title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Among the Singaporeans who perished in the crash were the mother of a Singapore Turf Club horse trainer; an assistant professor of the National University of Singapore's Department of Computer Science and his wife; and a Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot on his way to attend the Advanced Fighter Weapons Instructor Course organized by the Air National Guard. In addition, four of the dead were Motorola employees. One of the cabin crew members who died in the crash was a former Singapore national footballer and brother of Subhas Anandan, a prominent criminal lawyer in Singapore.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Among perished passengers of other nationalities were the president and two vice-presidents of Buena Park, California-based Ameripec Inc. A professor at UC Davis survived the crash with 12% second-degree burns. William Wang, who later founded Vizio, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning but survived.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: John Diaz, who at the time was an executive at MP3.com, suffered lung damage and "body shock," which resulted in compressed joints with soft tissue damage. When he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", he used a walker.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: An investigation into the accident was conducted by the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) of the Republic of China (Taiwan). The final report was issued by the ASC on 24 April 2002. In the report section "Findings Related to Probable Causes," which detailed factors that played a major role in the circumstances leading to the accident, it was stated that the flight crew did not review the taxi route, despite having all the relevant charts, and as a result did not know the aircraft had entered the wrong runway. Upon entering the wrong runway, the flight crew had neglected to check the para visual display (PVD) and the primary flight display (PFD), which would have indicated that the aircraft was lined up on the wrong runway. According to the ASC, these errors, coupled with the imminent arrival of the typhoon and the poor weather conditions, caused the flight crew to lose situational awareness and led them to attempt to take off from the wrong runway.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Immediately after the accident occurred, James Boyd, a Singapore Airlines spokesperson in Los Angeles, stated that no fatalities occurred in the crash; the airline statement was later revised to state that fatalities occurred.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The airline initially stated that reports of the aircraft taking the wrong runway were untrue before the fact that the wrong runway was used was proven true.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Khan Mahmood, whose sister and parents died in SQ006, criticised the airline for taking too much time to notify relatives.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: A counselling centre opened at Los Angeles International Airport to deal with relatives of passengers.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The report by ASC was deemed controversial by Singapore's Ministry of Transport, Singapore Airlines and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA), among others.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Singaporean officials protested that the report did not present a full account of the incident and was incomplete, as responsibility for the accident appeared to have been placed mainly on the flight crew of SQ006, while other equally valid contributing factors had been played down. The team from Singapore that participated in the investigation felt that the lighting and signage at the airport did not measure up to international standards. Some critical lights were missing or not working. No barriers or markings were put up at the start of the closed runway, which would have alerted the flight crew that they were on the wrong runway. The Singapore team felt that these two factors were given less weight than was proper, as another flight crew had almost made the same mistake of using runway 05R to take off days before the accident.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Singapore Airlines also issued a statement after the release of the ASC report. In their statement, Singapore Airlines reiterated the points brought up by the Singapore investigators and added that air traffic control (ATC) did not follow their own procedure when they gave clearance for SQ006 to take off despite ATC's not being able to see the aircraft. Singapore Airlines also clarified that the para visual display (PVD) was meant to help the flight crew maintain the runway centerline in poor visibility, rather than to identify the runway in use.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The statement by Kay Yong (), managing director of the Republic of China's Aviation Safety Council, implied that pilot error played a major role in the crash of the Boeing 747-400, which led to the deaths of 83 people. He stated that the airport should have placed markers stating that the runway was closed to takeoffs and landings.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Runway 05R was not blocked off by barriers because part of the strip was used by landing planes to taxi back to the airport terminal. The pilot confirmed twice with the control tower that he was on the correct runway; controllers did not know the plane had actually gone on to the wrong runway because the airport lacked ground radar and the plane was out of sight of the tower at the time of its takeoff attempt.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: A survivor of the crash, John Wiggans, stated in a "USA Today" article that the staff were unable to help the passengers escape from the aircraft because they were frozen by fear or lack of competence in emergency procedures; Wiggans was seated in the upper deck business class area. "The Straits Times" carried reports of flight attendants saving lives of passengers. One story from the newspaper stated that a flight attendant initially escaped the crash, but she ran back into the aircraft to attempt to save passengers, and died.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: "The Australian" reported that some flight attendants helped passengers, while some flight attendants fled the aircraft before all passengers were accounted for. "The New Paper" stated that the pilots attempted to help the passengers.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The Taiwanese report stated that the relief pilot (Crew Member 3, or CM-3) said in an interview that he was the first to leave the cockpit and the last to leave the aircraft. A passenger sitting in seat 17A stated that the right upper deck door flight attendant directed him to the main deck via the stairs; the flight attendant later died.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Upper deck passengers and flight attendants stated that the Crew-In-Charge flight attendant (CIC) went upstairs after the first impact; the Crew-In-Charge flight attendant later died.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The accident aircraft 9V-SPK was painted in special livery by Singapore Airlines, a scheme called "Tropical", at the time of the accident. The livery was unveiled in September 1998 in conjunction with the launch of Singapore Airlines' latest cabin product offerings across all of the airline's travel classes at the time. After the accident, 9V-SPL, the sister aircraft painted with the same livery, was removed from service and repainted with standard Singapore Airlines livery. It would be 15 years before the airline would introduce another special livery, this time on 2 of its A380 aircraft in conjunction with Singapore's 50th Independence Day celebrations.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: About two weeks after the accident, Singapore Airlines changed the Singapore–Taipei–Los Angeles route flight number from SQ006 to SQ30. The return flight to Singapore, SQ005, was also changed to SQ29. The flight number was again changed to SQ28/27 a few years later. The operating aircraft was replaced by the Boeing 777-200ER and then 777-300ER. Singapore Airlines terminated the Singapore–Taipei–Los Angeles route on 1 October 2008. After a 13-year hiatus, the airline resumed the Singapore–Taipei–Los Angeles and vice versa service using the flight number SQ36/35 onboard the Airbus A350-900 aircraft.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: After the release of the ASC report, Republic of China (ROC) public prosecutors called upon the flight crew of SQ006 to return to the ROC for questioning and the three-member crew complied. Rumours abounded at the time that the pilots might be detained in the ROC and charged with negligence. IFALPA had previously stated that it would advise its members of the difficulties of operating into the ROC if the flight crew of SQ006 were prosecuted. The prosecutors did not press charges and the flight crew were allowed to leave the ROC.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Despite a Taiwanese High Prosecutor's decision to not prosecute the pilots for the first three years after the crash, Singapore Airlines subsequently fired the captain and first officer involved in the SQ006 crash in 2000.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: Singapore Airlines offered immediate financial relief of US$5,000 to each survivor a few days after the incident. Singapore Airlines also offered US$400,000 to the families of each of the dead. However, more than 30 survivors and families of the dead rejected the offer and sued Singapore Airlines for higher damages. Forty lawsuits were filed against Singapore Airlines in Singapore while more than 60 passenger lawsuits were filed in the United States. All the lawsuits were settled out of court.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The Association of Asian American Yale Alumni named a Community Service Fellowship program after Tina Eugenia Yeh, an alumnus who perished in the accident.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The bodies of 14 Taiwanese passengers and the others remained in Taipei to be collected by relatives.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: By 2 November 2000, 40 passengers and crew were hospitalised, of whom 11 were later released that night. On 5 November 2000, 34 passengers and crew remained hospitalised. 64 were discharged from the hospitals. A Taiwanese passenger died the same day. On 8 November 2000, 24 passengers and crew remained hospitalised: 20 in the Republic of China (Taiwan), 3 in Singapore and 1 in the United States. The Republic of Singapore Air Force deployed a specially configured KC-135R for the medical evacuation of critical Singaporean victims. 73 survivors, 40 who were not hospitalised and 33 who were discharged, had either returned home or continued with their travel.


title: Singapore Airlines Flight 006

text: The accident and its subsequent investigation process was dramatized into a documentary titled as "Caution to the Wind" as the third episode of the twelfth season of the Canadian TV series "Mayday" (also known as "Air Crash Investigation"). A movie titled as "Thread That Binds" includes an interview with a surviving flight attendant.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Pamela Sue Martin (born January 5, 1953) is an American actress, who is best known for starring as Nancy Drew on the television series "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" and as socialite Fallon Carrington Colby on the ABC soap opera "Dynasty", winning a Bambi Award for the latter in 1984.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Born in Westport, Connecticut, Martin began modeling at 17 and appeared in "The Poseidon Adventure" in 1972, at age 19. More films followed, including "Our Time" and "Buster and Billie".


