Question

1) You have been meeting natives, colonizers, and now Mexicans (also known as Californios) who made an impact and left their mark in California. You may notice that many of our street names, cities, monuments are named after these individuals. Briefly identify one of these individuals and provide the impact they made in California. There are so many so please try not to answer the same one.

2) Was Mexican California better/worse/the same as Spanish California? Compare and contrast.

…………………………..

Information;

Week #3 Summary

Under unstable Mexican rule from 1821 to 1846, California became more globally connected and Pacific-oriented.

• The secularization of the missions had the unintended consequence of linking the province to the Pacific Basin and America’s Atlantic seaboard through the hide-and-tallow trade, which grew rapidly as former Church lands were acquired by rancheros, who dominated a patriarchal society.
  • •

Throughout the Mexican period, Americans began arriving in California by sea and via overland trails blazed by fur trappers and followed by immigrant parties.

Miscalculations in timing a Sierra crossing could have horrific results, as seen in the Donner party tragedy that included incidents of cannibalism.

• As more Americans arrived, California’s Pacific Basin ties increased. Yankee coastal shippers, mainly headquartered in San Diego and Santa Barbara, carried hides and tallow that they exchanged for trade goods at ports along the Oregon coast and across the Pacific in Peru and Chile.

From Latin America their vessels often sailed to Honolulu, where sandalwood and other products were acquired for trade in porcelains, silks, and teas in Canton, China.

• The heavily laden ships then completed the Pacific circuit, returning to California ports. Among
  • thers, Santa Barbara China trader Alpheus B. Thompson prospered greatly from this commerce.

• •
• •

Meanwhile New England merchant shippers carried manufactures aboard cargo vessels – virtual floating department stores – around Cape Horn for sale in California and Oregon.

whaling port in the Pacific and later in the world.

As the hide-and-tallow trade declined in the 1840s, San Francisco began its ascent into the leading

The famed Charles Wilkes maritime expedition of 1838–42 demonstrated the growing interest of the U.S. government in California and the Pacific Basin. An American takeover of the province was in the making.