Human history in California began when indigenous Americans first arrived some 13,000 years ago. Coastal exploration by the Spanish began in the 16th century, with further European settlement along the coast and in the inland valleys following in the 18th century. California was part of New Spain until that kingdom dissolved in 1821, becoming part of Mexico until the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), when it was ceded to the United States under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The same year, the California Gold Rush began, triggering intensified U.S. westward expansion. California joined the Union as a free state via the Compromise of 1850. By the end of the 19th century, California was still largely rural and agricultural, with a population of about 1.4 million.
Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's Wine Country and the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA. Sonoma's population was 10,739 as of the 2020 census, while the Sonoma urban area had a population of 32,679. Sonoma is a popular tourist destination, owing to its Californian wineries, noted events like the Sonoma International Film Festival, and its historic center.
The Battle of Monterey, at Monterey, California, occurred on 7 July 1846, during the Mexican–American War. The United States captured the town unopposed.
Flag Day is a holiday celebrated on June 14 in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The Flag Resolution stated "That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."
The California Republic, or Bear Flag Republic, was an unrecognized breakaway state from Mexico, that for 25 days in 1846 militarily controlled an area north of San Francisco, in and around what is now Sonoma County in California.
Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was a Californio general, statesman, and public figure. He was born a subject of Spain, performed his military duties as an officer of the Republic of Mexico, and shaped the transition of Alta California from a territory of Mexico to the U.S. state of California. He served in the first session of the California State Senate. The city of Vallejo, California, is named after him, and the nearby city of Benicia is named after his wife.
William Brown Ide was an American pioneer who headed the short-lived California Republic in 1846.
Californios are Hispanic Californians, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there since 1683 and is made up of varying Spanish and Mexican origins, including criollos, Mestizos, Indigenous Californian peoples, and small numbers of Mulatos. Alongside the Tejanos of Texas and Neomexicanos of New Mexico and Colorado, Californios are part of the larger Spanish-American/Mexican-American/Hispano community of the United States, which has inhabited the American Southwest and the West Coast since the 16th century. Some may also identify as Chicanos, a term that came about in the 1960s.
California's involvement in the American Civil War included sending gold east to support the war effort, recruiting volunteer combat units to replace regular U.S. Army units sent east, in the area west of the Rocky Mountains, maintaining and building numerous camps and fortifications, suppressing secessionist activity and securing the New Mexico Territory against the Confederacy. The State of California did not send its units east, but many citizens traveled east and joined the Union Army there, some of whom became famous.
Thomas Oliver Larkin, known later in life in Spanish as Don Tomás Larquin, was an American diplomat and businessman.
José Antonio Castro was a Californio politician, statesman, and general who served as interim Governor of Alta California and later Governor of Baja California. During the Bear Flag Revolt and the American Conquest of California, Castro led Mexican forces as the Commandante General of Northern California.
The Battle of Olómpali was fought on June 24, 1846, between a rebel group supporting an independent California Republic and a Mexican army force under the command of Joaquín de la Torre. It was the only battle of the Bear Flag Revolt. The encounter took place in present-day Marin County, California at a site that is now part of the Olompali State Historic Park.
The following timeline traces the territorial evolution of California, the thirty-first state admitted to the United States of America, including the process of removing Indigenous Peoples from their native lands, or restricting them to reservations.
The Conquest of California, also known as the Conquest of Alta California or the California Campaign, was a military campaign of the Mexican–American War carried out by the United States in Alta California, then a part of Mexico. The conquest lasted from 1846 into 1847, until military leaders from both the Californios and Americans signed the Treaty of Cahuenga, which ended the conflict in California.
The Sonoma Barracks is a two-story, wide-balconied, adobe building facing the central plaza of the City of Sonoma, California. It was built by order of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo to house the Mexican soldiers that had been transferred from the Presidio of San Francisco in 1835. The Presidio Company and their commander, Vallejo, were also responsible for controlling the Native Americans living on the northern border of Mexican California.
Bear Flag Monument is a public artwork located at the Sonoma Plaza in Sonoma, California in the United States. A monument to the Bear Flag Revolt, the piece is listed as a California Historical Landmark.
The interim government of California existed from soon after the outbreak of the Mexican–American War in mid-1846 until U.S. statehood in September, 1850. There were three distinct phases:
William D. "Bill" Bradshaw (1826–1864) was a United States western pioneer and prospector. He is best remembered for forging the Bradshaw Trail in 1862 from San Bernardino, California, to La Paz in the New Mexico Territory. Initially this gave the populated areas of California's west coast a more direct route to the Colorado River Gold Rush fields, but more importantly the trail opened up the Southern California Colorado Desert region, and beyond, to settlement and development.
The California Statehood Act, officially An Act for the Admission of the State of California into the Union and also known as the California Admission Act, is the federal legislation that admitted California to the United States as the thirty-first state. Passed in 1850 by the 31st United States Congress, the law made California one of only a few states to become a state without first being an organized territory.