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Later, her work as ABC-TV's Nancy Drew made her something of a teen idol. Initially, the ABC program alternated each week between "The Nancy Drew Mysteries" and "The Hardy Boys Mysteries". In season 2, the shows were merged and renamed "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries," which led to Nancy's role being reduced. This frustrated Martin, who left the series as a result. Her final appearance as Nancy aired on January 1, 1978.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Martin appeared in a cover pictorial in the July 1978 issue of "Playboy" magazine, with the headline "TV's Nancy Drew Undraped". In the magazine, she cited the merger of the two shows as her reason for quitting the series.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Martin portrayed feisty and spoiled heiress Fallon Carrington Colby on the ABC nighttime soap opera "Dynasty" from its debut in 1981 through to the end of the fourth season in 1984. After Martin left (of her own accord), the character was initially portrayed as "missing and presumed dead". The series recast the role with actress Emma Samms at the end of the fifth season in 1985.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Martin hosted "Saturday Night Live" on February 16, 1985. In the 2000s, she was artistic director of the Interplanetary Theater Group, in Idaho. Since then, she has worked sporadically in film and television.


title: Pamela Sue Martin

text: Martin has spoken about her struggle with interstitial cystitis. In 1984, Martin, who has long been involved in environmental causes, appeared in a public service announcement to help save pink dolphins in the Amazon River. The ad was directed by Clyde Lucas, who appeared on "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries."


The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on Friday, May 16, 1986 in Cokeville, Wyoming, United States, when former town marshal David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47, took 96 children and 18 adults hostage at Cokeville Elementary School.


title: Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis

text: David Young entered the school with his wife transporting a large gasoline-filled device that appeared to be a bomb. The couple corralled a large group of students and teachers into a single classroom. David attached the bomb trigger to his wrist and threatened the group that he might, at any time, move his arm and ignite the bomb.


text: After a two-and-a-half hour standoff, the children were becoming restless, so the teachers preoccupied the kids in the form of movies, games, prayer, and books. David became increasingly agitated, and decided to leave the room. Before leaving the room, David attached the bomb's detonation device to his wife's wrist.


text: When the children became increasingly loud, Doris Young began begging the teachers to settle the group down. Eventually Doris lifted her arm sharply and the bomb went off prematurely, injuring Doris while David was out of the room. Returning to the scene, David shot his wife, a teacher, then himself. All the hostages escaped, though 79 were later hospitalized with burns and injuries, the majority of which were severe.


text: David Young was the only police officer in Cokeville for six months in 1979. After being fired for misconduct, he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he married Doris Young.


text: Both David and Doris had ties to white supremacist groups, including the Posse Comitatus and the Aryan Nations.


text: Prior to the hostage crisis, David had tested a similar bomb in a sealed school bus in Arizona, destroying it.


text: David and Doris both returned to Cokeville on May 16, 1986. At 1:00 pm, they pulled up to the Cokeville Elementary School and unloaded a gasoline bomb, along with four rifles and nine handguns. Vengeance for having been fired did not seem to have been the motive, but rather a philosophy recorded in journal entries referring to a Brave New World where he wanted to reign over intelligent children. He had been aware of above-average achievement scores from Cokeville's education system. Journal entries also indicate that he saw opportunity in the close-knit community; he wrote, "Threaten one and all are at your mercy." David went to the school office, handing out a manifesto titled "ZERO EQUALS INFINITY" and announcing "This is a revolution!" Teachers were confused and baffled by Young's nonsensical, strange writing. Meanwhile, Doris went from classroom to classroom, luring 136 children, six faculty, nine teachers, and three other adults, including a job applicant and a UPS driver, into a first-grade classroom for a total of 154 hostages. She lured them by telling them there was either an emergency, a surprise, or an assembly there.


text: David Young had initially planned to involve longtime friends Gerald Deppe and Doyle Mendenhall, who had invested money with him in a get-rich-quick scheme that he had called "The Biggie." The two men eventually refused to participate in the event. Both men were handcuffed in a van outside the school.


text: David's youngest daughter from his first marriage, Princess, entered the elementary school with David and Doris, but refused to carry out the plan, leaving to report the incident at the town hall.


text: Princess, Deppe, and Mendenhall were never charged in relation to this crime because of their refusal to participate.


text: The bomb was an improvised explosive device constructed in a small two-wheeled shopping cart with two baskets, one on top of the other. The top basket contained a gallon milk jug of gasoline, wired with a blasting cap. Below the jug in the bottom basket were two tuna fish cans filled with a mixture of aluminum powder and flour meant to aerosolize and deflagrate following detonation, each with its own blasting cap. Throughout both baskets were chain links, gunpowder, and boxes of ammunition acting as shrapnel. The mechanism was triggered by a dead man's switch, consisting of a wooden piece separating two metal connectors within the jaws of a clothespin, forming an incomplete circuit. The circuit was powered by a 9-volt lantern battery. Once the wooden piece was removed, the two metal connectors completed the circuit, detonating the bomb. The wooden piece was tied to Doris' wrist by a string.


text: The jug of gasoline had a pinhole-sized leak on its bottom. This allowed gasoline to drip into the tuna fish cans, turning the aluminum-flour mixture into paste, unable to aerosolize. The leaking gasoline's fumes prompted teachers to open the classroom windows, unknowingly creating vents for the impending explosion.


text: Two of the three blasting caps on the bomb failed to detonate; the wires to each tuna can had been reportedly cut. The blasting cap in the gasoline jug functioned properly, initiating the explosion. The reason for the wire cuts are so far unexplained.


text: In the classroom, David held the gasoline bomb, with the triggering mechanism attached to a string tied around his wrist. He demanded a ransom of two million dollars per hostage ($308 million, $720 million adjusted for inflation), and an audience with President Ronald Reagan. David had also sent a copy of the manifesto to Reagan. With permission, the teachers brought in books, art supplies and a television to help keep the children occupied. Meanwhile, police and parents gathered out of sight of the school room where hostages were gathered. Doris tried numerous times to calm the children by telling them to "think of it as an adventure movie," or that they "would have a great story to tell their grandchildren." Many children showed signs of distress with sobs, complaining of headaches from the smell of gasoline from the bomb, or simply wanting to go home. One hostage observed a birthday on that day and songs were sung in his honor. The hostage takers took part in the singing. The mood did not lift with the singing and teachers quickly negotiated with the hostage takers to get items from the library to help the kids get their minds off the siege, and help to pass the time. Windows were opened to rid the room of gasoline fumes, and prayers were offered in small groups among the children.


text: Throughout the standoff, David grew increasingly agitated and irritable. With fear that David might become unhinged, the teachers decided to make an ~8-foot square of masking tape for his own personal space.


text: About 2 1/2 hours into the standoff, David transferred the triggering mechanism of the bomb to Doris' wrist, and went to a small bathroom that connected the first and second grade rooms. Doris developed a headache from the gasoline fumes, and raised her hand to her forehead. This unintentionally activated the triggering mechanism and the bomb exploded, severely injuring Doris, and filling the room with black smoke and pockets of fire. Immediately following the detonation, the teachers started to shove children into the hallway, and through two open windows onto the grass outside the school, causing chaos as panicked parents tried to break through police lines. The subsequent police report states that David opened the door from the connecting bathroom, shot his injured wife in the head and killed her, shot and wounded John Miller, a music teacher who was trying to flee, then closed the bathroom door and killed himself with a shot from a .45 pistol to the head. During the chaos, Doris' burnt body was expelled through a window, and left lying on the front lawn.


text: When the bomb detonated, the majority of the explosive force was channeled through loose ceiling tiles into the roof, and open windows acting as vents. This significantly mitigated the explosive power of the bomb.


text: All told, 79 of the hostages suffered injuries, mostly second-degree burns, smoke inhalation, and other injuries from the exploding bomb. The injured were triaged to several area hospitals in Wyoming and Idaho.


text: The incident was detailed in the book "The Cokeville Miracle: When Angels Intervene" by Hartt Wixom and his wife Judene, published by Cedar Fort, Inc., which formed the basis for a CBS made-for-TV movie titled "To Save the Children." In 2006, the Cokeville Miracle Foundation compiled a book of recollections about the day from parents, emergency workers and former hostages. The story was also featured on "Unsolved Mysteries", "Unexplained Mysteries", and "I Survived..."


