Pacific Eldorado E-Book

Thomas J. Osborne

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 977

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

PACIFIC ELDORADO

PACIFIC ELDORADO A HISTORY OF GREATER CALIFORNIA

California‘s rich and complex history has long been shaped by its relationship with the vast ocean along its western shores. Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California presents the first comprehensive text to explore the entire sweep of California‘s past in relationship to the maritime world of the Pacific Basin. Noted historian Thomas J. Osborne dispels the commonly held notion of pre-Gold Rush California as a remote and isolated backwater. He traces the evolution of America‘s most populous state from the time of prehistoric Asian seafarers and sixteenth-century Spanish explorers through to its emergence in the modern world as a region whose unmatched resources and global influence have rendered it a veritable super state — a Greater California whose history has far exceeded its geographical boundaries. Interspersed throughout the text are “Pacific Profiles,” brief chronicles of notable figures who have made an impact on the state‘s history. At once scholarly and accessible, Pacific Eldorado offers a strikingly original interpretation of the origins and evolution of an extraordinary American state.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Illustrations

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Beginnings: From Fire and Ice to Indian Homeland

Landforms

Climates

Plants and Animals

First Peoples and Their New Homeland

Tribal and Linguistic Groupings

Material Culture

Religion and Social Practices

The Chumash: Pacific Coast Mariners and Traders

Other Possible Early Voyagers to California

SUMMARY

2 Spain’s Greater California Coast

A Name, a Dream, a Land

Cabrillo’s Coastal Reconnaissance

Globalization Begins: The Manila Galleon Trade

Drake, Nova Albion, and Cermeño

The Spanish Pacific, Vizcaíno, and Monterey

Colonizing California: Missions, Indians, and the Sea

Ranchos, Presidios, and Pueblos

Gender and Sexuality in a Frontier Society

The Transpacific Fur Trade

Hippolyte de Bouchard’s Pirate Raids

SUMMARY

3 A Globally Connected Mexican Province

Mexico’s Misrule of California

Secularization of the Missions

Hides, Tallow, and Rancho Society

Fur Trappers

Early Settlers and Overland Emigrants

“Thar She Blows:” New England Whalers

The Charles Wilkes Pacific Expedition

SUMMARY

4 War and Gold: America’s West Coast Eldorado

California and the Pacific Squadron

Jumping the Gun at Monterey

Polk, the Pacific, and the Outbreak of War

California and the Mexican War

Gold, Ships, and Wagon Trains

The World Rushed In

Life in the Diggings

The Gold Rush’s International Economic Impacts

SUMMARY

5 National Crisis, Statehood, and Social Change

A Constitution, a Legislature, a State

Land Disputes and Independence Movements

Vigilance Committees and Untamed Politicians

Pacific Filibusterers

California, the Pacific, and the Civil War

Ocean Crossings: The Chinese on Sea and Land

Californios and Other Spanish-Speakers

Indians: A People under Siege

African Americans: Up from Bondage

SUMMARY

6 Pacific-Bound Rails, Hard Times, and Chinese Exclusion

A Transcontinental Railroad, California, and Pacific Commerce

Theodore Judah, the Big Four, and the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862

