Gold! Read Free

Worse, this was not land under the control of the U.S. government, which could then dispatch troops to protect it. This land was under the control of the Mexican government, which was as corrupt as they come.
    What Sutter saw was a place desperately in need of a refuge, a fort, to protect against marauding Indians or vaqueros. It would be a place that people could seek out for refuge, protection, sustenance, fortitude—and, of course, services that John Sutter would gladly supply at a fair price. He conceived of this place as a self-sufficient entity that he would christen New Helvetia (New Switzerland), in honor of his mother country.
    It was John Sutter, underlieutenant of the Swiss militia, who landed that day in Yerba Buena. But it was Captain John Sutter of the Swiss Guard who sailed out of Yerba Buena Harbor in mid-August as a visionary, an entrepreneur, and an explorer all rolled into one. What he intended when they got to where they were going was to literally carve a trading empire out of the wilderness.That meant, of course, getting a lot of people who were already there quite angry at him.
    Indians, Mormons, Californios—the native vaqueros—all of them had more right to the land than Sutter could ever have. But Sutter also knew from his experience as a debtor that it helped to have the law, whatever it was, on your side in any dispute. Plus, Sutter was cognizant enough to know that on a day-to-day basis, there was no rule of law except who had the bigger army.
    Accompanying Sutter were his Hawaiian laborers and Indians he had decided to employ as well. They sailed on the schooner Isabella , with two other ships carrying their supplies, up the Sacramento River, to its confluence with the America River, and docked. Setting foot on the dock, Sutter saw that the place was no better in terms of permanent structures than Yerba Buena was. Sutter and his companions called the place Sacramento.
    Sutter had no intention of settling in such a dump. He preferred going inland; he needed higher ground, which would be easier to defend. Sutter had his laborers build some makeshift grass structures for shelter. They would take the winter to get ready to implement his vision. To make that vision a reality, in the summer of 1840, John Sutter became a Mexican citizen, thus protecting his future property rights.
    Next, followed by his Hawaiians and a growing workforce of Indians—he employed hundreds of Indians as field hands, weavers, cooks, and drivers, and paid them in clothing, food, and shelter—Sutter moved inland, about five miles from the Sacramento docks. Sutterdecided to situate his fort on a high, dry patch of ground that offered a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, lush with maple, oak, birch, and aspen fir.
    Sutter’s design called for walls 2½ feet thick and 15 to 18 feet high. The interior was 320 feet long. Sutter began building an adobe fort in the fall of 1840. When completed in 1841. Sutter’s Fort was larger than the U.S. Army’s Fort Laramie.
    Inside the compound, the central building of Sutter’s headquarters was in the middle, directly in front of the gates. The building was three stories high and made of strong oak timbers; its top floor gave Sutter a platform from which to view his own private, burgeoning empire. Sutter had constructed quarters for some of the workers, a bakery, blanket factory, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, and other shops dotted around the fort, fitting snuggly within the walls. On the nearby American River he located a tannery.
    Sutter’s concept was for his domain to be self-sufficient. He had his workforce plant acres of barley, peas, and beans. He hired vaqueros to run cattle. And then he did something that was absolutely brilliant: he advertised in the eastern papers that his fort was the place the stop, the haven, for pioneers going West.
    To further protect his investment, Sutter put his Swiss militia training to good use,