text: A movie about the incident, "The Cokeville Miracle", was released on June 5, 2015. It was made by filmmaker T. C. Christensen. David Young was portrayed by Nathan Stevens.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The charter took effect on May 14, 1692, and included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, the Province of Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the direct successor. Maine has been a separate state since 1820, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now Canadian provinces, having been part of the colony only until 1697.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The name Massachusetts comes from the Massachusett Indians, an Algonquian tribe. It has been translated as "at the great hill", "at the place of large hills", or "at the range of hills", with reference to the Blue Hills and to Great Blue Hill in particular.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Colonial settlement of the shores of Massachusetts Bay began in 1620 with the founding of the Plymouth Colony. Other attempts at colonization took place throughout the 1620s, but expansion of English settlements only began on a large scale with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 and the arrival of the first large group of Puritan settlers in 1630. Over the next ten years, there was a major migration of Puritans to the area, leading to the founding of a number of new colonies in New England. By the 1680s, the number of New England colonies had stabilized at five; the Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and the Province of New Hampshire all bordered the area surrounding Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth. Massachusetts Bay, however, was the most populous and economically significant, hosting a sizable merchant fleet.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The colonies had struggles with some of the Indigenous inhabitants. The Pequot tribe was virtually destroyed in the Pequot War during the 1630s, and King Philip's War in the 1670s decimated the Narragansetts in southern New England. King Philip's War was also very costly to the colonists of New England, putting a halt to expansion for several years.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Massachusetts and Plymouth were both somewhat politically independent from England in their early days, but this situation changed after the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660. Charles sought closer oversight of the colonies, and he tried to introduce and enforce economic control over their activities. The Navigation Acts passed in the 1660s were widely disliked in Massachusetts, where merchants often found themselves trapped and at odds with the rules. Charles II viewed minting coins (John Hull at the "Hull Mint") a treasonous act. However, many colonial governments did not enforce the acts themselves, particularly Massachusetts, and tensions grew when Charles revoked the first Massachusetts Charter in 1684.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In 1686, Charles II's successor King James II formed the Dominion of New England which ultimately created a single political unit out of the British territories from Delaware Bay to Penobscot Bay. Dominion governor Sir Edmund Andros was highly unpopular in the colonies, but he was especially hated in Massachusetts where he angered virtually everyone by rigidly enforcing the Navigation Acts, vacating land titles, appropriating a Puritan meeting house as a site to host services for the Church of England, and restricting town meetings, among other sundry complaints. James was deposed in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, whereupon Massachusetts political leaders rose up against Andros, arresting him and other English authorities in April 1689. This led to the collapse of the Dominion, as the other colonies then quickly reasserted their old forms of government.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The Plymouth colony never had a royal charter, so its governance had always been on a somewhat precarious footing. The Massachusetts colonial government was re-established but it no longer had a valid charter, and some opponents of the old Puritan rule refused to pay taxes and engaged in other forms of protest. Provincial agents traveled to London where Increase Mather was representing the old colony leaders, and he petitioned new rulers William III and Mary II to restore the old colonial charter. King William refused, however, when he learned that this might result in a return to the religious rule. Instead, the Lords of Trade combined the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay into the Province of Massachusetts Bay. They issued a charter for the Province on October 7, 1691, and appointed Sir William Phips as its governor.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The new charter differed from the old one in several important ways. One of the principal changes was inaugurated over Mather's objection, changing the voting eligibility requirements from religious qualifications to land ownership. The effect of this change has been a subject of debate among historians, but there is significant consensus that it greatly enlarged the number of men eligible to vote. The new rules required prospective voters to own £40 worth of property or real estate that yielded at least £2 per year in rent; Benjamin Labaree estimates that this included about three-quarters of the adult male population at the time. The charter also guaranteed freedom of worship, but only for non-Catholic Christians.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The second major change was that senior officials of the government were appointed by the crown instead of being elected, including governor, lieutenant governor, and judges. The legislative assembly (or General Court) continued to be elected, however, and was responsible for choosing members of the Governor's Council. The governor had veto power over laws passed by the General Court, as well as over appointments to the council. These rules differed in important ways from the royal charters enjoyed by other provinces. The most important were that the General Court now possessed the powers of appropriation, and that the council was locally chosen and not appointed by either the governor or the Crown. These significantly weakened the governor's power, which became important later in provincial history.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The province's territory was also greatly expanded beyond that originally claimed by the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. Their territories initially included present-day mainland Massachusetts, western Maine, and portions of the neighboring modern states; this territory was expanded to include Acadia or Nova Scotia (then encompassing modern Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and eastern Maine), as well as what was then known as Dukes County in the Province of New York, consisting of the islands of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In the aftermath of the revolt against Andros, colonial defenses had been withdrawn from the frontiers, which were then repeatedly raided by French and Indigenous forces from Canada and Acadia. Queen Anne's War broke out in 1702 and lasted until 1713. Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley organized the colonial defenses, and there were fewer raids than previously. Dudley also organized expeditions in 1704 and 1707 against Acadia, a haven for French privateers, and he requested support from London for more ambitious efforts against New France. In 1709, Massachusetts raised troops for an expedition against Canada that was called off; troops were again raised in 1710, when the Acadian capital of Port Royal was finally captured.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Because of these wars, the colony had issued paper currency whose value was constantly in decline, leading to financial crises. This led to proposals to create a bank that would issue notes backed by real estate, but Governor Dudley and his successor Samuel Shute both opposed the idea. Dudley, Shute, and later governors fruitlessly attempted to convince the general court to fix salaries for crown-appointed officials. The conflict over salary reached a peak during the brief administration of William Burnet. He held the provincial assembly in session for six months, relocating it twice, in an unsuccessful attempt to force the issue.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In the early 1720s, the Indigenous Abenaki people of northern New England resumed raiding frontier communities, encouraged by French intriguers but also concerned over English encroachment on their lands. This violence was eventually put down by Acting Governor William Dummer in Dummer's War, and many Abenakis retreated from northern New England into Canada after the conflict.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In the 1730s, Governor Jonathan Belcher disputed the power of the legislature to direct appropriations, vetoing bills that did not give him the freedom to disburse funds as he saw fit, and this meant that the provincial treasury was often empty. Belcher was, however, permitted by the Board of Trade to accept annual grants from the legislature in lieu of a fixed salary. The currency crisis flared up again during his administration, resulting in a revival of the land bank proposal which Belcher opposed. His opponents intrigued in London to have him removed and the bank was established, but its existence was short-lived, for an act of Parliament forcibly dissolved it. This turned a number of important colonists against crown and Parliament, including the father of American Revolutionary War political leader Samuel Adams.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The next 20 years were dominated by war. King George's War broke out in 1744, and Governor William Shirley rallied troops from around New England for an assault on the French fortress at Louisbourg which succeeded in 1745. Louisbourg was returned to France at the end of the war in 1748, however, much to the annoyance of New Englanders. Governor Shirley was relatively popular, in part because he managed to avoid or finesse the more contentious issues which his predecessors had raised. The French and Indian War broke out in 1754, and Shirley was raised to the highest military command by the death of General Edward Braddock in 1755. He was unable to manage the large-scale logistics that the war demanded, however, and was recalled in 1757. His successor Thomas Pownall oversaw the remainder of the war, which ended in 1760.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The 1760s and early 1770s were marked by a rising tide of colonial frustration with London's policies and with the governors sent to implement and enforce them. Both Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson, the last two non-military governors, were widely disliked over issues large and small, notably Parliament's attempts to impose taxes on the colonies without representation. Hutchinson was a Massachusetts native who served for many years as lieutenant governor, yet he authorized quartering British Army troops in Boston, which eventually precipitated the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. By this time, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and others were actively opposing crown policies.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Parliament passed the Townshend Acts in 1767 and 1768 which the Americans referred to as the Intolerable Acts, and the Massachusetts General Court authorized a circular letter denouncing them as unconstitutional. Royal Governor Francis Bernard demanded that the General Court rescind the letter but they refused, so he dissolved it, which led to widespread violence and rioting throughout Boston. Royal officers fled to Castle William and the Crown authorized more troops to be sent to Massachusetts. The Sons of Liberty stated that they were prepared to take up armed resistance to the Royal Authorities, while more conservative elements of society desired a peaceful political solution.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Boston citizens resolved at a town meeting to have the towns of Massachusetts assemble in a convention, and delegates met at Faneuil Hall for six days in September, with Thomas Cushing serving as chairman. Many Patriot leaders were calling for armed resistance by this time, but the more moderate factions of the convention won out and military action was voted down.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The Sons of Liberty organized a meeting at the Old South Meetinghouse in 1773 in defiance of the Tea Act; thousands of people attended and Samuel Adams organized a protest at Boston harbor. Colonists stormed ships in the harbor and dumped the cargo of tea into the water, and the protest came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. General Thomas Gage replaced Hutchinson as royal governor in May 1774. He was well received at first, but his reputation rapidly became worse with the Patriots as he began to implement the Intolerable Acts, which included the Massachusetts Government Act, dissolved the legislature, and closed the port of Boston until reparations were paid for the dumped tea. The port closure did great damage to the Massachusetts economy and led to a wave of sympathetic assistance from other colonies.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The Intolerable Acts only increased the crisis in New England, as Boston colonists insisted that their constitutional rights were being destroyed. The New England colonies had democratic control of their own governments, dating all the way back to the founding of Plymouth Colony in 1620. The General Court lacked executive authority and authority over the militia, yet it still held significant power. The colonists had control over the treasury and spending and could pass laws. Anything passed by the assembly was subject to veto by the Royal Governor, but the General Court held control over spending and could withhold the pay of the Royal officials as leverage. This resulted in the Royal Governor being little more than a figurehead.