THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. 



TITLE TO THE REGION MISSIONARY SETTLEMENT, ITS PURPOSES 



CHARACTER OF CALIFORNIA SECULARIZATION OF MISSIONS 



POPULATION IN MISSIONS AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 



CATTLE HIDES TALLOW HERDSMEN TRADE THE WAR 



CONDITION OF CALIFORNIA AT ITS CLOSE PROGRESS OF 



SETTLEMENT AND LAW CONSTITUTION ADOPTED ADMISSION 



AS A STATE FORMER BOUNDARIES THE GREAT BASIN 



UTAH GREAT SALT LAKE PYRAMID LAKE RIVERS PRE- 

 SENT STATE BOUNDARIES AREA GEOGRAPHY SACRAMEN- 

 TO SAN JOAQUIN SHASTL PEAK. 



The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo confirmed the title to Upper 

 California which the United States had gained by war. Although 

 the geographical position of that region, the security of its harbors, 

 and the supposed value of its soil, had attracted the attention of 

 our people at an early day, it was not imagined, at the period 

 of the cession, that the new territory would so soon become the 

 nucleus of the first Anglo-Saxon empire on the shores of the 

 Pacific. Its rapid development was owing rather to circumstances 

 of an extraordinary character, than to the commercial and pro- 

 gressive spirit of our citizens ; but the national energy which is 

 always alive to individual interests, was never more completely 

 illustrated than by the alacrity with which all classes rushed to the 

 new scenes of labor, and turned to gold the soils that Indians and 

 Mexicans had trodden for centuries as worthless sand. 



Lower California was discovered, visited, and partly settled by the 

 Spanish adventurers soon after the Mexican conquest, and although 

 the coasts of Upper California had been explored in 1542, it was 

 not until the eighteenth century that the u spiritual conquest" of 

 that distant region was undertaken by the Roman clergy, under 

 whose directions the missions were founded upon a "pious fund," 

 created by the zealous Catholics of Mexico. At that time it was 

 supposed that the civilizing influences of religion would not only win 

 thousands of savages to the worship of God, but that by blending 

 agriculture and trade under the tutelage of the church, the Indians 



