2025 California Admission Day - Sutter”s Fort transition from Mexico to United States

It was in 1839 that John Sutter arrived in California, armed with a carpetbag full of letters of introduction and the hint that he was a former captain in the French Army.

Actually he was a bankrupt shopkeeper who had outrun his European creditors four years previously.

The letters he carried had been obtained through his smooth talking meetings with government and commercial leaders-all based upon an initial few letters that he was able to parlay into many.

The Sutter self-confidence and his credentials combined to open the official doors when be arrived in California.

He presented to Governor Alvarado a plan to establish a colony in the interior of the state, and asked for permission and land. Alvarado saw several advantages to the proposal. The settlement would push the frontier and authority of the government much deeper inland; an additional barrier would be placed to the incursions of Americans from the east, British from the north, and Russians from the northwest. And a presence inland might divert some Indian raids away from the coastline!

As Sutter said later, "I got a general passport for my small colony and permission to select a territory wherever I could find it convenient, and to come in one year's time to Monterey to get my citizenship and title of the land."

Sutter took his party up the Sacramento river and located his fort site after several mosquito ridden, Indian-surrounded camps. He was able to explain his mission in Spanish to at least one spokesman for each tribe he encountered. His offer of friendship and future hospitality silenced all Indian opposition.

By mid-August, 1839, the Sutter party was ashore with its supplies and equipment. As his ships turned to return to San Francisco, Sutter had his tiny brass cannon fire a nine-gun salute, the first cannon fire beard in the Sacramento Valley and a thing of amazement to both the Indians and animals crowding close to the camp.

With a few Spanish words and the offer of beads, cloth, and other trade goods, Sutter was able to arrange for Indian labor. The Hawaiians in his original party set up two thatched huts for the oncoming winter, but Sutter saw to it that a solid, one-story adobe rancho was built for him.

Adobe making continued as Sutter gathered around him everyone who was willing to stay.

Within a year he had "about 20 white men working for me in addition to a large number of Indians," he estimated. The white men were mostly drifters, deserters and vagabonds whom Sutter said he kept in line "because I gave them nothing to drink but water."

The Indians were controlled with ruthless but fair methods although on one occasion he nipped a mutiny at the last moment by attacking the plotters' camp, killing six.

He gave the Indians at least token payment for their work, usually beads or credit to buy items in his store. His pride was a mounted guard of 12 to 15 braves under "the command of a very intelligent sergeant."

Sutter outfitted them in "blue drill pantaloons, white cotton shirts, and real handkerchiefs tied around their heads."

These personal bodyguards were quartered near Sutter's bedroom, had special privileges, maintained a semblance of military atmosphere at the post, and were turned out to drill every Sunday and whenever there were visitors worthy of impressing.

A year after his arrival, Sutter was granted Mexican citizenship and, with it, title to his lands.

A week later he was also appointed the official representative of the government in the Sacramento River region. This made him the interpreter and enforcer of law in a vast area and, as be said, "From that time on I had the power of life and death over both Indians and whites in my district."

With his ownership of the land confirmed, Sutter then "built a large house near the first adobe building," he wrote later. "This I surrounded with walls 18 feet high, enclosing altogether 75,000 square feet. The walls were made of adobe bricks and were two and a half feet thick. At two corners I built bastions; under these bastions were the prisons.”

After Sutter bought Fort Ross in 1841, his headquarters began to assume an especially military appearance, complete with bristling guns and the designation of "fort."

The Mexicans began to lose faith in Sutter. By boasting of his Indian army, his ammunition stock that at times exceeded more "than the whole California government possessed," and his 10 mounted cannon and two field pieces, Sutter aggravated the government.

Sutter's activities were wide-ranging. He started most of his enterprises on credit, winning confidence and support by maintaining friendships with the authorities and actively assisting his newly adopted country.

His fictitious captaincy became official when the Mexican government commissioned him to recruit a militia force to oppose the 1844 insurrection. He served in the field with his command, but ended his active military career as a prisoner.

By 1846, his worries had shifted to meeting the demands of creditors. He had patched up most of the political rivalries so it was ironic when Vallejo, with whom he had frequently disagreed, became his prisoner.

"I placed my best rooms at their disposal and treated them with every consideration," he wrote later. "The gentlemen took their meals at my table and walked with me in the evening. Never did I place a guard before the door of the room . . ."

When Fremont heard about the liberal treatment of the prisoners, be ordered that Sutter's assistant, John Bidwell, take charge of them. A future governor of California, Bidwell was Sutter's trusted foreman and had served with Fremont. His treatment of the prisoners was just as liberal until they were finally released upon the direct orders of Commodore Stockton in August 1846.

By this time the American flag was flying over Sutter's post, Kern in nominal command, 30 men from Company C, New York Volunteers, in garrison, and Sutter's power in an eclipse. The deluge of more emigrants and mustered-out soldiers presented him with a squatter problem bard to fight. His cattle began to disappear for the same reason.

Then came the discovery of gold at his saw mill. Overnight, his agricultural and trading enterprises collapsed, especially when the new and more convenient town of Sacramento diverted settlement and business.

By 1849, Sutter lost ownership of his fort. Within 10 years, little more than the central building was left of what once bad been described as "the largest and best fortified fort in California."