goldfields

Every Friday the Association for Northern California Historical Research — ANCHR — posts an audio clip on Facebook from Dr. Hector Lee on northern California folklore and history. This one is about William B. Ide, participant in the Bear Flag Revolt and first president of the Republic of California.

If you enjoy this clip, and can’t wait for more, subscribe to the ANCHR Facebook page and get another Folklore Friday post every Friday.

Hector Lee (1908-1992) was a professor of folklore who began his career at Chico State University and then transferred to Sonoma State. He was a nationally known authority on the folklore of the American West and his collections of tales appeared not only in books, but on radio and television as well. The clips presented on the ANCHR Facebook page come from the files of CSUChico Meriam Library Special Collections, who have given permission to share them.

The year 1847 ended with the greatest expectations and it seemed that the following year would crown my success. Around my dwelling, whose doors were never locked, the former wilderness had changed into gardens and large fields of various kinds of grain. The antelope and deer had been replaced by large herds of cattle and horses which grazed unhampered and unguarded. Even the wild Indians appeared to be not unimpressionable by culture and civilization. With my Indians I always lived in peaceful and harmonious relations. What they lost by my cattle as to acorns, grass seeds, etc., I replaced with wheat, corn, melons, etc., which I planted and shared with them.
Almost in all directions I now had neighbors, so that the social relations were considerably improved. In addition, I enjoyed the greatest freedom which any human being could enjoy and was frequently in a position to give the deciding vote in a judgment over life and death. Then gold was found in my district and my great hopes came to naught.

So wrote Theodore Cordua in his memoir of life in California. His hard work and energy had paid off. He had a large successful ranch, far-reaching business interests, good neighbors, and above all, freedom to act as he pleased.

He wrote to friends in Germany, recommending that they come to California and share in the bounty. But his invitations went unheeded, although he was ready and willing to help any German immigrants with land, cattle, and implements. He later lamented:

Had I had only a few honest Mecklenburgers in my employ or in my district for neighbors! How we could have been the happiest and richest people, not by digging for gold but by the possession of land, by agriculture, and cattle raising!

The dreams of founding a German colony in the Sacramento Valley, and the reality of his prosperous agricultural empire, all came crashing down with the Gold Rush. His employees ran off to the goldfields, but he felt constrained to stay at New Mecklenburg and guard his holdings. Goldseekers flocked to his ranch, ate his food, burnt his fuel, destroyed his land.

Charles Covillaud

He decided what he needed was a partner, someone to help him hold down the land and supply cattle to the mining camps. He went into partnership with Charles Covillaud, a Frenchman whom he had formerly employed as a cooper. Covillaud had a trading post where he sold goods to miners and Indians, which would provide a market for Cordua’s beef.

In 1848 Charles Covillaud married Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party, and named the town that grew up on Cordua’s ranch Marysville, after her. She was 17 when she married Covillaud, and it was her second marriage (but that is a tale for another time.)

Looking to get out from under the burden of his failing ranch, Theodore Cordua sold the other half to Michael Nye (who had come to California with John Bidwell) and William Foster. Taking the profit, he became once again a merchant and bought goods to sell in the goldfields. He also had high expectations for his lots in Suttersville. Less subject to flooding than Sacramento City, Suttersville was poised to prosper as a gateway to the gold regions, but it never took off, and his investment was worthless.

Everything went wrong for Cordua. Gold deposited in a bank was stolen, his trading post on the Yuba River burnt to the ground, fires in San Francisco destroyed other buildings, mules and horses disappeared, expenses were high and debts went unpaid. He took to drink, wandered from place to place looking for opportunity, and despaired of ever again finding wealth in California.

He finally gave up on California in May 1852 and took ship for Honolulu. He lived in Hawaii for several years, and then returned to Germany in 1856. There he dreamed of starting anew in some foreign land, perhaps at Vancouver Island. But before he could journey again he died in Germany in October, 1857. He was 61 years old.

On January 8, 1850 it commenced raining in the Sacramento Valley. The rain continued for ten days, and this after an already wet winter, with rains that began in October 1849.

Sacramento City, built on the riverside where the American and Sacramento Rivers joined, was inundated, with water extending a mile inland from the embarcadero. The streets were filled with water, tents and buildings were swept away, and thousands of dollars of merchandise were lost.

Here are a few quotations from an eyewitness report which appeared in the Daily Alta California, 16 January 1850:

Long before noon hundreds of boats were crossing every street, far and near, and bearing to the several vessels that lay at the river’s bank, women and children, the sick and the feeble; and as they arrived, the owners of the vessels were ready to offer them prompt aid and every comfort in their power; and when they were safely landed upon the decks, the shout of joy went up to heaven in loud cheers from those who landed them, for their safety, and these shouts were echoed back by the hundreds of voices that were in the surrounding boats, and within hearing of the response. During the entire day and until night, this work of humanity and mercy went on.

