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 The
first official visit from a U. S. official to Sonoma Valley came in
1841, when Commodore Charles Wilkes of the sloop Vincennes landed on
the bay embarcadero four miles south of the town of Sonoma. The
Mexican commandant, Gen. Mariano G. Vallejo, sent a party to meet him
and provided horses for the ride to town four miles away. Wilkes's
journal showed him to have been unimpressed by Vallejo's rustic
though lavish hospitality.
Prior to Wilkes's visit, American civilians were already arriving in
California over the Rockies, drawn by promises of "free land."
Vallejo ran his command like a fiefdom, accumulating land and wealth
and guarding against the Russian incursion along the coast. But he
liked the Americans, who were settling and marrying into Mexican
families, including his own; and he felt that his own country lacked
the interest to develop California properly.
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Official Mexican policy forbade Americans to own land or hold public
office; and the Mexican governor in 1845-46, Pio Paco, denounced the
Americans as intruders and ordered them driven back over the
mountains. Vallejo, as military commander, flatly refused to do this
and retired to Sonoma to wait out the conflict. That proved to be
impossible.
John C. Fremont, nominally a lieutenant of engineers in the Army
Topographical Service on a mapmaking expedition to California, but in
some respects a freebooter intent on settling the state and
displacing the Mexicans, had headquartered at Sutter's Fort in the
Sacramento Valley, and was actively encouraging settlers to
rebel against Mexican rule. His companions were Kit Carson and fifty
armed engineers. Under Fremont's instructions, which he apparently
had no authority to give, a party of men rode from Sutter's fort to
Sonoma, seized the town, arrested Vallejo, and on June 14, 1846,
declared the California Republic. The painting at the top of the page
commemorates this event.
Vallejo greeted his captors cordially and offered them his best
brandy. He thought he was in basic agreement with them that Americans
should control California, and helooked forward to taking part in the
new government. But Fremont and the Bear Flaggers shared the view of
many settlers that Vallejo was the one man who might unite the
quarreling Mexican factions against them, and imprisoned the general
at Fort Sutter. It took several months and an official letter from an
American naval officer to get him out.
Meanwhile the California Republic flourished briefly under its famous
Bear Flag, a banner made from manta cloth and a lady's petticoat. The
flag's emblems are a grizzly bear, representing strength and courage,
and a star, like the one on the flag of California's ally against
Mexico, Texas. Fremont followed up the coup against Vallejo with a
mammoth Fourth of July party in Sonoma and the Californians voted to
join the union as a territory as soon as possible. That happened on
July 9th, 1846 when the Stars and Stripes replaced the Bear Flag
(which itself later became, and remains today, the official state
flag of California). The American flag was raised in the Sonoma Plaza
by a Naval contingency headed by Lt. Revere, grandson of Paul Revere.
Pictured to the left is the Bear Flag Monument erected in the Sonoma
Plaza to commemorate the events of the Bear Flag Revolt.
It was only the following week that the Californians learned that the
United States had declared war on Mexico. Two years later, when that
war ended in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, California and the rest
of the Southwest were ceded by Mexico to the United States.
CONTINUE
Photo of painting by Chris Berggren, Custom Image |
