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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


The History of California


In 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodrígues Cabrillo is credited with being the first European to discover California. The name "California" came from a knightly romance book that was published in 1510. It was about an island paradise near the Indies where beautiful Queen Califia ruled over a country of beautiful black Amazons with lots of pearls and gold. Men were only allowed there one day a year to help perpetuate the race. Cortez's men thought they found the island in 1535, because they found pearls. Later, Francisco de Ulloa found that the island was really a peninsula. Over the next 200 years, dozens of sailors mapped the coast, including British explorer Sir Francis Drake, who sailed his Golden Hind into what is now called Drake’s Bay in 1579, and Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcano, who, in 1602, bestowed most of the place names that survive today, including San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Carmel. European colonial competition and Catholic missionary zeal prompted Spain to establish settlements along the Alta (upper) California coast. and claim the lands as its own.
Mission Delores was one of the early California missions created by Father Junipero Serra In 1769, Father Junípero Serra, accompanied by 300 soldiers and clergy, began forging a path from Mexico to Monterey. A small mission and presidio were established that year at San Diego, and by 1804, a chain of 21 missions, each a day’s walk from the next along a dirt road called Camino Real (Royal Road), stretched all the way to Sonoma. Most of the solidly built missions, Mission Delores, Mission San Juan Bautista, Mission San Diego de Alcala, still remain and offer public tours. Because of the missions, thousands of Native Americans were converted to Christianity and coerced into labor. Many others died from imported diseases. Because not all the natives welcomed their conquerors with open arms, many missions and pueblos suffered repeated attacks, leading to the construction of California’s now ubiquitous, and fireproof, red-tile roofs. Embattled at home as well as abroad, the Spanish relinquished their claim to Mexico and California in 1821. Under Mexican rule, Alta California’s Spanish missionaries fell out of favor and lost much of their land to the increasingly wealthy Californios, Mexican immigrants who had been granted tracts of land.
Beginning in the late 1820s, Americans from the East began to make their way to California via a three-month sail around Cape Horn. Most of them settled in the territorial capital of Monterey and in Northern California. From the 1830s on, Manifest Destiny led many a pioneer to go west, young man. The first covered-wagon train made the four month crossing in 1844. Over the next few years, several hundred Americans made the trek to California over the Sierra Nevada range via Truckee Pass, just north of Lake Tahoe. A memorial to the Donner Party, the most famous tragedy in the history of westward migration, marks the site of the ill-fated travelers. In the spring of 1846, a group of nearly 90 emigrants left Springfield, Illinois, and headed west. Led by brothers Jacob and George Donner, the group attempted to take a new and supposedly shorter route to California. They soon encountered rough terrain and numerous delays, and they eventually became trapped by heavy snowfall high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Purportedly reduced to cannibalism to survive through the winter, only half of the original group reached California the following year. Their story quickly spread, and before long the term "Donner Party" became synonymous with one of humanity's most ingrained taboos.
Sutter Mill where gold was first found in California  In 1846, President James Polk offered Mexico $40 million for California and New Mexico. The offer might have been accepted, but the two countries got too busy fighting over Texas, instead. The United States won and simply took over the entire West Coast. In 1848, California’s non–Native American population was around 7,000. Prior to the Gold Rush, settlers very slowly filtered into California until 1848 when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. Suddenly, people from all over the world looking to strike it rich flooded through San Francisco. They travelled up the Sacramento River to the gold fields. The Gold Rush was devastating to the Native Americans in the area and depleted many natural resources. What is now San Francisco was once a redwood forest. Whole native tribes were scattered or destroyed. In some areas there were bounties on Indians. The California tribes still have a rich culture and heritage, but the nineteenth century was a period of great loss for all native tribes in the area. It was this discovery of gold that hastened California's statehood. On September 9, 1850, President Fillmore officially made California the thirty-first state.
One thing that helped ease California's isolation was the telegraph. By 1861, telegraph lines stretched across the country. Unfortunately, buffalo on the plains often knocked down the poles, leaving California isolated again until the line was fixed. California offered a lot to the nation. The rich Central Valley eventually became known as the breadbasket of the world. California's mild climate allowed for year-round farming and fruits and vegetables could be grown in California that would grow in very few other places. The Chinese eventually prospered, despite extreme prejudice and jealousy over their success, by growing fruits and vegetables, which were an important part of their diet. The Chinese eventually started their own town in the Central Valley which remains to this day. The town has some descendants of these original Chinese immigrants. Eventually, the railroads carried California produce to the East. California's exotic produce was in great demand in the East. Ice cars, the precursors to the refrigerated cars of today, began in response to the demand for California produce. Agriculture was responsible for generating great wealth in the state. Agriculture is still a major industry today.
 
 
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