wife and his father-in-law, Hon. Thomas H. Benton. Thomas O. Larkin was the secret and confidential agent of the United States Government in California and he certainly had no commis-