Chapter One
Although John Augustus Sutter called
his trading post a fort there was nothing to defend it against. In the ten
years of its active service to the settlers Sutter’s Fort never fired a shot in
anger from the cannon emplaced in its sturdy walls. Salvos were fired in
salutes, and in celebration of this and that, fiestas mostly, for the
Californios did love a fiesta.
These native people who believed
themselves to be: the true inheritors of the land gave grudging welcome to the
Americans coming across the mountains and around Cape Horn by ship. But by 1846
this welcome had deteriorated. Late-corners were seeing little of the vaunted
hospitality of native Californians. Mexican officialdom viewed the steady
arrival of the intruders, and didn’t like what they were seeing. One who liked
it least of all was the military commander of the Californios’ poor excuse for
a standing army. He was General Jose Castro and the day came when he ordered
his Ruales to spread the word and post notices: Americans who had not
taken Mexican citizenship must leave California.
Nothing came of that except roar of
anger and defiance from the settlers. Castro was unable to enforce such an
order unless he resorted to warfare and shootouts. He might have done so but
for the restraints imposed upon him by the Governor General-Vallejo by name. An
uneasy truce prevailed between the immigrants and their reluctant hosts.
I drove a four-horse Conestoga wagon
to Sutter’s Fort one day in June. The wagon was loaded with cooking utensils of
tin and iron which I had taken from a ship in the port of San Rafael on San
Francisco Bay, a three-day journey south.
Sam Brannon, a merchant, had
purchased the lot on consignment. His general store stood across the road from
the front gate of the Fort. He came out to the veranda and studied the freight
manifest which I handed him. He was a thick-set, bearded Mormon, dour
and forceful.
“Have you heard the latest about Sonoma?”
he asked me, signing the paper.
“Sonoma? Not a word, sir. That’s going on there?”
“I reckon anyone around here will tell you all about it. I don’t
hold with such shenanigans myself. Passel of malcontents and agitators if you
ask me.” He turned to a man who had come out of the store. “Nate, get busy
unloading the wagon Mister Bates just brought in. Get a couple Indians to help
you. Mister Bates, I reckon you’ve done your job.” He returned into the store.
I watched Nate mount to the wagon seat beside my assistant
driver. When he had moved the wagon behind the store ’ I. walked the short
distance to the Fort. Fred Bowers, a husky blond horse wrangler in Sutter’s
employ was standing near the gate.
“Hello, Jett,” said he. “Have a good trip?”
“Uneventful. What’s this that Brannon is saying about Sonoma?
What’s going on there?”
He laughed and whooped in glee in the telling of it. “We captured the whole danged town; took it
away from the natives, that we did. It was like taking candy from a baby, “old
Hoss.” Rode in last Saturday morning, forty one of us. Ezekiel Merritt was
leading. We left here around midnight and reached Sonoma at dawn. Well sir, we
rode smack dab into the leveled at us rifles of the defending militia, but they dropped their guns when they
saw we wouldn’t be put of f. We called their bluff, and they surrendered
without firing a shot.”
“Who did all this?” I endeavored to slow him down some, for it
looked like a big piece of doings, and I wanted to get it right side foremost.
“Take it easy, Fred. Let’s have it from the beginning.”
“All started when some officer commanding a troop of Ruales came to Zeke Merritt’s ranch saying
they was buying horses for General Castro.
Arces, that was his name,” Bowers went on. We’ve had dealings with him
before. Lieutenant in the Ruales. He tells Merritt that General Castro is building up his lancer
legion and needed every mount the settlers could spare, and then some. You know
the ranchers have always been willing to sell horses to the Californios, but
this Lieutenant Arces said that Castro had cut the regular price by one third
per head. Arces tells Merritt the settlers had better come across on that price
or the expulsion from. California order would be carried out in force. You know
what I mean. Give in or pack up.” “Cutting the price would show the people who
was boss,” I remarked, casting angry thoughts at General Castro. “Did he get
his horses?”
“Merritt said he’d think it over. Arces told him to have fifty
horses rounded up and ready in three days and no palaver about it. Then be went
on to put his demand to the other ranchers. Later, when all of them were
gathered for a. council of war I heered that from Allen, Grigsby and Ford he
got horses under protest. From Magruder he got a few scrub ponies and a lot of
excuses, but from Bob Semple and Bill Ide, he got nothing but a refusa1 to sell
at that price or in the numbers of horses wanted. Arces left them both
with threats of what would likely happen to them when Castro heard of it. He
picked up fifty horses at Merritt’s place and added them to rumada then he and
his men headed the herd toward Santa Rosa.”