Chinese Laborers and the Push Eastward

The Southern Pacific Railroad and the American West

Transpacific Steamers

Depression and the Anti-Chinese Movement

The Constitution of 1879

Halting Chinese Immigration

SUMMARY

7 Eldorado’s Economic and Cultural Growth

Water, Land, and Rural Development

Commercial Agriculture

Black and White Gold

Interurban Railways and Southern California’s Rise

California’s Maritime Economy

California and the Spanish–American–Cuban–Filipino War

A Cosmopolitan Culture

SUMMARY

8 Anti-Railroad Politics, Municipal Graft, and Labor Struggles

The Battle of Mussel Slough

An Angry Widow Sues: The Colton Letters

Pacific Gateway: Locating a Harbor in Los Angeles

Debt Dodging Denounced

The Southern Pacific Political Machine

The “Queen City of the Pacific:” Boss Ruef’s San Francisco

Foiled Reform: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Graft Trials

Maritime and Factory Labor

Field Work and the Wheatland Riot

SUMMARY

9 Governor Hiram Johnson and Pacific-Oriented Progressivism

The Beginnings of Reform

An “Aggressive Advocate” and the 1910 Election

Regulating the Economy

Democratizing Politics, Subsidizing Education

Women’s Suffrage and Public Morals

Water: Cities in a State of Thirst

San Francisco, Transpacific Racial Tensions, and Angel Island

African Americans, Hispanics and Filipinos, Sikhs, and Indians

Maritime Trade and the Panama Pacific Exposition

The Twilight of Progressivism

SUMMARY

10 Good Times and Bad in a Pacific Rim Super State

Mass Entertainment: Hollywood Movies, Pacific Fun Zones, and the Olympics

Extending California’s Water Infrastructure

Agribusiness and Banking

The 1920s Oil Boom

Maritime Enterprises

Transportation: Automobiles and Airplanes

Conservatism Restored

Religious Awakenings and Developments

Freedom-Minded and Other Women

The Great Depression: Strikes and Panaceas

Cultural Expression of a High Order

SUMMARY

11 America’s Pacific Bulwark: World War II and Its Aftermath

Military Installations: Forts, Naval Bases, and Airfields

The Wages of War: Shipyards, Aircraft Plants, and Universities

Opportunities and Prejudice: Women and Minorities

Japanese Imprisonment

The Postwar Military-Industrial Complex and International Relations

Population Growth, Housing, and Discrimination

Green Gold: Agribusiness and Labor

Governor Earl Warren: Progressive Republican

Richard Nixon and the Anti-Communist Crusade

SUMMARY

12 Liberalism at High Tide

Prosperity, Suburbanization, and Consumerism

Entertainment Media, Sports, and Amusement Parks

The San Francisco Renaissance and the Arts

Politics: Goodwin Knight, Pat Brown, and Reforming Government Operations

Enhancing the Super State: Water, Transit, and Universities

Students in Dissent, Campuses in Revolt

Minorities and Women

Coastal Counterculture in the 1960s

SUMMARY

13 “Gold Coast” Conservatism and the Politics of Limits

From Ultra-Right-Wingers to Mainstream Suburban Warriors

Ronald Reagan: The “Cowboy” Governor

Governor Jerry Brown: The Zen of Politics and Frugality

Crime and Racial Tensions

Business and Labor

Protecting the Environment and Supplying Energy

Governor George Deukmejian’s Right Turn

Voter Resentment, Term Limits, and Wedge Politics

Governor Pete Wilson and a Roller-Coaster Economy

Architecture and Fine Arts, Sports, and Entertainment

SUMMARY

14 The Ongoing Pacific Shift

Immigration, Diversity, and the Politics of Multiculturalism

Governor Gray Davis: An Able Moderate under Fire

The “Governator:” Arnold Schwarzenegger

Infrastructure Matters: Schools, Transportation, Health Care, and Prisons

The High-Stakes Gubernatorial Election of 2010

An Economic and Political Colossus

Major Environmental and Energy Challenges

The Pacific, the U.S Military, and California

Still the Pacific Eldorado

SUMMARY

Appendix: Governors of California, 1768–2012

The Spanish Period in Alta California (1767–1821)

The Mexican Period in Alta California (1821–1846)

American Military Governors (1846–1849)

The American Period (1849–2012) and Party Affiliation

Index

This edition first published 2013

© 2013 Thomas J. Osborne

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered Office

John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA

9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Thomas J. Osborne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Osborne, Thomas J., 1942–

 Pacific Eldorado : a history of greater California / Thomas J. Osborne.

pages cm

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-4051-9454-9 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4051-9453-2 (paperback) 1. California–History. 2. California–History, Naval. 3. California–Commerce–Pacific Area. 4. Pacific Area–Commerce–California. 5. California–Relations–Pacific Area. 6. Pacific Area–Relations–California. I. Title.

