“She Will Be a Territory, and Then a State, of the American Confederacy, and Nothing Else”: News of California and the Mexican-American War in Letters from Niles’ National Register, 5 February 1848

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The Mexican-American War began when the United States declared war against our southern neighbor on 13 May 1846. American naval forces seized Los Angeles exactly three months later, but Californios revolted against curfews and other prohibitions instituted by the local commander and retook the pueblo. A combined Army and Navy force then marched north from San Diego, met with William Workman and others at Mission San Juan Capistrano and rejected truce overtures, and, on 9 January 1847, with William Workman among those surrendering the town with a white flag of truce, completed the conquest of Alta California, which was a large part of the roughly 55% of Mexican territory taken by the United States.

The war continued in México until the Battle of Chapultepec of 13 September 1847, after which American envoy Nicholas Trist worked with his counterparts on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was signed on 2 February 1848. The document was then sent to Washington, D.C. and President James K. Polk forwarded it to the Senate, which ratified it on 10 March by a vote of 34-14, after it removed Article Ten, which was to preserve existing land grants.

The featured artifact from the Museum’s collection for this post is the 5 February 1848 issue of Niles’ National Register, a weekly newspaper that dealt with foreign news, national affairs. Established nearly three decades before in Baltimore by Hezekiah Niles, the publication was taken over by Niles’ son William in 1836, but it was sold by his stepmother to Jeremiah Hughes three years later. Hughes ran it until July 1848 and it was moved to Philadelphia for its last year, folding in September 1849.

Our interest here concerns references to California, as well as to the war, with a notable reprinting from the New York Journal of Commerce of a letter from 10 October 1847, under a month since the war ended, by an unidentified scribe in Monterey, the former capital of Alta California. The missive began by noting that the march of migrants overland—something which began a half-dozen years earlier with the Bidwell-Bartleson Party to the north and the Rowland and Workman Expedition from New Mexico to Los Angeles.

It was added that “we have ceased counting their wagons—and as for the emigrants, you might as well attempt to number the trees which waive [sic] over them.” Significantly, it was asserted that “these emigrants would have settled the fate of California without any declaration of war with Mexico,” even if a small amount of violence was to have ensued with Mexican authorities and Californio residents. Moreover, it was observed, “their triumph was sure, not only in their courage and skill, but in their overpowering numbers.” The account closed with.

Some of your politicians [the minority against the war] talk of giving up California. Why, you can no more give her up, than you can the soil on which you tread. You may say she shall go back to Mexico, but she won’t go there; she will be a territory, and then a state, of the American Confederacy, and nothing else. We don’t care a fig how you figure it out on your political map; we have figured it out for ourselves, and our work will stand, whatever may become of yours.

That last bit of belligerence sounds as if could have been uttered by a member of the short-lived Bear Flag Republic, which declared an independent state in Sonoma before American forces arrived as part of the nation’s first imperial war. But, there were major challenges , far beyond just determining the contours of a “political map,” of what to do with a massive region that geographically upset the north-south balance of alternative free and slave states from the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Consequently, a new set of residents, most very recent arrivals from elsewhere in America, took matters into their own hands and ratified a constitution in December 1849, from which a government was formed that forced Congress to act in admitting California as a state in September 1850.

The Register published another letter from Monterey, dated 4 October, that was more sanguine in its tone if also pointed in its commentary about the postwar situation in the newly conquered land as it began:

The affairs of California continue tranquil. Now and then a report reaches us of Mexicans having crossed the southern line of the territory; but these are idle rumors. The Mexicans have enough to do at home. We apprehend no outbreak here, the sober portion of the community would regard such a step as one of frantic folly; and even that restless class which is found in every country would shrink from the idea of its fearful issue.

Of course, there would have been significant differences in attitudes in different parts of the conquered region, so that Latinos in Los Angeles or San Diego would not have felt exactly as their confreres in Santa Barbara, Monterey or Yerba Buena (soon to be called San Francisco). Still, it is interesting to peruse and ponder these statements concerning any possible revolt against the seizure of Alta California.

Matters were apparently very different with the indigenous people, according to the missive, which remarked,

The wild Indians give us some trouble. They come down from the Tulares [the interior valleys], steal our horses and drive them into the mountains, where they kill and eat them. They prefer horse flesh to the finest beeves [cattle]. We want in California for a few years some four hundred men, well mounted. They would repress any possible tumult, and protect property in the settlements from the depredations of the wild Indians. You send us out huge guns, which are of no more use than so many hollow trees. No instrument of war is of use here, unless it is invested with locomotive qualities.

The answer, according to this correspondent, was clear. Sheer force was needed to “repress” the native people, with smaller armaments for that force of 400 mounted hunters to either annihilate or cow the indigenous people into submission. In fact, wars against California’s Indians became a terrible part of our state’s legacy for the next quarter century or so, with those of the north often involving on extermination, though campaigns in the south, such as against Antonio Garra, could also be brutal.

The writer noted that three Navy vessels were along the coast of México to participate in campaigns against key coastal cities, such as Acapulco and Mazatlán, this latter deemed “the most important point on the Pacific,” while the former was were it was “likely thee may be hard knocks,” largely because “a considerable portion of the troops have been sent to the city of Mexico.” It was commented, “what a stride for our arms—from the Atlantic to the Pacific—but what treasures and blood it has cost!”

