requent, according to the author.) And although California was lost to Spain in 1821 and became part of Mexico, that did not change the covetousness of those (especially Americans) who thought conquest was appropriate. The frailty of first the Spanish and then the Mexican hold on California encouraged this belief and set the stage for the later annexation of the territory to the United States. California was underpopulated and underdeveloped (especially agriculturally) and anyone could see how fertile was the soil. The fact that Spanish friars (Franciscan) devoted much of their time to "Christianizing" the indigenous Indians instead of encouraging Spanish colonial immigration to the area did not help the Spanish situation. Here was virgin land in a beautiful setting for the asking. Visiting ship captains also looked enviously at San Francisco in the north, as a source of refitting and supply (9). Much of the chapter deals with takeover plots by the Russians, French and British to seize the area. But of course it was the Americans who finally claimed the territory and wrested it away from Mexico. Also included in this chapter are descriptions of Walter Colton, appointed Alcaide of Monterey in 1846 and a long discussion about the travels of Richard Henry Dana, Jr., a Cambridge, Massachusetts scholar who wrote Two Years Before the Mast.
Chapter 2, "Beyond Eldorado," deals primarily with the Gold Rush. Interestingly enough, those Americans who had settled the state witnessed the coming of hordes of fortune seekers with resentment and felt very much like the Spaniards and Mexicans had earlier. (No one seems to have considered the position of the Indians, most of whom were wiped out by the settlers, one way or another.) In 1848 California had barely a population of 18,000 (49). The society of Northern California in particular was urban, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, primarily because of the maritime activity centered in and...