John Sutter
| Johann Augustus Sutter | |
 | |
| Born | February 28 1803 Kandern, Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
|---|---|
| Died | June 18 1880 |
Johann August Suter (February 28 1803 – June 18 1880) was a Swiss pioneer of California known for his association with the California Gold Rush. After the discovery of gold by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, he established Sutter's Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento. Although famous throughout California as a founder of the state - although he did not initially support Union - and for his association with the Gold Rush, Sutter ironically died almost penniless, having seen his business ventures fail while those of his elder son, Augustus Sutter, prospered. Sutter wanted to establish a Utopian community in California, but this may have been self-centered. He became embittered with his more successful son over the naming of Sacramento. Sutter had deeded the land in and around the gold fields to his son to escape bankruptcy but wanted the area to be named Sutterville. The founding of California meant that the U.S.A. stretched right across the continent, in fulfillment of its "manifest destiny" to spread freedom, and the "federative development of self government." [1] Joining the Union on September 9, 1850 California was the 31st state but the first on the Pacific coast. California developed a distinctive ethos that especially affirms personal freedom and is always ready to embrace new ideas. The 31st state has provided a haven for many people fleeing prejudice and bias elsewhere. To some degree, Sutter's Utopian ideas have remained alive in a state where people aspire to become the people their deepest desires want them to be.
Biography
Early years
Johann Augustus Sutter was born on February 23 1803 in Kandern, Baden, Germany. His father was from the nearby town of Rünenberg in Switzerland one of Europe's few democracies at that time. As a boy Suter went to school in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and later joined the Swiss army, and rose the rank of captain in the artillery. Debts incurred in business dealings, however, compelled Suter to leave Europe for the United States. In May 1834, he left his wife and four children, the oldest was seven years old in Burgdorf, Switzerland in the care of his brother, he promised to send for them as soon as he was able and with a French passport sailed on the ship Sully which traveled from Le Havre, France, to New York City where it arrived on July 14, 1834.
The New World
In the United States, Suter changed his name to John Augustus Sutter because he wanted to be as American as possible. He then undertook extensive travels at once and headed for St.Louis, Missouri. Before coming to the United States, he learned to speak Spanish and English. Together with 35 other immigrants from Germany he went from St. Louis where he became a trader on the Santa Fe Trail. In Santa Fe, New Mexico Sutter heard about the lush opportunities in the Mexican territory of Northern California. The reports of mild climate, rich soil, and all the land an ambitious man could want. After three years of trading on the Santa Fe Trail, Sutter decided to move to California and pursue a dream of being a rancher.
April 1, 1838 with a group of missionaries, led by the fur trapper Andrew Dripps, Sutter set out across the Oregon trail to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River near present day Portland, Oregon. The group of eight men reached their destination in October. However there was no ship to take Sutter to California, but there was a ship leaving for the Sandwich Islands present day Hawaii, so with a few companions, he sailed on the Hudson Bay Company bark HMS Columbia from Fort Vancouver in November, 1838. They arrived at Honolulu on December 9, 1838. Sutter, still far from his goal, was determined to settle in California. In Honolulu Bay the only vessel available for charter was the brig HMS Clementine. Sutter managed to sign on an unpaid supercargo of provisions and general merchandise including three small brass cannon to be used the great ranch that he planned in California. When he sailed for the Russian colony of New Archangel, now known as Sitka, Alaska on April 20, 1839, Sutter carried with him ten Kanakas (natives of the Sandwich Islands); two of them women, a few companions, and a Hawaiian bulldog. When his trading at Sitka was successfully completed, Sutter, aboard the Clementine headed south. He arrived at last in California and sailed through the Golden Gate and landed at Yerba Buena, now San Francisco. When the Clementine arrived in Yerba Buena on July 1, 1839 it was a tiny and poor mission station. At the time of Sutter's arrival in California, the territory had a population of only 1,000 Europeans, in contrast with more than 30,000 Native Americans.