It was cautioned, however, that “nor is the end yet” and “think not of peace” as it was considered “an idle dream.” Asserting that “there is no discharge in this war,” the scribe added that “there is no settled government or permanent part with which to make peace.” It was continued that “the leaders are all military chieftains, whose ascendancy depends on the continuance of hostilities” and “peace would deprive them of their commands and of their subsistence.” Of course, the writer could not yet have known about the Battle of Chapultepec and the conclusion of the war, much less any of the negotiations for the Treaty.

Next, it was remarked that “harvests this year are very abundant in California” and that “wheat in the kernel,” meaning whole wheat “is low, and the grinding commonly high.” What was lacking were mills and it was asserted “fortunes might be made by them here,” even if they were to be run by steam power because of the lack of strong waterfalls, excepting some in the northern part of California. Notably, John Rowland, co-owner of William Workman on Rancho La Puente and a miller by trade, built one in 1847 along San José Creek just east of his house, this being the first such enterprise in greater Los Angeles (two decades later Workman erected one further west near the confluence of the watercourse with the San Gabriel River).

Another need identified by the correspondent was a demand for sawmills because, even though “we have fine forest trees for lumber,” the cost of boards was $50 per 1,000 pieces, if they could be found in adequate volume and “much of the sawing is done by hand.” The writer requested, “send us out a good dozen sawmills and men to manage them.” Lastly, praise was heaped upon Monterey alcalde (equivalent to mayor) Walter Colton (1797-1851), a Vermont native, Yale University graduate and Congregationalist minister, who was a Navy chaplain when his ship came in during the war.

His Colton Hall, still standing, is where that 1849 California Constitution was written and ratified and he was lionized for his supervision of Monterey’s affairs, which lasted until 1849. He also published, with Robert Semple, The Californian, the first newspaper in America’s new territory, and, after his return to the East Coast, wrote the third of his six books, Three Years in California, issued in 1850 and long considered a valuable resource for the period of 1846-1849. Shortly after that, Colton died at Philadelphia of edema at age 53. The account ended with the acerbic “the lawyers now here would eat up both alcalde and client” if someone lacking too much Colton’s talents was to succeed him.

The correspondent for the North American and United States Gazette signed as “W.G.” and this William Robert Garner (1803-1849), who was born at Litcham in Norfolk, northeast of Cambridge, in England. He took the sea on a whaling ship and came to California in 1824, just a few years after México’s independence from Spain, settling first in Santa Barbara and then, four years later, at Monterey, where he married Francisca Butrón. Among his many activities was harvesting lumber (hence his call for sawmills) in the Carmel Valley, which is where he acquired Rancho San Francisquito.

In fact, Garner was also a correspondent for the New York Journal of Commerce, so that first letter cited here, written a half-dozen days before the one issued under his initials, seems almost certain to have been his production, as well. In May 1849, he was heading inland to set up a trading post in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains between Yosemite and Kings canyons when he was killed by Indians (notable given the remarks about them in his ascribed missive).

Thirty of Garner’s letters to these journals were published in 1970 by the University of California and business historian Edwin Coman, in a book review, called these missives “one of the best accounts of contemporary life in California before it was obliterated by the hordes of outsiders who came in with the discovery of gold.” Coman added that “his descriptions of the customs and activities of the [Spanish-speaking] Californians are detailed and accurate,” though he also downplayed their abilities in developing the Mexican territory and became, as we saw above, an avid booster of American settlement, though also cautionary about conditions at the time.

Coman also observed that much of Garner’s material was plagiarized by others, including Colton, whom Garner served as an interpreter (small wonder he was complimentary of his boss, though, had he known what Colton would use of his writing for his own book, that view might have changed!). There was also a legal battle between Garner and Thomas Jefferson Farnham, after the latter leveled barbed criticisms about the former’s character, leading to a libel suit that Garner won.

By the time, this number of the Register was published, no one, of course, in the eastern states, much less Garner at Monterey, knew of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and of the controversies engendered in Trist’s negotiations and what many in the United States viewed as his overly generous concessions to the Mexicans, even as Article Ten was removed. More importantly, however, is that no one in the rest of America much less virtually anyone in California knew of an event that would be far more earthshaking and groundbreaking than the war.

This was James Marshall’s astounding discovery on 24 January 1848 of gold along the American River at Coloma while building a sawmill (a remarkable circumstance given Garner’s exhortations for these) for his employer, John Sutter, the owner of a virtual fiefdom at Sacramento. Marshall tried to keep his remarkable find under wraps, but, of course, the news soon got out and was broadcast throughout California and then much of the world.

This combination of the war and the Gold Rush, of course, were so transformative for California, the United States and beyond that, more than 175 years later, it is still hard to overstate the importance of what they wrought. This issue of Niles’ National Register is remarkable as a document of that period before news of both the treaty and Marshall’s providential find (though it didn’t work well for him financially or otherwise) and is a notable part of the Homestead’s artifact holdings for the first of our three key decades (the others being the 1870s and 1920s) in our interpretive period of 1830-1930.