“So he did bamboozle most of the ranchers and took what he
wanted,” I said.
He got’em but lie didn’t
get to keep’em. The ranchers got together and decided they had been
hornswoggled, buffaloed and stampeded into parting with their best horses; they
decided to do something about it that smacked pretty close to outlawry. I
joined‘em even though I hadn’t sold no horses at no price, but I smelled a fight
coming up and I couldn’t resist a chance to pull the whiskers of his high and mightiness,
General Castro.
We found Arces and his vaqueros and Ruales bedding down for the night near
King’s Landing. They had
enough horses to mount a short
brigade of lancers. Them vaqueros wilted like posies when we rode in from two
sides. We held’em at gunpoint and they was just as obedient as you
please. So we took back the
horses and Merritt threw that horse payment money at the feet of mister pretty boy
Arces and told him to shag his ass to Santa Rosa and tell his boss that there’d be no more horses sold to the Californios by us. Said to
tell Castro that he should keep his men out of American territory and stuff hi3
threats in his eye. Then we
cleared out of there and hid the herd in a box canyon where they’ll stay
till the heat is off.”
I chuckled, hugely enjoying the account of it.
“Course, Captain Sutter didn’t go for
that kind of business at all. When he heard tell of it he went storming down to
Merritt’s ranch and gave him holy what-for. I was there, and I rode back
here with the Captain.
I heard a lot more from him about his views on fractious settlers who set themselves to rassle a tiger, and
liable to get their tails chewed off. The tiger being Castro of course. That
gave me a laugh. He’s a ring tailed polecat.”
Bowers shifted his feet and went on with his story. “As I heard
tell of it later, Merritt wanted to talk the whole thing over with cap.
Fremont, get some good military advice on it, I reckon. So he and a half dozen
of the ranchers went on to Fremont’s camp near the Napa River.
Captain John Charles Fremont, US Army, Topographical branch of
the Corps of Engineers, was a handsome, dark haired operator. Since his arrival
in California he had spent some of his time doing the job he had been assigned
by the War Department, exploration and survey. To the settlers he represented
the military authority of the United States In California, second only to
Admiral Sloat with his four ships patrolling somewhere off the coast.
“I dunno exactly what advice Fremont gave
them,” Bowers continued. I wasn’t there when Merritt and Semple and Bill Ides
and a few others sat with him in a kinda council of war. They came away from
that council with high-falutin’ intentions to seize themselves a California
town, and that was probably Fremont’s plan.
He put them up to it, and it may be the best move he’s made unless it
sets off a war between the Americans and the Dons.
First I beard about it was when the trader, Bill Fallon and Hank
Ford came to the Fort the day after that confab with Fremont, and quietly told
a few of us what was in the wind. If we wanted to take part in counting big
coup against the Californios we should get ourselves to King’s Landing straight
off. That’s when I began wishing you was here,
Jett. I wasn’t too sartin’ about embroiling myself deeper in illegal doins’
against Castro’s soldiers, and it looked like that’s what was on the fire. But
the others, Millt Younger and Herman Stolz and such. was all for it. Fallon
told us that Fremont was behind us and would back us up. So I went along with
the boys, keeping quiet so’s Sutter wouldn’t hear about it.
At King’s Landing about forty men had gathered. Fremont was there and he
explained it to us smooth as silk. All we needed was audacity and surprise,
says he. We could take that Sonoma town and establish ourselves In It, then by
proclaiming American independence In California we’d have it under some
kind of official authority
just like they did it in Texas.”
“I believe the Texans did declare war on Mexico or declared war
on them--.”
This ain't war, this is revolution…
“There’s some around New Helvetia would say that’s not
revolution, that’s banditry,” .1 told him, but lightly, to take the sting out of the words.
“Reckon so, Jett. It’s
why we didn’t tell Captain Sutter what we were up to. So anyway, we rode out at
midnight and reached Sonoma at the crack of dawn. And that’s when the fun
started. It all went better than I had hoped for. I thought there’d be some
shooting, them at us, us at them, and for a minute or two it was touch
and go. We rode into the square, all forty of us, and facing us in
front of the presidio was a double rank of militiamen in their shiny white
pants and green jackets. The officer in command gave the order, and those rifle
barrels came down to half aim. There we were facing eighteen leveled rifles and
them muzzles looked as big as a cannon’s mouth.”
