Synopsis
Presents a history of the land now called California, from the time before the first Europeans arrived, to the dominance of Mexico, to the ultimate war that brought the territory under American control
Reviews
An expertly written, well-documented history of the American seizure of California from Mexico. Popular Western history writer Walker (Legends and Lies: Great Mysteries of the American West, 1997, etc.) avoids the two chief pitfalls of the regions historiography: imagining its Anglo-American actors to be heroes one and all and, conversely, imagining every last one of them to be villains. Building his narrative on a series of biographical sketches, Walker sorts out good and bad and shows how a man generous and noble one day could behave very poorly indeed the next. One of his recurring characters is John Augustus Sutter, who built a considerable fortune as a trader through any number of questionable tactics: he paid his Indian workers in coins redeemable only at his stores, and he betrayed his Mexican sponsors by supporting an early revolt against Governor Manual Micheltorena, for which treason he received only a minor rebuke from the Mexican government. Another of Walkers major actors is the somewhat feckless explorer John Charles Frmont, whom history has not remembered kindly but for whom Walker shows an admirable understanding: He was an essential adventurer and man of action, Walker writes, and inaction confused and braked his racing mind and turned it toward ruinous matters, such as politics and ambition. Frmonts exploring party, heavily armed and uniformed, led the buckskin-clad Americans who were then living in California with Mexicos indulgence to imagine that an invasion was near at hand, and they jumped the gun somewhat by raising a militia against faraway garrisons in San Francisco and Los Angeles; when the US finally declared war on Mexico, the Californios, as they were called, were well prepared to do their part, and wresting the huge area away from its earlier owners was a fairly easy matterdespite, as Walker demonstrates, the troublesome quarrels that broke out among the various American leaders. A fine addition to California history and that of the American West generally. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Historian Dale Walker has painstakingly chronicled one of the most significant land grabs in U.S. history. In keeping with the spirit of the philosophy of Manifest Destiny that was gripping the nation in the middle of the nineteenth century, three veteran military commanders sought individual glory and national fulfillment in the conquest of California. In vivid detail, Walker recounts both the martial exploits and the political controversies of John Charles Fremont, Commodore Robert Field Stockton, and General Stephen Watts Kearney. Although eventually at odds with each other, the combined military actions and achievements of these three charismatic leaders resulted in the annexation of California by the U.S. The author places the key battle and events of the California campaign firmly in historical context by providing a wealth of fascinating background information spanning three centuries. An electrifying account of the quest for the Pacific Coast. Margaret Flanagan
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