California Romantic and Resourceful | Page 4

governmental authority crouching behind the project of secularization.
The enforced withdrawal of the paternal hand before the Indian had
learned to stand and walk alone, coupled in some sections with the
dread scourge of pestilential epidemic, wrought dispersion, decimation
and destruction. If, however, the teeming acres are now otherwise tilled,
and if the herds of cattle have passed away and the communal life is
gone forever, the record of what was accomplished in those pastoral
days has linked the name of California with a new and imperishable
architecture, and has immortalized the name of Junípero Serra[1] The
pathetic ruin at Carmel is a shattered monument above a grave that will
become a world's shrine of pilgrimage in honor of one of humanity's
heroes. The patient soul that here laid down its burden will not be
forgotten. The memory of the brave heart that was here consumed with
love for mankind will live through the ages. And, in a sense, the work
of these missions is not dead - their very ruins still preach the lesson of
service and of sacrifice. As the fishermen off the coast of Brittany tell
the legend that at the evening hour, as their boats pass over the
vanished Atlantis, they can still hear the sounds of its activity at the
bottom of the sea, so every Californian, as he turns the pages of the
early history of his State, feels at times that he can hear the echo of the
Angelus bells of the missions, and amid the din of the money-madness

of these latter days, can find a response in "the better angels of his
nature."
In swift contrast to this idyllic scene, which is shared with us by few
other sections of this country, stands the history of a period where for
nearly two years this State was without authority of American civil law,
and where, in practice, the only authority was such as sprang from the
instinct of self-preservation. No more interesting phase of history in
America can be presented than that which arose in California
immediately after the discovery of gold, with reference to titles upon
the public domain. James W. Marshall made the discovery of gold in
the race of a small mill at Coloma, in the latter part of January, 1848.
Thereupon took place an incident of history which demonstrated that
Jason and his companions were not the only Argonauts who ever made
a voyage to unknown shores in search of a golden fleece. The first
news of the discovery almost depopulated the towns and ranches of
California, and even affected the discipline of the small army of
occupation. The first winter brought thousands of Oregonians,
Mexicans and Chilenos. The extraordinary reports that reached the East
were at first disbelieved, but when the private letters of army officers
and men in authority were published, an indescribable gold fever took
possession of the nation east of the Alleghanies. All the energetic and
daring, all the physically sound of all ages, seemed bent on reaching the
new El Dorado. "The old Gothic instinct of invasion seemed to survive
and thrill in the fiber of our people," and the camps and gulches and
mines of California witnessed a social and political phenomenon
unique in the history of the world - the spirit and romance of which
have been immortalized in the pages of Bret Harte.
Before 1850 the population of California had risen from 15,000, as it
was in 1847[2], to 100,000, and the average weekly increase for six
weeks thereafter was 50,000. The novelty of this situation produced in
many minds the most marvelous development. "Every glance westward
was met by a new ray of intelligence; every drawn breath of western air
brought inspiration; every step taken was over an unknown field; every
experiment, every thought, every aspiration and act were original and
individual."
At the time of Marshall's discovery, the United States was still at war
with Mexico, its sovereignty over the soil of California not being

recognized by the latter. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not
signed until February 2d, and the ratified copies thereof not exchanged
at Querétaro till May 30, 1848. On the 12th of February, 1848, ten days
after the signing of the treaty of peace and about three weeks after the
discovery of gold at Coloma, Colonel Mason did the pioneers a signal
service by issuing, as Governor, the proclamation concerning the mines,
which at the time was taken as a finality and certainty as to the status of
mining titles in their international aspect. "From and after this date," the
proclamation read, "the Mexican laws and customs now prevailing in
California relative to the denouncement of mines are hereby abolished."
Although, as the law was fourteen years afterwards expounded by the
United States Supreme Court,