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The royal government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay existed until early October 1774, when members of the General Court met in contravention of the Massachusetts Government Act and established the Massachusetts Provincial Congress which became the "de facto" government. Governor Gage continued an essentially military authority in Boston, but the provincial congress governed the rest of Massachusetts. War finally erupted in April 1775 at Lexington and Concord, which started the American Revolutionary War and the Siege of Boston. The British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, ending the siege and bringing the city under Patriot control.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: On May 1, 1776, the General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring independence in the name of "The Government and People of the Massachusetts Bay in New England". This was followed by the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring the independence of all Thirteen Colonies.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Passage of the Massachusetts Government Act resulted in the dissolution of the General Court, so the colonists held conventions throughout Massachusetts. These conventions were organized by county and had delegates from each town. Each convention drafted resolutions which were to be sent to the Royal Governor in Boston; these differed from county to county, yet they had many similar themes and sentiments. The delegates insisted on reinstatement of their constitutional government, which had existed since the Mayflower Compact of 1620 and was reiterated in the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company and the Massachusetts Charter. They declared their allegiance to King George III, but they stated that they would be absolved of that allegiance if he did not restore their constitutional rights and privileges. They declared that they would resist with force if those rights were not restored, and this included the total boycott of British goods, the disruption of local courts, and the kidnapping of royal officials.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Delegates from all the counties of Massachusetts met in Salem in October 1774 to reform their dissolved assembly. This new congress was to be the resumption of their constitutional government and a repudiation of the royal one in Boston. The congress selected John Hancock as its first president (then called chairman) and Benjamin Lincoln as clerk, and they installed judges, tax collectors, constables, and other officials. They also assumed control of the militia and instructed all towns in Massachusetts to train troops and elect new officers. An executive standing committee and a Committee of Safety were also instituted to govern when Congress was not in session.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The Provincial Congress went through different formations in its six years of existence, with shifting structures of authority and types of governance. The executive standing committee was replaced in the Second Congress with a renewed Committee of Safety which acted as the "de facto" governmental authority, in charge of the militia and governance in between sessions. The third Congress brought a return to legislative supremacy and a decrease in power of the executive. Joseph Warren was elected as the congress' second president and James Warren as its third.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Calls for a constitutional convention began when the Provincial Congress was declared in 1774. With the pressures of the war and political uncertainty these efforts were postponed. Berkshire County in the far western part of Massachusetts Bay was exceptionally vocal in its desire to form a new constitution. In a dispatch to the Provincial Congress the delegates of Pittsfield rejected not only the royal colonial authorities but also the legitimacy of the previous charters with which the Provincial Congress claimed its legitimacy. The letter stated that the only political legitimacy a state or constitution could find would be with the people of a province. With Massachusetts Bay declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain in May 1776 the push for a newly codified constitution increased.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In September 1776 the General Court petitioned the towns of Massachusetts Bay to put forth a vote on whether or not a convention should be called. In 1777 it was agreed that a convention would be formed to draft a new constitution. The General Court, which consisted of the Governor's Council and House of Representatives, decided to form a committee which would be tasked to write a constitution. In the winter of 1778 the General Court decided that the draft formulated from the constitutional committee would be put before the electorate of Massachusetts Bay and it would need to be accepted by 2/3rds of voters.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The first draft of the convention was rejected. In this first draft the state would consist of a legislature called the General Court which had two houses, a House of Representatives and an indirectly elected senate that would also serve as a governor's council. The Governor would not have the power of veto and would need to have any action confirmed by the Senate. There were some progressive elements of the constitution however, the Senate would be apportioned based on population and the House would no longer have a property requirement. Also a point of contention was the fact that there was no Bill of Rights. When the vote was put before the populace it was rejected by an 83% to 17% margin.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: In 1779 another question was put to the electorate. This time the people were asked if they favored another convention, apportioned by population, to meet and formulate a new draft of the constitution. The question passed by a 72% to 28% margin. This next convention met from September 1, 1779, to June 16, 1780. At the time the war was not going well for the Patriot forces. The Penobscot Expedition had ended in failure, and the Kingdom of France had yet to send its larger contingent of military support. Even amidst the political uncertainty the convention was assembled with 312 members.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: John Adams wrote the draft of the new constitution and the convention accepted it with minimal amendments. The draft was then put to the various town meetings of the province. The town meetings were to decide on the constitution in pieces, rather than as a whole, and add any changes they thought were necessary. The Adams version was then accepted by the convention on June 15, 1780. In elections held in October 1780, John Hancock was elected the first Governor of Massachusetts along with representatives to the commonwealth's first General Court.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The politics of the province were dominated by three major factions, according to Thomas Hutchinson, who wrote the first major history of colonial Massachusetts. This is in distinction to most of the other colonies, where there were two factions. Expansionists believed strongly in the growth of the colony and in a vigorous defense against French and Indian incursions; they were exemplified in Massachusetts by people such as Thomas Hancock, uncle to John Hancock, and James Otis, Sr. This faction became a vital force in the Patriot movements preceding the revolution. Non-expansionists were more circumspect, preferring to rely on a strong relationship with the mother country; they were exemplified by Hutchinson and the Oliver family of Boston. This faction became the Loyalists in the revolutionary era.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The third force in Massachusetts politics was a populist faction made possible by the structure of the provincial legislature, in which rural and lower class communities held a larger number of votes than in other provinces. Its early leaders included the Cookes (Elisha Senior and Junior) of Maine, while later leaders included revolutionary firebrand Samuel Adams. Religion did not play a major role in these divisions, although non-expansionists tended to be Anglican while expansionists were mainly middle-of-the road Congregationalist. Populists generally held either conservative Puritan views or the revivalist views of the First Great Awakening. Throughout the provincial history, these factions made and broke alliances as conditions and circumstances dictated.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The populist faction had concerns that sometimes prompted it to support one of the other parties. Its rural character meant that they sided with the expansionists when there were troubles on the frontier. They also tended to side with the expansionists on the recurring problems with the local money, whose inflation tended to favor their ability to repay debts in depreciated currency. These ties became stronger in the 1760s as the conflict grew with Parliament.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The non-expansionists were composed principally of a wealthy merchant class in Boston. They had allies in the wealthy farming communities in the more developed eastern portions of the province, and in the province's major ports. These alliances often rivalled the populist party in power in the provincial legislature. They favored stronger regulation from the mother country and opposed the inflationist issuance of colonial currency.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Expansionists mainly came from two disparate groups. The first was a portion of the eastern merchant class, represented by the Hancocks and Otises, who harbored views of the growth of the colony and held relatively liberal religious views. They were joined by wealthy landowners in the Connecticut River valley, whose needs for defense and growth were directly tied to property development. These two groups agreed on defense and an expansionist vision, although they disagreed on the currency issue; the westerners sided with the non-expansionists in their desire for a standards-based currency.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The province significantly expanded its geographical reach, principally in the 18th century. There were 83 towns in 1695; this had grown to 186 by 1765. Most of the towns in 1695 were within one day's travel of Boston, but this changed as townships sprang up in Worcester County and the Berkshires on land that had been under Indian control prior to King Philip's War.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The character of local politics changed as the province prospered and grew. Unity of community during the earlier colonial period gave way to subdivision of larger towns. Dedham, for example, was split into six towns, and Newburyport was separated from Newbury in 1764.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Town meetings also became more important in local political life. As towns grew, the townspeople became more assertive in managing their affairs. Town selectmen had previously wielded significant power, but they lost some of their influence to the town meetings and to the appointment of paid town employees, such as tax assessors, constables, and treasurers.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The boundaries of the province changed in both major and minor ways during its existence. There was very thin soil land, and a rocky terrain. Nova Scotia, then including New Brunswick, was occupied by English forces at the time of the charter's issuance, but was separated in 1697 when the territory, called Acadia by the French, was formally returned to France by the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick. Nova Scotia became a separate province in 1710, following the British conquest of Acadia in Queen Anne's War. Maine was not separated until after American independence, when it attained statehood in 1820.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The borders of the province with the neighboring provinces underwent some adjustment. Its principal predecessor colonies, Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth, had established boundaries with New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, but these underwent changes during the provincial period. The boundary with New Hampshire was of some controversy, since the original boundary definition in colonial charters (three miles north of the Merrimack River) had been made on the assumption that the river flowed predominantly west. This issue was resolved by King George II in 1741, when he ruled that the border between the two provinces follows what is now the border between the two states.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: Surveys in the 1690s suggested that the original boundary line with Connecticut and Rhode Island had been incorrectly surveyed. In the early 18th century joint surveys determined that the line was south of where it should be. In 1713 Massachusetts set aside a plot of land (called the "Equivalent Lands") to compensate Connecticut for this error. These lands were auctioned off, and the proceeds were used by Connecticut to fund Yale College. The boundary with Rhode Island was also found to require adjustment, and in 1746 territories on the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay (present-day Barrington, Bristol, Tiverton and Little Compton) were ceded to Rhode Island. The borders between Massachusetts and its southern neighbors were not fixed into their modern form until the 19th century, requiring significant legal action in the case of the Rhode Island borders. The western border with New York was agreed in 1773, but not surveyed until 1788.