New Helvetia
When he first arrived at Yerba Buena (soon to be renamed San Francisco), Sutter was refused entry by the military commander who insisted that Sutter sail to Monterrey and obtain an official entry permit from the governor. Several days later Sutter landed at Monterrey and met with the governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. The two soon became friendly and when Sutter expressed his desire to settle east of San Francisco Bay, Alvarado gave permission for Sutter to select a tract of land. Alvarado considered the land in that area to be worthless because it was inhabited solely by Native Americans. Beside that Russia, Great Britian, and the United States were all showing interest in the same general region. It was good for Alvarado to have a friendly settler there. [2]
When he returned to Yerba Buena with Alvarado's entry permit, Sutter outfitted his party with tools, equipment and farming implements. He hired two sloops and a four oared launch for shallower water. He then sailed inland across San Francisco Bay and the inlet Suisun Bay. He then sailed up the Sacramento River to the American River. In order to qualify for a land grant, Sutter became a Mexican citizen on August 29, 1840 – the following year, on June 18, 1841 he received title to a parcel totaling 48,827 acres, known as El Sobrante. Sutter named his settlement New Helvetia, or "New Switzerland," after the homeland of his father. Variously he employed Native Americans of the Miwok and Maidu tribes, the Kanakas who had sailed with him from Honolulu, and Europeans at his compound, which he called Sutter's Fort. He envisioned creating an agricultural utopia, and for a time the settlement was in fact quite large and prosperous. It was for a period the destination for most California-bound immigrants, including the ill-fated Donner Party. Some of them set out for Sutter's Fort and Sutter attempted their rescue.
Sutter took his time to select his settlement. He had been given permission by Governor Alvarado to choose any location he liked in the entire Sacramento Valley. He choose a tract of land a few miles up the American River where it branched into the Sacramento River. Over the next three years Sutter prospered and built his fort. It was structure of adobe brick eighteen feet high and more than three feet thick. On September 4, 1841 the Russian schooner Constantine arrived at Sutter's Fort. The Russians offered to sell their land holdings on the coast 80 miles north of San Francisco. By 1841 the settlement at Fort Ross's agricultural importance had decreased considerably, and the local population of fur-bearing marine mammals had been depleted, so the fur trade was no longer lucrative. Following the formal trade agreement between the Russian-American Company in Sitka and Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, the settlement at Fort Ross was not needed to supply the Alaskan colonies with food. The Russians offered to sell the land for $30,000. Sutter readily accepted and made the requested $2,000 down payment. Over the next few months, Sutter dismantled Fort Ross and shipped its contents and most of its buildings to Sutter's Fort. Soon after, his fort had a blacksmith and carpentry shop, a gristmill, a distillery, and a blanket weaving shop. His cattle herd increased to 13,000 head and he large acreages planted with wheat and other grains. By some reports, there were acres of apple, peach, olive, pear, and fig tree orchards and two acres of Castille roses grown from cuttings given by the Mexican mission priests. [3]
Sutter's Fort had become a little kingdom in its own right, able to protect itself. It also had become an important way station for American emigrants coming westward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A Francophile, Sutter threatened to raise the French flag over California and place New Helvetia under French protection during the unsettled times following Mexico's loss of the Mexican American War to the United States. But, in 1848 as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the war, California was ceded to the United States.[4] Sutter at first supported the establishment of an independent California Republic but when United States troops briefly seized control of his fort, Sutter did not resist because he was vastly outnumbered.
In 1848 gold was discovered near his sawmill in Coloma, along the American River. Sutter's attempt at keeping this quiet failed when an elder in the Mormon Church at Sutterville (present day Sacramento) and store owner Samuel Brannan returned from Sutter's Mill to San Francisco with gold he had acquired there and began publicizing the find. Masses of people overran the land and destroyed nearly everything Sutter had worked for. In order to keep from losing everything, however, Sutter deeded his remaining land to his son, Augustus Sutter. The younger Sutter, who had come from Switzerland and joined his father in September 1848, saw the commercial possibilities of the land and promptly started plans for building a new city he named Sacramento, after the Sacramento River. The elder Sutter deeply resented this because he had wanted the city to keep the name Sutterville.
