American Settlement

Mexican Era (1821 - 1848) Early Explorer, Settlers & Pioneers (timeline) Jedediah Smith (1820s) - trapper Joseph R. Walker - scout Kit Carson (1840s) - wilderness guide John Fremont - politician John Bidwell - pioneer John Sutter - fort builder & settler

• Mexican-American War (1846)
  • Bear Flag Revolt
    
  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
    • See Calif. statehood below (1850)
      • Boundaries & Admission as Free State

   

   

   

Discovery of Gold (1848)

• Coloma & Bidwell Bar
• "49er’s" - who were they?
  • ethnic diversity (Chinese, Chileans, French, Swedes...)
    • by sea and overland routes
    • California population swells
    • Yerba Buena (S.F.) booms as sea port
    • foothills become the "Mother Lode"
      
      
• Mining and its Impact
  • placer mining wanes
  • hydraulic mining rises (mid 1850s)
    • Malakoff's Diggin's
• erosion, sediments, flooding, mercury

• quartz (tunnel) mining prevails / corporate control

• ancillary industries make profit
  • merchants
  • supply stores
    • Levi Strauss
  • bankers (S.F.), ranchers, farmers
    
    

Impact on the native population

• decimation of Native American population
  • no attempt to assimilate
  • mass murders (genocide)
  • introduction of widespread diseases
• loss of culture and ecology with the land
  • no written language; loss valuable knowledge


California Statehood - 1850

• issue of slavery
• Land Act of 1851
  
  

- American Settlement Worksheet 1