title: Province of Massachusetts Bay

text: The province of Massachusetts Bay also laid a claim to what is now Western New York as part of the province's sea-to-sea grant. The 1780s Treaty of Hartford saw Massachusetts relinquish that claim in exchange for the right to sell it off to developers.


title: History of California

text: The history of California can be divided into the Native American period (about 10,000 years ago until 1542), the European exploration period (1542–1769), the Spanish colonial period (1769–1821), the Mexican period (1821–1848), and United States statehood (September 9, 1850–present). California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. After contact with , most of the Native Americans died out from foreign diseases and genocide campaigns.


title: History of California

text: After the Portolá expedition of 1769–70, Spanish missionaries began setting up 21 California missions on or near the coast of Alta (Upper) California, beginning with the Mission San Diego de Alcala near the location of the modern day city of San Diego, California. During the same period, Spanish military forces built several forts ("presidios") and three small towns ("pueblos"). Two of the pueblos would eventually grow into the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose. After Mexican Independence was won in 1821, California fell under the jurisdiction of the First Mexican Empire. Fearing the influence of the Roman Catholic church over their newly independent nation, the Mexican government closed all of the missions and nationalized the church's property. They left behind a small "Californio" (Hispanic) population of several thousand families, with a few small military garrisons. After the Mexican–American War of 1846–48, Mexico was forced to relinquish any claim to California to the United States.


title: History of California

text: The California Gold Rush of 1848–1855 attracted hundreds of thousands of ambitious young people from around the world. Only a few men struck it rich, and many returned home disappointed. Most appreciated the other economic opportunities in California, especially in agriculture, and brought their families to join them. California became the 31st US state in the Compromise of 1850 and played a small role in the American Civil War. Chinese immigrants increasingly came under attack from nativists; they were forced out of industry and agriculture and into Chinatowns in the larger cities. As gold petered out, California increasingly became a highly productive agricultural society. The coming of the railroads in 1869 linked its rich economy with the rest of the nation, and attracted a steady stream of settlers. In the late 19th century, Southern California, especially Los Angeles, started to grow rapidly.


title: History of California

text: Different tribes of Native Americans lived in the area that is now California for an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 years. Over 100 tribes and bands inhabited the area. Various estimates of the Native American population in California during the pre-European period range from 100,000 to 300,000. California's population held about one-third of all Native Americans in the land now governed by the United States.


title: History of California

text: The native horticulturalists practiced various forms of forest gardening and fire-stick farming in the forests, grasslands, mixed woodlands, and wetlands, ensuring that desired food and medicine plants continued to be available. The natives controlled fire on a localized basis to create a low-intensity fire ecology to facilitate the growth of food and fiber materials and may have sustained a low-density agriculture in loose rotation; a sort of "wild" permaculture.


title: History of California

text: "California" was the name given to a mythical island populated only by beautiful Amazon warriors, as depicted in Greek myths, using gold tools and weapons in the popular early 16th-century romance novel "Las Sergas de Esplandián" (The Adventures of Esplandián) by Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. This popular Spanish fantasy was printed in several editions with the earliest surviving edition published about 1510. In exploring Baja California the earliest explorers thought the Baja California Peninsula was an island and applied the name "California" to it. Mapmakers started using the name "California" to label the unexplored territory on the North American west coast.


title: History of California

text: European explorers from Spain and England explored the Pacific Coast of California beginning in the mid-16th century. Francisco de Ulloa explored the west coast of present-day Mexico including the Gulf of California, proving that Baja California was a peninsula, but in spite of his discoveries the myth persisted in European circles that California was an island.


title: History of California

text: Rumors of fabulously wealthy cities located somewhere along the California coast, as well as a possible Northwest Passage that would provide a much shorter route to the Indies, provided an incentive to explore further.


title: History of California

text: The first Europeans to explore the California coast were the members of a Spanish sailing expedition led by captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo from the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern Mexico); they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Cabrillo and his men found that there was essentially nothing for the Spanish to easily exploit in California; located at the extreme limits of exploration and trade from Spain, it would be left essentially unexplored and unsettled for the next 234 years.


title: History of California

text: The Cabrillo expedition depicted the Indigenous populations as living at a subsistence level, typically located in small rancherias of extended family groups of 100 to 150 people. They had no apparent agriculture as understood by Europeans, no domesticated animals except dogs, no pottery; their tools were made out of wood, leather, woven baskets and netting, stone, and antler. Some shelters were made of branches and mud; some dwellings were built by digging into the ground two to three feet and then building a brush shelter on top covered with animal skins, tules and/or mud. The Cabrillo expedition did not see the far north of California, where on the coast and somewhat inland traditional architecture consists of rectangular redwood or cedar plank semisubterranean houses.


title: History of California

text: In 1565 the Spanish developed a trading route where they took gold and silver from the Americas and traded it for goods and spices from China and other Asian areas. The Spanish set up their main Asian base in Manila in the Philippines and ruled it from Mexico City and Madrid. The trade with Mexico involved an annual passage of galleons. The Eastbound galleons first went north to about 40 degrees latitude and then turned east to use the westerly trade winds and currents. These galleons, after crossing most of the Pacific Ocean, would arrive off the California coast from 60 to over 120 days later somewhere near Cape Mendocino, about north of San Francisco, at about 40°  latitude. They could then sail south down the California coast, utilizing the available winds and the south-flowing California Current, about . After sailing about south, they eventually reached their home port in Mexico.


title: History of California

text: The first Asians to set foot on what would be the United States occurred in 1587, when Filipino slaves, prisoners, and crew arrived aboard these Novohispanic ships at Morro Bay on their way to central New Spain (Mexico).


title: History of California

text: After successfully sacking Spanish towns and plundering Spanish ships along their Pacific coast colonies in the Americas, English explorer and circumnavigator Francis Drake landed in Oregon, before exploring and claiming an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579. This is believed to have taken place north of the future city of San Francisco, perhaps around Point Reyes or the nearby Drake's Cove. Drake established friendly relations with the Coast Miwok and claimed the area for the English Crown as "Nova Albion", or New Albion.


title: History of California

text: In 1602, the Spaniard Sebastián Vizcaíno explored California's coastline on behalf of New Spain from San Diego. He named San Diego Bay, also putting ashore in Monterey, California, and made glowing reports of the Monterey bay area as a possible anchorage for ships with land suitable for growing crops. He also provided rudimentary charts of the coastal waters, which were used for nearly 200 years.


title: History of California

text: The Spanish divided California into two parts, Baja California and Alta California, as provinces of New Spain (Mexico). Baja or lower California consisted of the Baja Peninsula and terminated roughly at San Diego, California, where Alta California started. The eastern and northern boundaries of Alta California were very indefinite, as the Spanish, despite a lack of physical presence and settlements, claimed essentially everything in what is now the western United States.


title: History of California

text: The first permanent mission in Baja California, Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, was founded on October 15, 1697, by Jesuit priest Juan Maria Salvatierra (1648–1717) accompanied by one small boat's crew and six soldiers. After the establishment of Missions in Alta California after 1769, the Spanish treated Baja California and Alta California, known as Las Californias, as a single administrative unit with Monterey as its capital, and falling under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City.


title: History of California

text: Nearly all the missions in Baja California were established by members of the Jesuit order supported by a few soldiers. After a power dispute between Charles III of Spain and the Jesuits, the Jesuit colleges were closed and the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico and South America in 1767 and deported back to Spain. After the forcible expulsion of the Jesuit order, most of the missions were taken over by Franciscan and later Dominican friars. Both of these groups were under much more direct control of the Spanish monarchy. This reorganization left many missions abandoned in Sonora Mexico and Baja California.


title: History of California

text: Concerns about the intrusions of British and Russian merchants into Spain's colonies in California prompted the extension of Franciscan missions to Alta California, as well as presidios.


title: History of California

text: One of Spain's gains from the Seven Years' War was the French Louisiana Territory which was given to Spain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. Another potential colonial power already established in the Pacific was Russia, whose maritime fur trade of mostly sea otter and fur seals was pressing down from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest's lower reaches. These furs could be traded in China for large profits.


title: History of California

text: The Spanish settlement of Alta California was the last colonization project to expand Spain's vastly over-extended empire in North America, and they tried to do it with minimal cost and support. Approximately half the cost of settling Alta California was borne by donations and half by funds from the Spanish crown.


title: History of California

text: Massive Indian revolts in New Mexico's Pueblo Revolt among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley in the 1680s as well as Pima Indian Revolt in 1751 and the ongoing Seri conflicts in Sonora Mexico provided the Franciscan friars with arguments to establish missions with fewer colonial settlers. In particular, the sexual exploitation of Native American women by Spanish soldiers sparked violent reprisals from the Native community and the spread of venereal disease.


title: History of California

text: The remoteness and isolation of California, the lack of large organized tribes, the lack of agricultural traditions, the absence of any domesticated animals larger than a dog, and a food supply consisting primarily of acorns (unpalatable to most Europeans) meant the missions in California would be very difficult to establish and sustain and made the area unattractive to most potential colonists. A few soldiers and friars financed by the Church and State would form the backbone of the proposed settlement of California.


title: History of California

text: In 1769, the Spanish Visitor General, José de Gálvez, planned a five part expedition, consisting of three units by sea and two by land, to start settling Alta California. Gaspar de Portolà volunteered to command the expedition. The Catholic Church was represented by Franciscan friar Junípero Serra and his fellow friars. All five detachments of soldiers, friars and future colonists were to meet on the shores of San Diego Bay. The first ship, the "San Carlos", sailed from La Paz on January 10, 1769, and the "San Antonio" sailed on February 15. The "San Antonio" arrived in San Diego Bay on April 11 and the "San Carlos" on April 29. The third vessel, the "San José", left New Spain later that spring but was lost at sea with no survivors.