 F861.O63 2013

 979.4–dc23

2012031787

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: The Big Sur coastline and Point Sur Lighthouse, California, USA. Photo © Don Smith / Getty Images.

Cover design by Simon Levy

For Ginger, Brooks, Todd, and my students at Santa Ana College – all Californians whose lives have been shaped and enriched by living in this veritable Pacific Eldorado

Illustrations

1.1 Map of California topography

1.2 Map of the Kelp Highway

1.3 Map of Indian living areas

1.4 Replica of a Chumash plank canoe ashore on San Miguel Island, off Santa Barbara’s coast

2.1 Artistic depiction of Cabrillo’s vessel San Salvador under full sail

2.2 Map showing the sailing routes of Manila galleons

2.3 Map of the 21 Upper California missions

2.4 Painting of the San Juan Capistrano Mission at time of Bouchard’s pirate raid

3.1 Neophyte Indians gambling at Mission San Francisco de Asís

3.2 Replica of the brig Pilgrim at sea, off the coast of California

3.3 Portrait (1849) of Rachel Hobson Holmes Larkin, wife of American Consul Thomas O. Larkin

3.4 Photographic image of a map of Upper California’s coast prepared by a scientist participating in the U.S. Exploring (or Wilkes) Expedition, 1838–42

4.1 Painting of the Harbor and City of Monterey, California 1842

4.2 The Bear Flag of 1846

4.3 Broadside advertising voyages to and wages in California

4.4 Hydraulic mining at Malakoff Diggins

5.1 The great seal of the state of California

5.2 Painting of the U.S.S. Cyane

5.3 Illustration of Chinese arriving at the San Francisco Customs House

5.4 Bridget “Biddy” Mason

6.1 Map showing the route of the Central Pacific Railroad and the later extension of its rail lines by its successor, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company

6.2 Dignitaries and laborers at the Golden Spike ceremony

6.3 The Occidental and Oriental steamer, Doric

6.4 A Wasp magazine cartoon showing arrival of Chinese in San Francisco

7.1 A Pomona-like goddess holding California oranges looks toward a ship in port

7.2 Grain ships near Martinez, c.1880

7.3 African American whaling captain William T. Shorey and family

7.4 Jack and Charmian London aboard Snark

8.1 Rocks quarried on Santa Catalina Island and used to construct the Los Angeles–San Pedro breakwater

8.2 The renowned Palace Hotel in San Francisco, reduced to rubble by the 1906 earthquake

8.3 Abraham Ruef on steps of the Court House during graft trials

8.4 The ruins of the Los Angeles Times building, 1910

9.1 Hiram Johnson relaxing at home just before the 1910 election

9.2 Cartoon, “The Suffragette,” San Francisco Call, August 29, 1908

9.3 The opening of the Owens Valley–Los Angeles Aqueduct, November 5, 1913

9.4 Japanese “picture brides”

10.1 The Central Valley Project

10.2 Bar graph comparing tonnage at America’s principal ports

10.3 Migrant Mother, photographed by Dorothea Lange

10.4 Statue of the Court of Pacifica at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island, 1939

11.1 The launch of the S.S. Robert E. Peary Liberty ship, November 12, 1942

11.2 J. Robert Oppenheimer

11.3 A Manzanar evacuee resting on his cot after moving his belongings to a bare barracks room

11.4 Graph showing the increase in California’s population, 1850–1990

11.5 Dorothea Lange, First Braceros, c.1942

12.1 Cranes at Los Angeles Harbor

12.2 Berkeley students marching through Sather Gate en route to the UC Board of Regents’ meeting, November 20, 1964

12.3 Farm labor organizer Dolores Huerta speaking to workers at end of the 300-mile march from Delano to Sacramento

12.4 The “Summer of Love:” hippies in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, 1967

13.1 Governor Ronald Reagan riding at his ranch

13.2 Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown, at his 1961 UC Berkeley graduation, being congratulated by his father, Governor Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown

