From Sharpe's Magazine.

CALIFORNIA:

ITS PAST PROGRESS, PRESENT CONDITION, AND FUTURE

PROSPECTS.

MORE than three hundred and twenty | the close of the seventeenth century, obtainyears have elapsed since Hernan Cortez dis- ed permission to colonize a territory whose covered that long narrow peninsula which value was still unknown to the world, but outlies the coast of Mexico, and forms the which to their subtle discernment appeared Gulf, then known as the Purple or Vermilion to teem with the ready materials of wealth. Sea. He was more attracted by its position A hardy band of seamen or soldiers, comthan its aspect; for it appeared a situation missioned to this adventure, would have where he could concentrate his forces and landed, sword in hand, upon the coast, built spread his power over the golden continent. a fortress, planted cannon on the heights, It presented few attractions to the eye, but and at once built up their dominion on the the voyager's experience taught him to ex- adamantine basis of superior power; but the pect that, where the plains and hills seemed Jesuits infused the character of their order least verdant, the concealed treasures of the into the prosecution of their enterprise. earth abounded most. Cortez at once at- Theirs was a bloodless conquest. They cartempted to subdue what he considered an ried gifts, not arms, into California. They island of moderate fertility. In those times subdued the natives with luring promises, national right was little more than a fiction; not with the sabre or the arquebuss; and and with this ambitious explorer discovery their sway-unseen, unrecognized at first,— conferred the privilege of dominion. But he spread in a rapidly widening circle over the failed, and it was not until 1679 that a region. Having destroyed the independence, Spanish admiral planted a flag in that soil- they sought to develop the resources of their a flag destined to flourish there through many acquisition; they planted missions; they generations, until the mother-country, lan- stimulated labor; they industriously wrought guishing under a long decline, lay prostrate the land; and their energies soon piled up amid the rising powers of Europe. Mean- stores of wealth. Crafty in this, as in every while, New California was in 1542 discovered other project, they feared jealousy, and asby Cabrillo, explored by Drake, and survey- siduously scattered through Christendom aced by Spain sixty years later. Considerable counts of the sterility, the baneful climate, uncertainty hangs round the exact order of the unwilling people of California. Meanevents connected with this wealthy region; while the pearl-fishers brought up riches from but its early history is associated with the the bed of the ocean; the lands were covered names of those adventurous navigators who with plenty, and the Jesuits dispatched many sought to conquer by the sword what they a rich galleon, to the various markets of the had through chance discovered. It forms a world. map of events too intricate to be delineated Ships with costly cargoes left the harbors, in the present sketch. Drake saw the coun-bearing in their holds the riches of the virgin try, named it New Albion, and called it British territory. Our claim, however, was never asserted. Sebastian Visconio, in 1602, was led by accident to Monterey, and established the Spanish authority there; but finally, when the first heat of enterprise had cooled, and the enthusiasm of many contending claimants was exhausted, the Jesuits, toward

soil; but in the mouths of their crews, reports of the wretched country they had left! Still these crafty fathers labored not wholly for themselves; with them it was an axiom that the enthralled mind is the heaviest fetter for the body; and whilst they reaped the ready crops of California,-whilst they ranged its forests in search of gums, and bored its

rocks in quest of gold,-they spread every-ployed.
where the influence of Christianity, and the
promising buds of a new civilization appear-
ed. Before the arrival of these Jesuits the
country wore the aspect of a fertile solitude,
with primæval forests, vast grassy valleys,
and luxuriant plains, peopled only by wan-
dering, houseless savages. Its progress un-
der their influence was rapid, and its prosper-
ity rose high. Let us not inquire too closely
into the motives of the saintly fathers, whose
energies ripened into results so friendly to
civilization.