title: History of California

text: The first land party, led by Fernando Rivera y Moncada, left from the Franciscan Misión San Fernando Velicatá on March 24, 1769. With Rivera was Juan Crespí, famed diarist of the entire expedition. That group arrived in San Diego on May 4. A later expedition led by Portolà, which included Junípero Serra, the President of the Missions, along with a combination of missionaries, settlers, and leather-jacket soldiers including José Raimundo Carrillo, left Velicata on May 15, 1769, and arrived in San Diego on June 29.


title: History of California

text: They took with them about 46 mules, 200 cows and 140 horses—all that could be spared by the poor Baja Missions. Fernando de Rivera was appointed to command the lead party that would scout out a land route and blaze a trail to San Diego. Food was short, and the Indians accompanying them were expected to forage for most of what they needed. Many Indian neophytes died along the way; even more deserted. The two groups traveling from Lower California on foot had to cross about of the very dry and rugged Baja Peninsula.


title: History of California

text: The part of the expedition that took place over land took about 40–51 days to get to San Diego. The contingent coming by sea encountered the south flowing California Current and strong head winds, and were still straggling in three months after they set sail. After their arduous journeys, most of the men aboard the ships were ill, chiefly from scurvy, and many had died. Out of a total of about 219 men who had left Baja California, little more than 100 survived. The survivors established the Presidio of San Diego on May 14, 1769. Mission San Diego de Alcala was established on July 16, 1769. As the first of the presidios and Spanish missions in California, they provided the base of operations for the Spanish colonization of Alta California (the present-day US state of California).


title: History of California

text: On July 14, 1769, an expedition was dispatched from San Diego to find the port of Monterey. Not recognizing the Monterey Bay from the description written by Sebastián Vizcaíno almost 200 years prior, the expedition traveled beyond it to what is now the San Francisco, California area. The exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà, arrived on November 2, 1769, at San Francisco Bay. One of the greatest natural harbors on the west coast of America had finally been discovered by land. The expedition returned to San Diego on January 24, 1770. The Presidio and Mission of San Carlos de Borromeo de Monterey were established on June 3, 1770, by Portola, Serra, and Crespi, with Monterey becoming the capital of the California province in 1777.


title: History of California

text: Without any agricultural crops or experience gathering, preparing and eating the ground acorns and grass seeds the Indians subsisted on for much of the year, the shortage of food at San Diego became extremely critical during the first few months of 1770. They subsisted by eating some of their cattle, wild geese, fish, and other food exchanged with the Indians for clothing, but the ravages of scurvy continued because there was then no understanding of the cause or cure of scurvy (a deficiency of vitamin C in fresh food). A small quantity of corn they had planted grew well, only to be eaten by birds. Portolá sent Captain Rivera and a small detachment of about 40 men south to the Baja California missions in February to obtain more cattle and a pack-train of supplies.


title: History of California

text: Fewer mouths to feed temporarily eased the drain on San Diego's scant provisions, but within weeks, acute hunger and increased sickness (scurvy) again threatened to force abandonment of the San Diego "Mission". Portolá finally decided that if no relief ship arrived by March 19, 1770, they would leave to return to the Novohispanic missions on the Baja Peninsula the next morning "because there were not enough provisions to wait longer and the men had not come to perish from hunger". At three o'clock in the afternoon on March 19, 1770, as if by a miracle, the sails of the sailing ship "San Antonio", loaded with relief supplies, were discernible on the horizon. The Spanish settlement of Alta California would continue.


title: History of California

text: Juan Bautista de Anza, leading an exploratory expedition on January 8, 1774, with 3 chaplains, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, 65 cattle, and 140 horses set forth from Tubac south of present-day Tucson, Arizona. They went across the Sonoran desert to California from Mexico by swinging south of the Gila River to avoid Apache attacks until they hit the Colorado River at the Yuma Crossing—about the only way across the Colorado River. The friendly Quechan (Yuma) Indians (2,000–3,000) he encountered there were growing most of their food, using irrigation systems, and had already imported pottery, horses, wheat and a few other crops from New Mexico.


title: History of California

text: After crossing the Colorado to avoid the impassable Algodones Dunes west of Yuma, Arizona, they followed the river about south (to about the Arizona's southwest corner on the Colorado River) before turning northwest to about today's Mexicali, Mexico and then turning north through today's Imperial Valley and then northwest again before reaching Mission San Gabriel Arcángel near the future city of Los Angeles. It took Anza about 74 days to do this initial reconnaissance trip to establish a land route into California. On his return trip he went down the Gila River until hitting the Santa Cruz River and continuing on to Tubac. The return trip only took 23 days, and he encountered several peaceful and populous agricultural tribes with irrigation systems located along the Gila River.


title: History of California

text: In Anza's second trip (1775–1776) he returned to California with 240 friars, soldiers and colonists with their families. They took 695 horses and mules and 385 Texas Longhorn cattle with them. The approximately 200 surviving cattle and an unknown number of horses (many of each were lost or eaten along the way) started the cattle and horse raising industry in California. In California the cattle and horses had few predators and plentiful grass in all but drought years. They essentially grew and multiplied as feral animals, doubling roughly every two years.


title: History of California

text: The expedition started from Tubac, Arizona, on October 22, 1775, and arrived at San Francisco Bay on March 28, 1776. There they selected the sites for the Presidio of San Francisco, followed by a mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), within the future city of San Francisco, which took its name from the mission.


title: History of California

text: In 1776, the Domínguez–Escalante expedition concurrently was launched by Franciscan missionaries to find an overland route between New Mexico and California. However, after reaching as west as modern-day Arizona by 1777, the missionaries could no longer continue and decided to return back to Santa Fe.


title: History of California

text: In 1780, the Spanish established two combination missions and pueblos at the Yuma Crossing: Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer and Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción. Both these pueblos and missions were on the California side of the Colorado River but were administered by the Arizona authorities. On July 17–18, 1781, the Yuma (Quechan) Indians, in a dispute with the Spanish, destroyed both missions and pueblos—killing 103 soldiers, colonists, and Friars and capturing about 80 prisoners, mostly women and children. In four well-supported punitive expeditions in 1782 and 1783 against the Quechans, the Spanish managed to gather their dead and ransom nearly all the prisoners, but failed to re-open the Anza Trail.


title: History of California

text: The Yuma Crossing was closed for Spanish traffic and it would stay closed until about 1846. California was nearly isolated again from land based travel. About the only way into California from Mexico would now be a 40 to 60-day voyage by sea. The average of 2.5 ships per year from 1769 to 1824 meant that additional colonists coming to Alta California were few and far between.


title: History of California

text: Eventually, 21 California Missions were established along the California coast from San Diego to San Francisco—about up the coast. The missions were nearly all located within of the coast and almost no exploration or settlements were made in the Central Valley or the Sierra Nevada. The only expeditions anywhere close to the Central Valley and Sierras were the rare forays by soldiers undertaken to recover runaway Indians who had escaped from the Missions. The "settled" territory of about was about 10% of California's eventual territory.


title: History of California

text: In 1786, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse led a group of scientists and artists who compiled an account of the Californian mission system, the land, and the people. Traders, whalers, and scientific missions followed in the next decades.


title: History of California

text: The California Missions, after they were all established, were located about one day's horseback ride apart for easier communication and linked by the El Camino Real trail. These Missions were typically manned by two to three friars and three to ten soldiers. Virtually all the physical work was done by indigenous people convinced to or coerced into joining the missions. The padres provided instructions for making adobe bricks, building mission buildings, planting fields, digging irrigation ditches, growing new grains and vegetables, herding cattle and horses, singing, speaking Spanish, and understanding the Catholic faith—all that was thought to be necessary to bring the Indians to be able to support themselves and their new church.


title: History of California

text: The soldiers supervised the construction of the presidios (forts) and were responsible for keeping order and preventing and/or capturing runaway Indians that tried to leave the missions. Nearly all of the Indians adjoining the missions were induced to join the various missions built in California. Once the Indians had joined the mission, if they tried to leave, soldiers were sent out to retrieve them. In the 1830s, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. observed that Indians were regarded and treated as slaves by the Spanish-speaking Californios.


title: History of California

text: The missions eventually claimed about of the available land in California or roughly of land per mission. The rest of the land was considered the property of the Spanish monarchy. To encourage settlement of the territory, large land grants were given to retired soldiers and colonists. Most grants were virtually free and typically went to friends and relatives in the California government. A few foreign colonists were accepted if they accepted Spanish citizenship and joined the Catholic Faith. The Mexican Inquisition was still in nearly full force and forbade Protestants living in Mexican controlled territory. In the Spanish colonial period many of these grants were later turned into Ranchos.


title: History of California

text: Spain made about 30 of these large grants, nearly all several square leagues (1 Spanish league = ) each in size. The total land granted to settlers in the Spanish colonial era was about or about each. The few owners of these large ranchos patterned themselves after the landed gentry in Spain and were devoted to keeping themselves living in a grand style. The rest of the population they expected to support them. Their mostly unpaid workers were nearly all Spanish trained Indians or peons that had learned how to ride horses and raise some crops. The majority of the ranch hands were paid with room and board, rough clothing, rough housing, and no salary.