13.3 California’s crime rate, 1952–99

13.4 Graph showing California’s major export markets

13.5 Graph showing the percentage of the California population that is foreign-born, 1870–2009

13.6 Graph showing U.S. and California unemployment rates, 1976–2009

13.7 Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles

14.1 Chart of the origins of California immigrants in 2000

14.2 California population by race and by Hispanic or Latino/a origins

14.3 UC Berkeley and the Bay as seen from the hill above the campus

14.4 The world’s top 10 economies

14.5 Chart of leading California export markets, 2008–11

14.6 Hilda Solis, U.S. secretary of labor

Foreword

Janet Fireman

(Editor, California History)

California was America’s dearest object of desire in the mid-nineteenth century, when Manifest Destiny fueled the nation’s expansionism. In the 1840s the United States engaged in a desperate quest to acquire California from Mexico, without knowing how very fabulous, how rich, how beautiful, and how loaded with potential the object of its desire actually was. That unknown capacity exceeded all expectations as time passed; that greatest gift of the nineteenth century, as some have said, is a gift that keeps on giving. California is full of surprises, and is famous for imagination and reinvention. One of those surprises is a new system of construing California’s history, as the following pages illuminate. Pacific Eldorado:A History of Greater California tracks the customary chronology, probing the depths and heights of economic, political, and cultural events; but it also introduces a crystal clear yet completely new lens through which to view the region’s past.

Ironically, the inspiration for Pacific Eldorado is as old as the sea. In fact, it is this grand body of water, the Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest on earth, which once extended over surface that is now California land. The chapters herein describe how the state’s location came to be where and what it is: Even California, and 47 percent of Californians, started somewhere else and traveled to their current spot on the earth’s surface. That creation story of geological migration and accretion established a place over time and became a space like no other, favored by nature and supplied with plentiful resources that people hunted, extracted, nurtured, harvested, pumped, processed, sold, bought, and consumed. The fruit of these natural advantages – most famously gold – defined the state with a come-hither allure, offering prospects grasped, snatched, or secured by Californians from pre-statehood times onward. Capitalizing on the sea, its natural border, and crossing the Pacific and making it a part of their reality, Native Californians, Spaniards, Californios, and Mexicans, as well as peoples from across the Pacific in several directions, had already set the Pacific Eldorado project in motion by the time the United States took over in 1848.

A liaison of location and history furnishes the framework. From its geological assembly millions of years ago to its initial peopling by the first immigrants perhaps 20,000 years ago, through explorations and colonization by Spain, Mexico, and the United States in the past nearly 500 years to the present, California’s promise has been broader, deeper, and grander than its borders. Beginning with nature, topography, and natural resources and ending with facts and figures expressing California’s economic, political, financial, and cultural power and impact in the Pacific world and beyond, Pacific Eldorado draws a through-line from that distant beginning to our time. All this comes with risks and contests: these pages summarize our present concerns and forecast the future demographic and environmental challenges to the state for retaining its remarkable status. We and those coming up – the population is estimated to reach 50 million by 2025 – must be mindful of our drinking water, air quality, climate change, the marine ecosystem, and clean energy.

What does Pacific Eldorado deliver to the reader that is unavailable elsewhere? The answer lies in California itself: recognized world-round as special, appealing for its scenic variety, entertainment and recreational attractions, climate and resources, and bountiful possibilities. All this we take for granted. That California faces the Pacific Ocean is appreciated, but even though the long coastline is lionized, the essential truths of relationships between California’s location and what Californians have made of that have been ignored. Thomas Osborne brings a new contribution to current discourse about California and its past to reveal a grand tapestry of connections and a multi-hemispheric pattern of interaction with the Pacific world. From the original position California occupied in the American ideal – a foothold on the distant shore – he proffers a parade of Pacific ventures available to the nation because of California’s location, its profusion of natural resources, and the cornucopia of human capital, innovation, and imagination that the diversity of Californians have put into operation.

