Existing comment:
Life in Peril:
In 1808 Lieutenant Gabriel Goraga led the first recorded Spanish expedition to the Sacramento Valley> Other explorers, hunters, and settlers followed. With the arrival of each foreigner, the world of the Indian unraveled a little more. In 1833 John Work came with more than a Hudsons' Bay Company trapping party; he unknowingly carried with him the deadly disease malaria. Exposed to this illness for the first time, Indians died in such numbers that in many villages no one survived.
Setting the Stage:
John Sutter arrived in California in 1839. An ambitious man, Sutter found this sparsely populated Mexican colony a place of boundless opportunity. he secured an enormous land grant in the Sacramento Valley. There he established Sutter's Fort as the base of his empire-building dreams. To carry out his plans, Sutter needed lumber, always in short supply. In 1847, Sutter formed a partnership with James Marshall to build a sawmill on the American River. On the day that Marshall reached down to pick up a glimmering flake in the tailrace of the mill, their fortunes took an unprecedented turn. |