“Was Fremont with you?”
“No. He had appointed Merritt as our leader, and gave him the rank of lieutenant, for
whatever that was worth. Still, it was a bunch of primed-to-fight galoots that
he was commanding. I mean, we were loaded for bear, but facing them leveled
rifles, that kind of shriveled us down to size. I, for one, was
ready to settle it by peaceful arbitration: either that or turn around and go home. But
Merritt, he stood tall, and I reckon he saved the day. He gave the order to
charge. Yes by God, charge those guns, says he, and if we get killed
doing it that was what we had
come for, and we’d have the town or we’d eat breakfast in hell.
“So, forward we went across the wide plaza, riding
hell for leather; them as had cutlasses were waving‘em and screeching like a
pack of Injuns on the warpath. And all the time we were a fusillade that’d
empty a dozen saddles. But the Californios dropped their guns and put up their
hands for all of their
lieutenant’s shouting orders at them to shoot. We told them to surrender, and
Merritt demanded the officer to hand over his sword, which he did after
threatening us with the
fury of his great general Jose Castro. We herded ‘em into a store room and locked the door on‘em and
grabbed the gunns and ammunition in
the armory. Then Merritt and Ide and a few others went storming into the palace to present Governor
General Vellejo with our
demands.
“And what were those demands?” I wondered. Merritt had a
proclamation drawn up. It was a
regular declaration of independence
for all the Americans in North California. They was to be no
more beholden to the will and authority of the Californio Mexican Government. They were to be allowed to
make their own laws, conduct their
own trade and above all, they didn’t need to take out Mexican citizenship. We was to hold a11egiance to no
country but the United States. That
was the gist of it. Merritt read it to Vellejo loud and clear and told him to
sign it.
“And did he?”
Bowers teeth flashed in a big,
white grin. “Reckon he did.” You
know that Vallejo is no King George, the Third in the way he looks at the
American colonists. Vallejo is a good sort; he’s been a restraint on
Castro more than once. To make it look even better, “we ran up our own flag.”
“The Stars and Stripes?
“Not the Stars and Stripes, a hand made flag drawn up by one of
the men. He painted a bear on a sheet of white cloth and printed the name
“California Republic” underneath it. After the town was secured and
Vallejo’s name was on our proclamation signed arid sealed we all, trooped out to the palace
yard and pulled down the Mexican Snake-and—Eagle flag and ran up our own,
calling it “The Bear
Flag.” Looked mighty
fine waving in the breeze.
Thrilled, fascinated, even slightly appalled, I looked at my
friend and agreed that it must have indeed been a fine sight. “An American flag waving over
a California town. Never thought I’d live to hear about such a happening. So what now? Will
Castro swallow that kind of American Impudence?”
“Who knows? He’s facing an
established fact, and he can rant and roar and he can throw a thousand men
against us if he can stir them up enough, which I much doubt. We’re lucky in
the kind or people
we’re up against.
I expressed a regret that I hadn’t been
in on the great event. Hauling a
wagonload of tin ware and ironware while history is being made?
“You may have missed out on act
one, but maybe the show ain’t over yet. If you want to get in on act two ride over to Sonoma with me
today, that’s where the pot is
boiling. I came from there with the men appointed by Lieutenant Merritt
to escort Vallejo to the Fort here. I
aim to go back with them and any others we can muster.”
“Vallejo is here? Is he under arrest?”
“Just say he’s going to enjoy the hospitality of Captain Sutter
for a spell. He’s a valuable prize.”
“Mighty high-handed, holding the Governor-General of North
California in custody even if it is dressed up by calling it hospitality.”
Bowers shrugged. “That’s true. I think Fremont ordered Ezekiel
to bring him in. Anyway, keeping his nibs in Sonoma would be like revolutionaries capturing the palace but keeping
the king on the throne.”
“So you’re revolutionaries. What’s the next move Merritt or
Fremont has in mind-maybe capturing Monterey?”
The big Texan gave that a jeering laugh. “Fremont’s here,
and he’s recruiting men to go with him to Sonoma.”
“A couple points he’d better remember. The United States,
which he represents, being an army officer and all, is not at war with California.”
“Agreed. What’s your other point of argument?”
“Doesn’t matter, I suppose. The colonists got into this ruckus
on their own hook, and they’ll sink or swim as best they can.”
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