Settled by successive waves of arrivals
during the last 10,000 years, California
was one of the most culturally and linguistically
diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America;
the area was inhabited by more than 70 distinct
groups of Native Americans. Large, settled
populations lived on the coast and hunted
sea mammals, fished for salmon, and gathered
shellfish, while groups in the interior
hunted terrestrial game and gathered nuts,
acorns, and berries. California groups also
were diverse in their political organization
with bands, tribes, tribelets, and on the
resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such
as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade,
intermarriage, and military alliances fostered
many social and economic relationships among
the diverse groups.
The first European to explore
the coast as far north as the Russian River
was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542,
sailing for the Spanish Empire. Some 37
years later, the English explorer Francis
Drake also explored and claimed an undefined
portion of the California coast in 1579.
Spanish traders made unintended visits with
the Manila Galleons on their return trips
from the Philippines beginning in 1565.
Sebastián Vizcaíno explored
and mapped the coast of California in 1602
for New Spain. Spanish missionaries set
up some twenty California Missions along
the coast of what became known as Alta California,
together with small towns and presidios.
The first mission in Alta California was
established at San Diego in 1769. In 1821,
the Mexican War of Independence gave Mexico
(including California), independence from
Spain; for the next twenty-five years, Alta
California remained a remote northern province
of the nation of Mexico. Cattle ranches,
or ranchos, emerged as the dominant institutions
of Mexican California. After Mexican independence
from Spain, the chain of missions became
the property of the Mexican government,
and were secularized by 1832. The ranchos
developed under ownership by Californios
who had received land grants.
Beginning in the 1820s,
trappers and settlers from the United States
and Canada began to arrive, harbingers of
the great changes that would later sweep
California. These new arrivals used the
Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, and Old
Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains
and harsh deserts surrounding California.
In this period, Imperial Russia explored
the California coast, and established a
trading post at Fort Ross. In 1846, at the
outset of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848),
the California Republic was founded and
the Bear Flag was flown, which featured
a grizzly bear and a star. The Republic
came to a sudden end, however, when Commodore
John D. Sloat of the United States Navy
sailed into San Francisco Bay and began
the military occupation of California by
the United States.
Following a series of battles
in Southern California, including; the Battle
of Dominguez Rancho, the Battle of San Pascual,
the Battle of Rio San Gabriel and the Battle
of La Mesa, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed
on January 13, 1847, ending hostilities
in California.
Following the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, the
region was divided between Mexico and the
United States; the western part of the U.S.
portion, Alta California, was to become
the U.S. state of California, while the
lower region, Baja California, remained
in the possession of Mexico.
In 1848, the non-native
population of California has been estimated
to be no more than 15,000. But after gold
was discovered, the population burgeoned
with U.S. citizens, Europeans, and other
immigrants during the great California Gold
Rush. In 1850, California was admitted to
the United States as a free state.
At first, travel between
California and the central and eastern parts
of the United States was time-consuming
and dangerous. A more direct connection
came in 1869 with the completion of the
First Transcontinental Railroad. After this
rail link was established, hundreds of thousands
of U.S. citizens came west, where new Californians
were discovering that land in the state,
if irrigated during the dry summer months,
was extremely well-suited to fruit cultivation
and agriculture in general. Citrus was widely
grown, and the foundation was laid for the
state's prodigious agricultural production.
During the early 20th century, migration
to California accelerated with the completion
of major transcontinental highways like
the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the
period from 1900 to 1965, the population
grew from fewer than one million to become
the most populous state in the Union. From
1965 to the present, the population changed
radically and became one of the most diverse
in the world. The state is regarded a world
center of engineering businesses, the entertainment
and music industries, and of U.S. agricultural
production. |