Reading Pacific Eldorado stimulates an understanding of the logical pairing of globalization with California. Our minds also focus on the inescapable: the wide Pacific and our entire world are narrowing through digital communication. Even so, the opportunities in our information age are simultaneously expanding the world. Analysis of the Pacific Eldorado concept is yet to be undertaken in the historical literature, but this new reckoning surely will spark broadened consideration of California’s links to the Pacific world. Those powerful trans-oceanic links, as this cutting-edge text shows, may best explain why the Golden State was so coveted in the mid-nineteenth century and remains even more so today.

Preface

“The flashing and golden pageant of California,

The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands, … 

Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,

To India and China and Australia and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific …”

Walt Whitman, “Song of the Redwood-Tree” (1874)

Whitman’s enchanting “Song of the Redwood-Tree” has had a strong basis in the historical record. While this poem omits the gritty details of how “crimps” (owners of boardinghouses for sailors) strong-armed prospective crewmen into sea duty in San Francisco waterfront saloons, it still captures the alluring relationship California has had with the Pacific world for the past 500 years and more. Providing a comprehensive account of that past, Pacific Eldorado simultaneously illuminates the historical stepping stones to the state’s twenty-first century prominence in the Pacific Basin and globally. In doing so, it aspires to be among those on the cutting edge of internationalizing state and local history and giving the state’s long-time Pacific connections their due.

In other words, Pacific Eldorado narrates the story of a “greater California,” a place whose history in numerous instances extends well beyond the geographical boundaries of the state. These “beyond the borders” connections challenge the prevalent notion of an isolated early California and suggest the need for a history that weaves the local, the national, and the international into a coherent narrative. For example, if Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes’s epic maritime expedition (1838–42), which brought him to the San Francisco Bay area, is even mentioned in current California history textbooks, they offer virtually no coverage of how that exploration connected California to America’s “manifest destiny” of conquering North America and expanding transpacific commerce. In short, the relationship between California and the Pacific world that Walt Whitman expressed in verse, and which the historical record supports, seems to have gone little noticed in current chronicles of the state.

This textbook aims to help students better understand the state’s fascinating and complex history by placing it squarely within the context of Pacific geological processes resulting in land formation, prehistoric Pacific voyaging leading to early settlement, international transpacific commerce, Pacific immigration, Pacific imaginings that have infused the “California Dream” of a better life for all, and America’s expansion beyond its western shoreline and into the world’s largest ocean basin. This means a spatial re-framing of California’s past. Anticipating this fresh approach to California history, Kevin Starr wrote in Clio on the Coast (2010): “Even further down the road, into the twenty-first century, lay the challenge of integrating the Pacific Coast and the nation behind it into a comparative history of the Asia/Pacific Basin of which it was a part. China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand, after all, and the other Asia/Pacific places as well, had long since been important components of the California story.” Started two years before and independently of this call for a Pacific-centered California history, this is the first textbook to take up Starr’s challenge to historians of the Golden State.

The major theme of this volume could be described as follows: From its beginning, California’s history has been shaped increasingly by its Pacific Basin connections – connections that have derived largely from the state’s resources, which is why “Eldorado” appears in the title. Throughout California’s past, such resources have included sea otter pelts, lumber, whale oil, hides and animal fat (tallow) used for candle-making, gold, borax cleanser, petroleum, farm products, films and media works, Silicon Valley computer technologies, and more.