At length Lord Anson captured a vessel, richly freighted, sailing from that povertystricken land. The Jesuits owed their fall to the occurrence of that day; for their masked rapacity was trumpeted through the length and breadth of Europe; and when the country was smiling in its changed attire, and the Indians had sunk to a proper degree of submission, a new revolution occurred. It formed the dawn of another epoch in Californian history. The Jesuits were expelled, and the region was confided to the control of the Dominican monks of Mexico and the saintly Franciscan friars.

The peninsula was at this time studded with sixteen villages; and though the upper country had not maintained the race with equal swiftness, its superior beauty and richer verdure attracted the enterprise of settlers. It seemed to roll away to the snowy mountains in splendid undulations of fertile land, with dashing streams and plenteous valleys, inviting culture, and offering a generous reward to industry.

The first mission in New California was San Diego. It was planted in 1769, and soon around it there sprung up others, until, in 1803, eighteen were scattered over the country. Each mission was considered as the fold of a tribe of Indians, numbering in some more than twelve hundred; and during the domination of the priests, the converts were well fed, clad, and lodged, in return for the labor of their hands. The products of their industry were bartered with the merchants of Europe; and attracted by the forms and ceremonies of the Christian Church, owning its soft influence, and the benefits to be derived from steady lives and well-directed toil, the neophytes swelled their numbers, and California promised to become the home of a population at once happy, simple, and religious.

The means of conversion, however, were not always the most scrupulous; for the good missionaries held the theory, that the result obtained sanctifies the instruments em

When persuasion, or gifts, or gentle allurements failed, the stubborn savages were seized, condemned to ten years' servitude, compelled to adopt the Christian creed, but encouraged by kind treatment, and taught the various arts of industry. Many labored for the common interest, many were let out to private service, and many, having served their period, received allotments of land and rewards for faithful conduct. The influence of the missions was beneficial, if the manner of its employment admits of blame. The rise of population and the extension of industry were rapid in the extreme. In 1790 there were in the upper country 7748 inhabitants; in 1801, 13,668; in 1802, 15,629, or double the first number; whilst the quantity of wheat raised, increased from fifteen to thirty-three thousand bushels, and the oxen fattened, from twenty-five to sixty-eight thousand. This tide of prosperity was rising with undiminished rapidity when troubles, in 1835, broke out, and the accumulated store of years was swept away by a torrent of struggles and confusion. Authority changed hands. The priests, stripped of their functions, degenerated into simple pastors, and the administradors, appointed by a despotism cloaked under the venerated name of a Republic, drove the Indians in great numbers to their native woods, robbed them of the fruits of their long labor, and overthrew the fabric commenced by the Jesuits and continued by the monks and friars.

The Indians, driven from their homes, galled by bitter injuries, robbed of their humble riches, and hunted once more to a refuge among woods and mountains, carried with them the spirit of hatred, and the purpose of deep revenge. They retaliated on their oppressors. Populous cultivated places were laid desolate, and left deserted; and the flames of a harassing and miserable war threatened to convert the smiling verdure of the land into a waste of smoking ashes. The missions were neglected; ruins became frequent; the earth was uncultivated; Christianity languished, and all things appeared as though the degenerate savage was again to range, in the unlimited freedom of nature, over a wild but magnificent wilderness. the United States infused a new element of population into California. Her war with Mexico-whether justifiable or not-afforded the occasion; but there was a policy in her movements rarely observed in the impetuous conduct of youthful powers. She spread her actual influence long before she planted a flag as the sign of her dominion.