As an evidence of the power of the current, the new and valuable brick building, corner of J and 3d street, built at great cost by the Messrs. Merritt, having walls nearly or quite 18 inches in thickness, was undermined, and fell with a heavy crash, carrying with it the next store, Messrs. Massett & Brewsters, with which it fell into the flood a mass of ruin. The large iron store on K street, was lifted from its position, carried into the street, and then overthrown, and various others shared the same fate.

The City Hotel, where so many of our friends have enjoyed the excellent fare that was always provided by the proprietors, was so completely submerged as to compel the boarders to enter by boats, at the second story, the first being completely under water.

The full article can be read at the California Digital Newspaper Collection web page.

For the 49ers, this was their first winter in California. They had no idea whether this was normal or not. By 1862, when the floods were even more extensive than those of 1850, they knew that flooding at least once a decade was going to be the norm.

Happy New Year to all the history buffs out there. I hope 2017 is filled with wonderful discoveries and joyful events.

Are you a member of a group or club that needs a speaker? I love to speak to groups—it’s a lot of fun to talk about John Bidwell and his world. It’s a treat to interact with folks who love history. So if you know anyone looking for a speaker, send me a note at goldfieldsbooksca@gmail.com. (Note the “s” in the middle of the address, actually, two of them — it’s easy to miss them.)

I love to talk to elementary students, too, so if you know a teacher, pass this on. 3rd and 4th grade students visit Bidwell Mansion — a talk and slideshow about John and Annie Bidwell before they visit is a great way to get ready. Sometimes I even bring John along with me! (As portrayed by Nick Anderson.)

I have several ideas and projects in the works, and I’ll keep you posted about those as they progress. In the meantime, make 2017 a wonderful year!

John Bidwell knew he was in California when he arrived at John Marsh’s rancho on November 4, 1841. Like most Americans who came to California in the 1840s, he went to John Sutter to find work.

By Christmas Day, Bidwell had been at Sutter’s settlement for about a month. Sutter had enthusiastically hired Bidwell and planned to send him off to the coast to oversee his recent acquisition of Fort Ross. Here is Bidwell describing Sutter’s “Fort” as he first saw it:

The settlement, if it could then be so designated, was in an embryo state. No crops had been raised; grain had been sown, but owing to an unprecedentedly dry season, it had failed to mature.

There was no such thing as bread, so we had to eat beef, and occasionally game, such as elk, deer, antelope, wild geese, and ducks. Our Christmas dinner that year was entirely of ducks. (Colusa County, p. 37)

Just ducks for Christmas dinner! But they wouldn’t go hungry, for there was no shortage of ducks and geese along the river that winter.

So safe at last in California, John Bidwell enjoyed a merry Christmas with John Sutter, his trail mates Jimmy John and Mike Nye, and Sutter’s motley household of Mexicans, Kanakas, and Indians.

I hope you have a very merry holiday season too, whether it’s ducks for dinner, or turkey, ham, or roast beef. Or even vegetarian (which wasn’t an option for Bidwell). Thanks for reading my blog. I’ll be back next year with more Northern California adventures.

In his book The Other Slavery, historian Andrés Reséndez reveals a missing piece of American history — the enslavement of Native Americans. From the first days of Columbus in the Caribbean down to the 20th century, Indians were pressed into slavery.

Only it wasn’t called slavery. It was called indenture, or debt peonage, or not given any name at all. Indian slavery was different from African slavery. The slaves were not transported across the ocean. They were captured and sold by rival Indian tribes, hunted down by white kidnappers, or taken up on charges of vagrancy. Unlike Africans, who all came to North America originally in bondage, Native slavery varied depending on location and tribe.

It was different in other ways too. African slavers sought primarily young men, but with Indian slavery, women and children were more desirable. Women had useful skills — weaving, food preparation, child care. Women and children were more docile and easily managed. In the West particularly, household servants were often Native Americans, often children who had grown up working for their owners.

Indian slavery was not legal, but it persisted anyway. The Spanish crown prohibited Native slavery in 1592, but it continued. Mexico outlawed all forms of bondage and gave the Indians citizenship, but peonage continued. The 13th Amendment prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, and this certainly should have applied to Indians as much as African-Americans, but Native bondage was ignored. They weren’t called slaves, so how could they be set free?

Reséndez looks at slavery’s beginnings in the Caribbean, the encomienda system in Mexico, and the spread of slavery throughout the American Southwest. When the Mormons arrived in Utah, they came upon a thriving slave trade already in place, and in their efforts to rescue and convert natives, they found themselves entangled in buying and keeping Indian children. In New Mexico the removal of the Navajo to a reservation was an opportunity for slave traders to capture and sell into bondage countless women and children. And in California, even before the Gold Rush, the Indians were coerced into labor by the rancheros, both Mexican and American

Reséndez explores how Native American slavery has been overlooked. He sees in it a major cause of the decline of the Indian populations that can be added to the well-known causes of disease, massacre, and removal. For anyone interested in Native American history or the history of the American West, this is an important book.