The book’s five related supporting themes include:

Greater California: The Golden State’s history has been so international, national, and regional from its outset that it must be understood within a broader or “greater” context than its geographical boundaries would suggest.A Connected California: The widely accepted notion of an isolated California before 1850 is misleading and overlooks facts to the contrary.A Pacific Population: Historically, the peopling of California reflects its close ties to the Pacific Basin.A Pacific-infused “California Dream”: The “California Dream” of seeking limitless wealth and opportunities, that is, the American Dream writ large, contains elements of the area’s Pacific connections and imaginings.America and the Pacific World: California’s development markedly illustrates the importance of the Pacific Basin in U.S. history.

Organizationally, the textbook’s 14 chapters move chronologically from the geologic formation and earliest peopling of California into the second governorship of Jerry Brown in the years 2011–12. All chapters open with an overview of the topic at hand, followed by a Timeline. Each chapter includes a brief Pacific Profile essay, featuring a person whose life and/or contributions exemplify the role of the Pacific in shaping California history. In some instances such persons have been well known (railroad magnate and former governor, Leland Stanford) and in other instances they have not (restaurateur Norman Asing). Some called California home (former governor, Hiram Johnson); others just visited (mariner and explorer Alejandro Malaspina). The intent has been to humanize the state’s past, helping readers see California’s Pacific maritime and other connections through the lives of real people. Each chapter ends with a brief Summary, Review Questions, and a Further Readings section that offers an annotated list of written sources for those who wish to explore the “flashing and golden pageant” of Pacific California in more depth and detail.

T.J.O.Laguna Beach and San Francisco

Acknowledgments

As solitary as researching and writing are, looking back I had a lot of help from many wonderful, thoughtful people in doing this project. A short list of those who were instrumental in providing this help would include:

Ginger T. Osborne, my wife, for patiently listening to me read countless passages from the manuscript to get her recommendations regarding clarity, logic, and brevity, and for supporting this project in numerous other ways.

Janet Fireman, editor of the California History journal for more than a decade and adjunct professor of history at USC/Scholar in Residence at Loyola Marymount University, for offering indispensable guidance in making my case for the dominant role played by California’s Pacific connections in shaping the state’s history.

Peter Coveney, executive editor at Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, for his wise counsel on helping me shape the length of the manuscript and number of chapters, and especially for recognizing the promise of this project when I was still conceptualizing it.

Deirdre Ilkson, development editor (par excellence) at Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, for her attention to the manuscript’s organization of content, its clarity of expression, and the numerous sensible suggestions she made regarding chapter revisions.

Isobel Bainton, project editor at Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, for patiently and expertly guiding me through the lengthy process of obtaining permissions for the use of visuals.

Janet Moth, project manager at Wiley-Blackwell, whose obsession with stylistic detail exceeds even my own, and who has ferreted out a number of my errors.

David Igler, associate professor of history at UC Irvine, for incisive comments and constructive suggestions on many chapters of this textbook.

Ted Miles, reference librarian, J. Porter Shaw Library, San Francisco Maritime Historical National Historic Park, for running numerous photocopies of journal articles and his valuable consultation regarding the library’s rich collections.

Tom MonPere, dear friend and aficionado of California history, for accompanying me on a history tour of Benicia and Martinez, as well as escorting me on a road trip through the Delta’s levees and old Chinatowns, reading many chapters and making helpful suggestions, and whetting my appetite for Wallace Stegner’s writings.

Nell Yang, Santa Ana College librarian, for furnishing me with copies of scholarly articles needed for my research on Chinese Americans and transpacific trade in California’s past, as well as cheering me on at every stage of this project.

Thomas Lucas, professor of art and architecture at the University of San Francisco, for a private tour of his brilliant “Galleons and Globalization” exhibit and tutoring me on the artworks carried from China to California’s missions.

Christina Gold, professor of history at El Camino College, for helping me see some of the teaching benefits of my Pacific-centric/international approach that I did not fully appreciate at the outset of this project.