Land grant challenge
In March, 1848 Brannan did all he could to rouse the populace of San Francisco toward the gold discovered at Sutters Mill on the American River. Within weeks San Francisco evacuated for the gold fields around Sutter's Mill.
Sutter's sent one of his men, Charles Bennett a carpenter at the sawmill to the new American military governor at Monterrey. Bennett was known to Sutter as a veteran of the United States military and familiar with military protocol. But the governor, Richard Mason refused to confirm Sutter's claim because word had not yet reached California that the treaty ending the war had been signed or that Mexico had formally ceded California to the United States.
El Sobrante land grant was challenged by the Squatter's Association, and in 1858 the U.S. Supreme Court denied its validity. Sutter sought reimbursement of his losses associated with the Gold Rush. He received a pension of $250 a month not for his losses but as a reimbursement of taxes paid on the Sobrante grant for the time Sutter considered it his own. He and wife Nanette moved to Lititz, Pennsylvania. The proximity to Washington, D.C. along with the reputed healing qualities of Lititz Springs appealed to the aging Sutter. He also wanted his three grandchildren to have the benefits of the private and Moravian Schools there. Sutter built his home across from the Lititz Springs Hotel. Later it became known as the General Sutter Inn.
For more than fifteen years, John Sutter, now as the undisputed founder of California, petitioned Congress for restitution but little was done. On June 16 1880, Congress adjourned, once again, without action on a bill which would have given Sutter $50,000. Two days later on June 18, 1880 John Augustus Sutter died in a Washington D.C. hotel. His body was returned to Lititz and is buried in the Moravian Cemetery. His wife Nanette Sutter died the following January and is buried with him.
Legacy
. Although the Utopia that he sought to establish while he was on earth eluded him for a variety of reasons, Sutter is remembered as an historical figure. Recognized as a founder of the the state of California and the owner of the sawmill where the largest gold rush in the lower 48 United States began, Sutter is best remembered by various landmarks; streets, schools and a hospital which memorialize his name. Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco, California is named after him. Also Sutter's Landing, Sutterville Rd., Sutter Middle School, and the Sutterville Elementary School in Sacramento, California were all named in his honor as was the hotel where he spent his waning years in Lititz, Pennsylvania. The Sutterville Bend of the Sacramento River is also named after him. Sutter Medical Foundation, a non-profit medical system in Northern California also takes its name in honor of Sutter.
Notes
- ↑ Brinkley, Alan. American History, A Survey . 9th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill 1995, ISBN 9780073331638 citing John L O'Sullivans 1845 speech, p 352
- ↑ Andrist, Ralph K; The California Gold Rush, American Heritage Publishing Company, Inc. New York. 1961. p 10-13 OCLC: 484955
- ↑ Adrist, p 14-15
- ↑ Ancestry Magazine Retrieved October 19, 2007.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Cendrars, Blaise. Gold Being the Marvellous History of General John Augustus Sutter. New York: M. Kesend Pub, 1984. ISBN 9780935576085
- Dillon, Richard H. Fool's gold the decline and fall of Captain John Sutter of California. Santa Cruz: Western Tanager, 1981. ISBN 9780934136150
- Hurtado, Albert L. John Sutter A Life on the North American Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. ISBN 9780806137728
External links
- His account of the discovery of gold Retrieved October 19, 2007.
- Collection of John Sutter Journal Entries Retrieved October 19, 2007.
- Street names in San Francisco Retrieved October 19, 2007.
- General Sutter Inn Lititz, PA Retrieved October 19, 2007.
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