title: History of California

text: The main products of these ranchos were cattle, horses and sheep, most of which lived virtually wild. The cattle were mostly killed for fresh meat, as well as hides and tallow (fat) which could be traded or sold for money or goods. As the cattle herds increased there came a time when nearly everything that could be made of leather was—doors, window coverings, stools, chaps, leggings, vests lariats (riatas), saddles, boots, etc. Since there was no refrigeration then, often a cow was killed for the day's fresh meat and the hide and tallow salvaged for sale later. After taking the cattle's hide and tallow their carcasses were left to rot or feed the California grizzly bears which roamed wild in California at that time, or to feed the packs of dogs that typically lived at each rancho.


title: History of California

text: A series of four "presidios", or "royal forts", each manned by 10 to 100 men, were built in Alta California by the Spanish crown through New Spain. California installations were established in San Diego (El Presidio Real de San Diego) founded in 1769, in San Francisco (El Presidio Real de San Francisco) founded in 1776, and in Santa Barbara (El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara) founded in 1782. After the Spanish colonial era the Presidio of Sonoma in Sonoma, California was founded in 1834.


title: History of California

text: To support the presidios and the missions, half a dozen towns (called pueblos) were established in California. The pueblos of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Villa de Branciforte (later abandoned before later becoming Santa Cruz), and the pueblo of San Jose, were all established to support the Missions and presidios in California. These were the only towns (pueblos) in California.


title: History of California

text: In 1804, the Province of Las Californias was divided into two territorial administrations following the precedent of Francisco Palóu's division between the Dominican missions of Baja California and Franciscan missions of Alta California, governing all Californian lands North of Misión San Miguel Arcángel de la Frontera (including the Tijuana River Valley and modern-day Mexicali) with Monterey as the capital of the new territory.


title: History of California

text: In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain, first as the First Mexican Empire, then a republic. Alta California became a territory rather than a full state. The territorial capital remained in Monterey, California, with a governor as executive official.


title: History of California

text: Mexico, after independence, was unstable with about 40 changes of government, in the 27 years prior to 1848—an average government duration was 7.9 months. In Alta California, Mexico inherited a large, sparsely settled, poor, backwater province paying little or no net tax revenue to the Mexican state. In addition, Alta California had a declining Mission system as the Mission Indian population in Alta California continued to rapidly decrease.


title: History of California

text: The number of Alta California settlers, always a minority of total population, slowly increased mostly by more births than deaths in the Californio population in California. After the closure of the de Anza Trail across the Colorado River in 1781 immigration from Mexico was nearly all by ship. California continued to be a sparsely populated and isolated territory.


title: History of California

text: Even before Mexico gained control of Alta California the onerous Spanish rules against trading with foreigners began to break down as the declining Spanish fleet could not enforce their no-trading policies. The settlers, and their descendants (who became known as Californios), were eager to trade for new commodities, finished goods, luxury goods, and other merchandise. The Mexican government abolished the no trade with foreign ships policy and soon regular trading trips were being made.


title: History of California

text: In addition, a number of Europeans and Americans became naturalized Mexican citizens and settled in early California. Some of those became rancheros and traders during the Mexican period, such as Abel Stearns.


title: History of California

text: Cattle hides and tallow, along with marine mammal fur and other goods, provided the necessary trade articles for mutually beneficial trade. The first American, English, and Russian trading ships first appeared in California a few years before 1820. The classic book "Two Years Before the Mast" by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. provides a good first hand account of this trade. From 1825 to 1848 the average number of ships traveling to California increased to about 25 ships per year—a large increase from the average of 2.5 ships per year from 1769 to 1824.


title: History of California

text: The main port of entry for trading purposes was Monterey, where custom duties of up to 100% (also called tariffs) were applied. These high duties gave rise to much bribery and smuggling, as avoiding the tariffs made more money for the ship owners and made the goods less costly to the customers. Essentially all the cost of the California government (what little there was) was paid for by these tariffs. In this they were much like the United States in 1850, where about 89% of the revenue of its federal government came from import tariffs, although at an average rate of about 20%.


title: History of California

text: So many mission Indians died from exposure to harsh conditions and diseases like measles, diphtheria, smallpox, syphilis, etc. that at times raids were undertaken to new villages in the interior to supplement the supply of Indian women. This increase in deaths was accompanied by a very low live birth rate among the surviving Indian population. As reported by Krell, as of December 31, 1832, the mission Franciscan chaplains had performed a combined total of 87,787 baptisms and 24,529 marriages, and recorded 63,789 deaths.


title: History of California

text: If Krell's numbers are to be believed (others have very different numbers) the Mission Indian population had declined from a peak of about 87,000 in about 1800 to about 14,000 in 1832 and continued to decline. The Missions were becoming ever more strained as the number of Indian converts drastically declined and the deaths greatly exceeded the births. The ratio of Indian births to deaths is believed to have been less than 0.5 Indian births per death.


title: History of California

text: The missions, as originally envisioned, were to last only about ten years before being converted to regular parishes. When the California missions were abolished in 1834, some missions had existed over 66 years, but the Mission Indians were still not self-sufficient, proficient in Spanish, or wholly Catholic. Indigenous resistance and uprisings against violent settler colonialism was widespread across the missions despite severe and continuing decline in the native Californian population. In 1834 Mexico, in response to demands that the Catholic Church give up much of the Mission property, started the process of secularizing the Franciscan-run missions. Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of this legislation the following year when, on August 9, 1834 Governor Figueroa issued his "Decree of Confiscation".


title: History of California

text: Nine other missions quickly followed, with six more in 1835; San Buenaventura and San Francisco de Asís were among the last to succumb, in June and December 1836, respectively. The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned most of the missions, taking with them almost everything of value they could, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials, furniture, etc. or the mission buildings were sold off to serve other uses.


title: History of California

text: In spite of this neglect, the Indian towns at San Juan Capistrano, San Dieguito, and Las Flores did continue on for some time under a provision in Governor Echeandía's 1826 Proclamation that allowed for the partial conversion of missions to new "pueblos". After the secularizing of the Missions, many of the surviving Mission Indians switched from being unpaid workers for the missions to unpaid laborers and vaqueros (cowboys) of the about 500 large Californio owned ranchos.


title: History of California

text: Before Alta California became a part of the Mexican state, about 30 Spanish land grants had already been deeded in all of Alta California to Presidio soldiers and government officials and a few friends and family of the Alta California Governors, some of whom were grandchildren of the original 1775 Anza expedition settlers. The 1824 Mexican Colony Law established rules for petitioning for land grants in California; and by 1828, the rules for establishing land grants were codified in the Mexican Reglamento (Regulation). The Acts sought to break the monopoly of the Franciscan missions, while paving the way for additional settlers to California by making land grants easier to obtain.


title: History of California

text: When the missions were secularized, the mission property and cattle were supposed to be mostly allocated to the Mission Indians. In practice, nearly all mission property and livestock were taken over by the about 455 large ranchos granted by the governors—mostly to friends and family at low or no cost. The rancho owners claimed about averaging about each. This land was nearly all distributed on former mission land within about of the coast.


title: History of California

text: The Mexican land grants were provisional until settled and worked on for five years, and often had very indefinite boundaries and sometimes conflicting ownership claims. The boundaries of each rancho were almost never surveyed, and marked, and often depended on local landmarks that often changed over time. Since the government depended on import tariffs for its income, there was virtually no property tax—the property tax when introduced with U.S. statehood was a big shock. The grantee could not subdivide, or rent out, the land without approval.


title: History of California

text: The rancho owners tried to live in a grand manner, and the result was similar to a barony. Much of the agriculture, vineyards, and orchards established by the Missions were allowed to deteriorate as the rapidly declining Mission Indian population required less food, and the Missionaries and soldiers supporting the Missions disappeared. The new Ranchos and slowly increasing Pueblos mostly only grew enough food to eat and to trade with the occasional trading ship or whaler that put into a California port to trade, get fresh water, replenish their firewood and obtain fresh vegetables.


title: History of California

text: The main products of these ranchos were cattle hides (called California greenbacks) and tallow (rendered fat for making candles and soap) that were traded for other finished goods and merchandise. This hide-and-tallow trade was mainly carried on by Boston-based ships that traveled to around Cape Horn to bring finished goods and merchandise to trade with the Californio Ranchos for their hides and tallow. The cattle and horses that provided the hides and tallow essentially grew wild.


title: History of California

text: By 1845, the province of Alta California had a non-native population of about 1,500 Spanish and Latin American-born adult men along with about 6,500 women and their native-born children (who became the Californios). These Spanish-speakers lived mostly in the southern half of the state from San Diego north to Santa Barbara. There were also around 1300 American immigrants and 500 European immigrants from a wide variety of backgrounds. Nearly all of these were adult males and a majority lived in central and northern California from Monterey north to Sonoma and east to the Sierra Nevada foothills.


