At dawn on June 14, 1846, a motley group of about 30 Americans armed with rifles entered Sonoma, a small town in the Mexican territory of Alta California. Prepared to take the city by force, they instead sat down for brandy with Colonel Mariano Vallejo of the Mexican Army and accepted his surrender. For the next 25 days, California was an independent nation: the Republic of California.
Known as the Bear Flag Revolt, a short-lived reference to the republic flag, this event fell between an American invasion and a miniature War of Independence. Although the fighting was limited and the country he established lasted less than a month, the Bear Flag Revolt led directly to the American acquisition of what is now its most populous state. .
Rebellion begins brewing in Texas
By the mid-19th century, Mexico still controlled large swathes of what is now the Southwestern United States. In 1835, a revolt broke out in the Mexican province of Texas. Although the United States was officially neutral, Americans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston led a rebellion against Mexican rule, and hundreds of Americans, including members of the United States military, joined the fight. The result was the Republic of Texas, an independent nation ruled by American settlers, which was then absorbed into the United States in 1846, triggering the American-Mexican War.
According to Dr Linda Heidenreich, whose book This land was Mexican Once examines the Latinx experience of the Bear Flag Revolt and similar insurgencies, the annexation of Texas made the Californios – Mexican residents of the province of Alta California – understand that their government was too poor, too unstable and too weak to prevent American settlers from invading California. Some have argued for independence. Others have considered inviting the United States to take over.
“If you read the reports of these meetings [of Californios], these people saw it coming, ”Heidenriech says. “They were dispersing for a plan, and it just wasn’t there.
The United States looks to California
American explorer, military officer and politician John Charles Fremont.
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Enter Charles Frémont, captain of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. Newly elected President James K. Polk, whose annexation of Texas was about to trigger the Mexican-American War, sent Frémont on an expedition to survey the Grand Bassin and Grand Lac Salé region. Polk secretly ordered Frémont to invade California if war with Mexico breaks out – in fact, many historians believe he actually ordered Frémont to start the war himself. Polk made no secret of his desire to annex California and, as Heidenreich points out, the so-called surveying expedition “went to California with a howitzer.”
Frémont’s expedition entered Mexican territory in December 1845 and quietly informed some of the 800 or so American colonists of their desire to help a rebellion. They nearly came to grips with Mexican authorities after planting an American flag atop Gavilán Peak (now Frémont Peak, near Salinas, Calif.), But withdrew to Oregon Territory. They also clashed with local indigenous peoples and committed at least two massacres, including the murder of several hundred Wintus in early April. Now known as the Sacramento River Massacre, the scene was described by one member of the expedition as “a scene of massacre unmatched in the West.”
Realizing that skirmishes had broken out along the Rio Grande in April and that Mexican forces were preparing to defend California, Frémont decided to return to Mexican territory in mid-May. On May 13, Mexico furious at the American annexation of Texas, the United States declared war on its southern neighbor. It is still unclear when Frémont learned that the war had officially broken out, but his instincts turned out to be correct and allowed him to take some of the early actions of the American-Mexican War.
READ MORE: Little-known California Genocide
The bear strike
Fremont hoisted the grizzly bear flag of the Republic of California as Californian settlers declared themselves independent from Mexico during the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma, California on June 10, 1846.
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Frémont returned to California at the end of May and met a group of American settlers in the Sonoma Valley on June 8. Having refused a Mexican order to leave, the settlers were ready to launch the “spontaneous” revolt that Frémont hoped to incite. On June 10, settlers and members of the Frémont expedition attacked a Mexican lieutenant and fled with his herd of horses. The fight had begun.
Three days later, a party moved to Sonoma. On their way up into town at dawn, they arrived at the Casa Grande, where Colonel Vallejo invited them to discuss his surrender. Californios had mixed opinions on American annexation – many were fiercely resistant – but some felt that American domination was better than the threat of a Russian invasion. In addition, a growing number of Californios, including Vallejo, had come to realize that Mexico was simply not prepared to fight Alta California.
After accepting the official surrender of Vallejo, the Americans elected William B. Ide as their leader, declared the founding of a new republic, and hoisted a hastily assembled flag with a California grizzly bear above the Sonoma barracks. . Although technically referred to as the Republic of California, the new nation came to be known as the Bear Flag Republic, and its founders were colloquially known as Bear Flaggers, Bears, or Osos (“bear” in Spanish).
READ MORE: 9 Things You May Not Know About California
25 days of independence
Taken of Independence Hill at the Battle of Monterey, Monterey, California, July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War.
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During the remainder of June, the Bears and Frémont’s men engaged in skirmishes with Mexican forces, seized key points around what is now San Francisco, and rallied more white settlers to their side. cause.
In early July, Commodore John Sloat, commander of the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet, arrived in Monterey Bay. Like Frémont, he was ordered to attack as soon as war was declared, but acted on instinct instead of waiting for an official declaration. The Navy seized Monterey on July 7, declaring California part of the United States. Two days later, the Bear Flag Revolt officially ended when California was absorbed by the union. The Californios officially ceded Alta California in 1847 with the Treaty of Cahuenga. California officially became the 31st state on September 9, 1850.
The American takeover of California replaced Mexico’s complex racial hierarchies with a new hierarchy dominated by white Americans. “At a time [California and Texas], you have a new racial system, ”Heidenreich says. “People who thought of themselves as Spaniards or Whites are now, for many of them, considered Brown – or ‘greasers,’ a term increasingly used in California newspapers.
Suddenly Californios became second-class citizens in their own country, as the new government tacitly encouraged its white citizens to purge the area of indigenous peoples.
In 1848, just before the formal annexation of California, gold was discovered at Coloma, near Sacramento. The ensuing gold rush transformed California from a sparsely populated area of Hispanics and Native Americans to a bustling economic center controlled by white Americans – and with many more along the way.
A modified version of the original bear flag became the state flag of California in 1911, about a decade before the California grizzly bear became extinct. Although it only lasted 25 days in total, the name and symbols of the Republic of California adorn perhaps the most distinctive state flag in the United States.
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