The Flag of the Bear

Because the battles which marked its establishment were really only skirmishes, in which but an insignificant number of lives were lost, and because it boasted less than a thousand citizens all told, certain of our historians have been so undiscerning as to assert that the Bear Flag Republic was nothing but a travesty and a farce. Therein they are wrong. Though it is doubtless true that the handful of frontiersmen who raised their home-made flag, with its emblem of a grizzly bear, over the Californian presidio of Sonoma on that July morning in 1846 took themselves much more seriously than the circumstances warranted, it is equally true that their action averted the seizure of California by England, and by forcing the hand of the administration at Washington was primarily responsible for adding what is now California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and more than half of Wyoming and Colorado to the Union. The series of intrigues and affrays and insurrections which resulted in the Pacific coast becoming American instead of European form a picturesque, exciting, and virtually unwritten chapter in our national history, a chapter in which furtive secret agents and haughty caballeros, pioneers in fringed buckskin, and naval officers in gold-laced uniforms all played their greater or their lesser parts.

To fully understand the conditions which led up to the “Bear Flag War,” as it has been called, it is necessary to go back for a moment to the first quarter of the last century, when the territory of the United States ended at the Rocky Mountains and the red-white-and-green flag of Mexico floated over the whole of that vast, rich region which lay beyond. Under the Mexican régime the territory lying west of the Sierra Nevadas was divided into the provinces of Alta (or Upper) and Baja (or Lower) California, the population of the two provinces about 1845 totalling not more than fifteen thousand souls, nine-tenths of whom were Mexicans, Spaniards, and Indians, the rest American and European settlers. The foreigners, among whom Americans greatly predominated, soon became influential out of all proportion to their numbers. This was particularly true of the Americans, who, solidified by common interests, common dangers, and common ambitions, obtained large grants of land, built houses which in certain cases were little short of forts, frequently married into the most aristocratic of the Californian families, and before long practically controlled the commerce of the entire territory.

It was only to be expected, therefore, that the Mexicans should become more and more apprehensive of American ambitions. Nor did President Jackson’s offer, in 1835, to buy Southern California—an offer which was promptly refused—serve to do other than strengthen these apprehensions. And to make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Commodore T. ApCatesby Jones, having heard a rumor that war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, and having reason to believe that a British force was preparing to seize California, landed a force of bluejackets and marines, and on October 21, 1842, raised the American flag over the presidio at Monterey. Although Commodore Jones, finding he had acted upon misinformation, lowered the flag next day and tendered an apology to the provincial officials, the incident did not tend to relieve the tension which existed between the Mexicans and the Americans, for it emphasized the ease with which the country could be seized, and hinted with unmistakable plainness at the ultimate intentions of the United States. That our government intended to annex the Californias at the first opportunity that offered the Mexicans were perfectly aware, for, aroused by the descriptions of the unbelievable beauty and fertility of the country as sent back by those daring souls who had made their way across the ranges, the hearts of our people were set upon its acquisition. The great Bay of San Francisco, large enough to shelter the navies of the world and the gateway to the Orient, the fruitful, sun-kissed land beyond the Sierras, the political domination of America, and the commercial domination of the Pacific—such were the visions which inspired our people and the motives which animated our leaders, and which were intensified by the fear of England’s designs upon this western land.

As the numbers of the American settlers gradually increased, the jealousy and suspicion of the Mexican officials became more pronounced. As early as 1826 they had driven Captain Jedediah Smith, the first American to make his way to California by the overland route, back into the mountains, in the midst of winter, without companions and without provisions, to be killed by the Indians. In 1840 more than one hundred American settlers were suddenly arrested by the Mexican authorities on a trumped-up charge of having plotted against the government, marched under military guard to Monterey, and confined in the prison there under circumstances of the most barbarous cruelty, some fifty of them being eventually deported to Mexico in chains. Thomas O. Larkin, the American consul at Monterey, upon visiting the prisoners in the local jail where they were confined, found that the cells had no floors, and that the poor fellows stood in mud and water to their ankles. Sixty of the prisoners he found crowded into a single room, twenty feet long and eighteen wide, in which they were so tightly packed that they could not all sit at the same time, much less lie down. The room being without windows or other means of ventilation, the air quickly became so fetid that they were able to live only by dividing themselves into platoons which took turns in standing at the door and getting a few breaths of air through the bars. These men, whose only crime was that they were Americans, were confined in this hell-hole, without food except such as their friends were able to smuggle in to them by bribing the sentries, for eight days. And this treatment was accorded them, remember, not because they were conspirators—for no one knew better than the Mexican authorities that they were not—but because it seemed the easiest means of driving them out of the country. Throughout the half-dozen years that ensued American settlers were subjected to a systematic campaign of annoyance, persecution, and imprisonment on innumerable frivolous pretexts, being released only on their promise to leave California immediately. By 1845, therefore, the harassed Americans, in sheer desperation, were ready to grasp the first opportunity which presented itself to end this intolerable tyranny for good and all.

It was not only the outrageous treatment to which they were subjected, however, nor the weakness and instability of the government under which they were living, nor even the insecurity of their lives and property and the discouragements to industry, which led the American settlers to decide to end Mexican rule in the Californias. Texas had recently been annexed by the United States against the protests of Mexico, an American army of invasion was massed along the Rio Grande, and war was certain. It required no extraordinary degree of intelligence, then, to foresee that the coming hostilities would almost inevitably result in Mexico losing her Californian provinces. Now it was a matter of common knowledge that the Mexican Government was seriously considering the advisability of ceding the Californias to Great Britain, and thus accomplishing the threefold purpose of wiping out the large Mexican debt due to British bankers, of winning the friendship and possibly the active assistance of England in the approaching war with the United States, and of preventing the Californias from falling into American hands. The danger was, therefore, that England would step in before us. Nor was the danger any imaginary one. Her ships were watching our ships on the Mexican coast, and her secret agents who infested the country were keeping their fingers constantly on the pulse of public opinion. Though it remains to this day a matter of conjecture as to just how far England was prepared to go to obtain this territory, there is little doubt that she had laid her plans for its acquisition in one way or another. If California was to be added to the Union, therefore, it must be by a sudden and daring stroke.