But

For two years previous to the capture of

But another and a greater change was at hand, to turn the tide of her fortunes into a new, a wider, and more diffusive channel, and to raise California from the condition of an ordinary State, to be the focus of the world's attention, the spot where innumera-ers; ble streams of emigration from the four quarters of the world, from barbarous and civilized countries, pouring over the Rocky Mountains, or brought over the sea, from distant shores, were to meet in tumultuous confluence, and, flowing upon each other, form an eddying whirlpool of excitement, such as few countries on the globe, in any period of their history, could present to the observation of mankind.

ber; whilst immense pasture grounds afford | heaps of bleaching bones left on the slaughnourishment to the flocks and herds that tering-grounds. They frequently occur in once formed the principal wealth of Califor- many of the districts, and call to recollecnia. Several towns have risen along the tion those ominous piles of white bones which coast; and of these Monterey, San Diego, dot the sandy wastes of Libya,__recording San Francisco, San Gabriel, and the City of the fate of luckless caravans. But a new Angels, are the chief. Previous to the po- epoch was about to open. A sudden change pular outbreaks and the war between the appeared in the aspect of the country. It administradors and the Indian tribes, consi- sprang up from its low prostration; it revivderable commerce was carried on at the ed from its long lethargy; and society, reports, the produce of the country being ex- stored to health, was again inspired with the changed for cloths, cottons, velvets, silks, spirit of industry, the love of commerce, and brandies, wines, teas, and other merchandise. the ambition of well-earned prosperity. But this trade was almost wholly destroyed, until the Annexation gave a new aspect to affairs. Then a new era was opened up, and prosperity filled the towns with bustle, the ports with shipping, the fields with cultiva tors, and the workshops with industrious artisans. Even the Indians, driven to the forests by misgovernment, flocked to the peopled communities, and gradually cast away, for the second time, the mantle of their barbarous life.

Before the establishment of Christianity, they formed one of the strangest and most savage sections of the human race. They worshiped a fantastic god; they dwelt in tribes, and lived partly in primitive thatched huts, and partly under the still more primitive roof of the forest. They wandered abroad in search of game, of dried seeds, of the wild produce of nature's own orchards, and roots dug out of the earth. The whole race was plunged in the darkest barbarism. From this condition they were elevated by the successive European rulers of the country. Their domestic manners were purified by passing through the first progress of refinement; their habits of life became more decent and more regular, and their ideas were enlarged within the sphere of a new belief. They rose to a considerably high standard of progress; but were again depressed by the events of 1835, and once more reclaimed by the establishment of American power. The fisheries were actively prosecuted, and the culture of grain which had been so neglected that foreign produce was required to blunt the edge of famine-occupied the energies of a numerous class. The rearing of oxen and sheep was undertaken with the vigor of former times. During the spring-tide of her prosperity, California was famous for hides and fleeces.

This branch of industry also withered, and the traveler across those widespreading pastures was only reminded of the productive labor of former days by the vast

The intercommunication between California and the United States received a vigorous impulse. Broad currents of emigration flowed through the gorges of the Rocky Mountains, from the territories of the great republic, and into the valleys and plains of California. This leads us to consider for a moment one of the most curious features of commerce in this or any other quarter of the globe. We mean that great caravan or wagontrain which traverses the deserts, gorges, hills, valleys, and flowery plains lying between the town of Independence, Missouri, in the United States, Santa Fé on the western slope of the Rocky range, and the City of Angels on the coast of Alta California. It was formerly one of the principal links of intercourse, and, indeed, with the vast emigrant trail diverging from it, and crossing the Rocky Mountains through the South Pass, afforded a main channel for the intercommunicaton of the two regions.

Forty-five years only have elapsed since one James Pursley, after wandering for a long period through the desolate solitudes west of the Mississippi, fell in with some Indians on the banks of the Platte River, and descended with them to the trading station of Santa Fé. Whether or not he opened a barter with that town, is conjectural; but it appears certain that he planted the first seed of that overland intercourse, although local tradition relates that a swindling French Creole amassed much wealth through trade carried on across the Rocky Mountains. Some desultory undertakings were attempted, but with little result, until in 1821 the first caravan arrived at Santa Fé. Perils and privations were the lot of the first adventurers; but in the next year a company of traders was formed to establish the system of commerce. Eighty of them in 1824 started with a caravan of numerous mules and twentyfive carts, bearing merchandise to the value of thirty thousand dollars. The journey was performed with little difficulty; but