title: History of California

text: A large non-coastal land grant was given to John Sutter who, in 1839, settled a large land grant close to the future city of Sacramento, California, which he called "New Helvetia" ("New Switzerland"). There, he built an extensive fort equipped with much of the armament from Fort Ross—bought from the Russians on credit when they abandoned that fort. Sutter's Fort was the first non-Native American community in the California Central Valley. Sutter's Fort, from 1839 to about 1848, was a major agricultural and trade colony in California, often welcoming and assisting California Trail travelers to California. Most of the settlers at, or near, Sutter's Fort were new immigrants from the United States.


title: History of California

text: Hostilities between the U.S. and Mexico were sparked in part by territorial disputes between Mexico and the Republic of Texas, and later by the American annexation of Texas in 1845. Several battles between U.S. and Mexican troops led the United States Congress to issue a declaration of war against Mexico on May 13, 1846; the Mexican–American War had begun. Word of the conflict reached Alta California about a month later.


title: History of California

text: The main forces available to the United States in California were the bluejacket sailors and U.S. Marines on board the ships of the Pacific Squadron. Speculating that war with Mexico over Texas and other land was very possible, the U.S. Navy had sent several additional naval vessels to the Pacific in 1845 to protect U.S. interests there. It took about 200 days, on average, for ships to travel the greater than trip from the East coast around Cape Horn of South America to California.


title: History of California

text: Initially as the war with Mexico started there were five vessels in the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron near California. In 1846 and 1847 this was increased to 13 Navy vessels—over half the U.S. Navy's available ships. The only other U.S. military force then in California was the about 30 military topographers etc. and 30 mountain men, guides, hunters, etc. in Captain John C. Frémont's United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers exploratory force. They were exiting California on their way to what is now Oregon when they got word in early June 1846 that war was imminent and a revolt had already started in Sonoma, California.


title: History of California

text: Hearing rumors of possible Californio military action against the newly arrived settlers in California (this had already happened in 1840), some settlers decided to neutralize the small Californio garrison at Sonoma, California. On June 15, 1846, some thirty settlers, mostly American citizens, staged a revolt and seized the small Californio garrison, in Sonoma, without firing a shot and declared the new California Republic government. On hearing of this revolt, Fremont and his exploratory force returned to California. The "republic" never exercised any real authority and only lasted 26 days before accepting U.S. government control.


title: History of California

text: The former fleet surgeon William M. Wood and John Parrot, the American Consul of Mazatlán, arrived in Guadalajara, Mexico on May 10, 1846. There they heard word of the ongoing hostilities between the U.S. and Mexico forces and sent a message by special courier back to Commodore (Rear Admiral) John D. Sloat, commander of the Pacific Squadron then visiting Mazatlán Mexico. On May 17, 1846, this courier's messages informed Commodore Sloat that hostilities between the U.S. and Mexico had commenced.


title: History of California

text: Commodore (Rear Admiral) John D. Sloat and four of his vessels were then at anchor in the harbor of Mazatlán, Mexico. On hearing the news, Commodore Sloat dispatched his flagship, the frigate , and the sloop to Monterey harbor, where they arrived on July 2, 1846. They joined the sloop which was already there. There were fears from Americans that the British might try to annex California to satisfy creditors back home. The British Pacific Station's squadron of ships off California were stronger in ships, guns, and men than the American ships. Apparently the British never had any orders on whether to intervene or not if hostilities broke out between the Californios and the United States and requesting new orders would have taken from eighteen to twenty-four months to get a message to England and back. Ultimately, the British watched from the coast as the United States annexed the region.


title: History of California

text: Initially there was little resistance from anyone in California as they replaced the dysfunctional and ineffective Mexican government which had already been replaced by the Californios. The Mexican government by 1846 had already had 40 presidents in the first 24 years of its existence. Most new settlers and Californios were neutral or actively supported the revolt. An independent group of men called "Los Osos" raised the "Bear Flag" of the California Republic over Sonoma. The republic was in existence scarcely more than 25 days before Frémont returned and took over on June 23 from William B. Ide the leader of the Bear Flag Revolt. The California state flag of today is based on this original Bear Flag and still contains the words "California Republic". John A. Sutter and his men and supplies at Sutter's Fort joined the revolt.


title: History of California

text: In 1846, the U.S. Navy was under orders to take over all California ports in the event of war. There were about 400 to 500 U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy bluejacket sailors available for possible land action on the Pacific Squadron's ships. Hearing word of the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma, California, and the arrival of the 2,600-ton, 600-man Royal Navy man-of-war flagship under Sir George S. Seymour, outside Monterey Harbor, Commodore Sloat was finally stirred to action. On July 7, 1846, seven weeks after war had been declared, Sloat instructed the captains of the ships and sloops and of the Pacific Squadron in Monterey Bay to occupy Monterey, California—the Alta California capital. Fifty American marines and about 100 bluejacket sailors landed and captured the city without incident—the few Californio troops formerly there having already evacuated the city. They raised the flag of the United States without firing a shot. The only shots fired were a 21-gun salute to the new U.S. flag fired by each of the U.S. Navy ships in the harbor. The British ships observed but took no action.


title: History of California

text: The abandoned Presidio and Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores) at San Francisco, then called Yerba Buena, were occupied without firing a shot on July 9, 1846, by U.S. marines and U.S. Navy sailors from the sloop . Militia Captain Thomas Fallon led a small force of about 22 men from Santa Cruz, California, and captured the small town of Pueblo de San Jose without bloodshed on July 11, 1846. Fallon received an American flag from Commodore John D. Sloat and raised it over the pueblo on July 14. On July 15, 1846, Commodore (Rear Admiral) Sloat transferred his command of the Pacific Squadron to Commodore Robert F. Stockton when Stockton's ship, the frigate , arrived from the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).


title: History of California

text: Stockton, a much more aggressive leader, asked Fremont to form a joint force of Fremont's soldiers, scouts, guides, and others, and a volunteer militia—many who were former Bear Flag Revolters. This unit, called the California Battalion, was mustered into U.S. service and were paid regular army wages. On July 19, Frémont's newly formed "California Battalion" swelled to about 160 men. These men included Fremont's 30 topographical men and their 30 scouts and hunters, U.S. Marine Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie, a U.S. Navy officer to handle their two cannons, a company of Indians trained by Sutter and many other "permanent" California settlers from several different countries as well as American settlers. The California Battalion members were used mainly to garrison and keep order in the rapidly surrendering California towns.


title: History of California

text: The Navy went down the coast from San Francisco, occupying ports without resistance as they went. The small pueblo (town) of San Diego surrendered 29 July 1846 without a shot being fired. The small pueblo (town) of Santa Barbara surrendered without a shot being fired in August 1846.


title: History of California

text: On August 13, 1846, a joint force of U.S. Marines, bluejacket sailors and parts of Frémont's California Battalion carried by the entered Pueblo de Los Angeles, California with flags flying and band playing. USMC Captain Archibald H. Gillespie, Frémont's second in command of the California Battalion, with an inadequate force of 40 to 50 men, were left to occupy and keep order in the largest town (about 3,500) in Alta California—Los Angeles. The Californio government officials had already fled Alta California.


title: History of California

text: In September 1846 the Californios José María Flores, José Antonio Carrillo and Andrés Pico, organized and led a campaign of resistance against the American incursion into Los Angeles of the prior month. As a result, the outnumbered United States troops evacuated the city for the following few months. Over the following four months, U.S. forces fought minor skirmishes with the Californio Lancers in the Battle of San Pasqual (in San Diego, California), the Battle of Dominguez Rancho (near Los Angeles), and the Battle of Rio San Gabriel (near Los Angeles). After the Los Angeles resistance started, the American California Battalion was expanded to a force of about 400 men.


title: History of California

text: In early January 1847, a 600-man joint force of U.S. Marine, U.S. Navy bluejacket sailors, General Stephen W. Kearny's 80 U.S. Army dragoons (cavalrymen), who had arrived over the Gila river trail in December 1846, and about two companies of Fremont's California Battalion re-occupied Los Angeles after some very minor skirmishes (mostly posturing)—four months after the initial American retreat, the same U.S. flag again flew over Los Angeles. The minor armed resistance in California ceased when the Californios signed the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. About 150 Californios who were worried about possible punishment from the Americans for not keeping their non-aggression promises rounded up about 300 horses and retreated into Sonora, Mexico over the Yuma Crossing Gila River trail. The Californios, who had wrested control of California from Mexico in 1845, now had a new and much more stable government.


title: History of California

text: After the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed in early 1847, the Pacific Squadron then went on to capture all Baja California cities and harbors and sink or capture all the Mexican Pacific Navy they could find. Baja California was returned to Mexico in subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo negotiations. California was under U.S. control by January 1847,after the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga, and formally annexed and paid for by the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed in 1848.


title: History of California

text: After hostilities had ceased with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847, on January 22, 1847 Commodore Stockton's replacement, Commodore William B. Shubrick, showed up in Monterey in the razee with 54 guns and about 500 crew members. On January 27, 1847, the transport "Lexington" showed up in Monterey, California with a regular U.S. Army artillery company of 113 men under Captain Christopher Tompkins.