William Courter, professor of geography at Santa Ana College, for the clearest explanation I’ve received from anyone on plate tectonics’ role in forming California and its landscape.

Patricia Martz, professor of anthropology emerita, California State University at Los Angeles, for fact-checking my coverage on California Indians during the pre-contact period.

Phillip Sanfield, director of media relations for the Port of Los Angeles, who graciously provided me with photocopies of annual reports on exports and imports during the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Todd T. Osborne, for helping me with downloading computer graphics and answering my numerous computer-related questions during many late-night telephone calls.

Brooks T. Osborne, for his reading of Chapter 14 with an attorney’s eye for argument and organization of material.

Glenna Matthews, independent historian, for reading the entire manuscript and informing me about various aspects of Silicon Valley history pertinent to this study.

Sarah E. Monpere, for help with photographs.

Kristine Ferry, Acting Head of Access Services, UC Irvine Library, for seeing to it that a non-UC Irvine scholar could have full use the Langson Library.

1

Beginnings: From Fire and Ice to Indian Homeland

Fire and ice forged the physical setting of California’s storied past. No matter how extensively humans have altered that setting with mining activities, transportation systems, aqueducts, and various other built structures, nature always has been integral to the state’s history. Before there was a human record there was pre-history, or a time of beginnings, by far the longest period in California’s timeline. During this genesis California literally rose from the Pacific, at times spewing flames and volcanic ash. Violent thrusts from below the Earth’s surface formed mountains and valleys that later would be carved by huge rivers of ice. Before these glaciers began melting, some 15,000 years ago, America’s first human inhabitants began making their way by foot and watercraft from Asia to North America. On reaching the New World, these mammoth-hunting migrants trekked southward and eastward, some settling in what would become California. Their seagoing Asian counterparts navigated North America’s coastline southward to the Channel Islands and mainland. These trekking and sailing Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, peoples were the first human occupants of this remarkable land. Some scholars speculate that Polynesian and Chinese Pacific voyagers visited Indian California centuries before Europeans arrived in the province.

Timeline

30 million years agoCalifornia’s land mass was formed by Pacific geological processes, especially through plate tectonic subductions and lateral movements13,000 years agoFollowing the “Kelp Highway,” Asian Pacific voyagers arrive in the Channel Islands, perhaps becoming the first Californians, according to archeologist Jon M. Erlandson and others10,000 to 15,000 years ago     As climate warming set in and Beringia melted into the Bering Strait, the descendants of Paleo-Indian migratory hunters continue on their way eastward and southward throughout the New World in pursuit of game11,000 years agoThe skeletal remains of the so-called Arlington Woman are found at a site on Santa Rosa Island along California’s coast4,600 years agoA bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), located in California’s White Mountains and dating back more than four millennia, is thought to be the oldest living thing on Earth2,000 years agoSome of today’s California redwood trees, the world’s largest living things, date to the time of Jesus of Nazareth and the Roman Empire1000 CEChumash Indians build a seafaring culture in and around today’s Santa Barbara and on a few of the Channel Islands400–800Early Polynesians may have reached California in watercraft, according to a small group of anthropologists and linguists1500sSpecialists estimate that 15,000 Chumash lived in California at the time of European contactLate 1700sBetween 300,000 and 1,000,000 indigenous people inhabited California most of them living in villages of 100 to 500 dwellers

Landforms

Not only was California born of the Pacific, also it is situated on the Ring of Fire, an intercontinental perimeter of volcanoes and earthquake faults that line the Pacific Rim in a sweeping arc from Japan to Chile. Like many other areas along the Ring of Fire, the state’s varied landmass was assembled over time from geologic fragments of rocks and sediments, called “terranes,” lying on the crust or floor of the Pacific long after the Earth was formed some 4.6 billion years ago. Before these fragments began uplifting from the ocean, North America’s western shoreline extended to about where the Rocky Mountains are situated today. West of that ancient coastline loomed the vast, heaving Pacific.