Imperfect Union

by Steve Inskeep

  I am going now on business to see some gentlemen on the coast, and will then join my people, and complete our survey in this part of the world as rapidly as possible. The season is now just arriving when vegetation is coming out in all the beauty I have often described to you. . . . So soon as the proper season comes, and my animals are rested, we turn our faces homeward, and be sure that grass will not grow under our feet. . . . Many months of hardships, close trials, and anxieties have tried me severely, and my hair is turning gray before its time. But all this passes, et le bon temps viendra [and the good time will come].

  Vice-consul Leidesdorff escorted John to Monterey, 110 miles down the coast, riding through the cattle-grazing lands of ranchos in the San Jose Valley and over low mountains to Monterey Bay. The hillsides were covered with pines and free of undergrowth, so elegantly organized by nature that one visitor said the landscape had “the appearance of an extensive park.” Monterey lay on the sweeping curve of the bay shore, a town of only a few hundred people. A tiny cathedral stood there with a white sandstone front and curving roofline of a sort that was familiar throughout Latin America. Red-roofed adobe houses were scattered around. Cannons at the presidio guarded the town, though the guns were so old and the soldiers so few that it was indefensible. In 1842, when a US Navy captain received a mistaken report of war between the United States and Mexico, he had sent sailors and Marines ashore and captured Monterey without resistance, departing only when he was persuaded there was no war after all. Captain Frémont surely knew this, and just as surely studied the defenses when he arrived on January 26, 1846.

  The vice-consul led him through town to the home of Thomas O. Larkin, the American consul—a trim man in his forties, with a cleft chin, thoughtful eyes, bushy sideburns, and graying hair. He was a New Englander by birth, as Frémont could have guessed as soon as he arrived at Larkin’s house. On Calle Principal, the main street, Larkin had built a two-story home with features that drew more from New England than from Mexico. Although the adobe brick walls were the same material as most houses in Monterey, the nine-pane windows, central staircase, and upstairs fireplace all spoke of the North Atlantic coast. Instead of a Spanish tile roof he had paid workmen to nail down redwood shingles. The New Englander had connections to California’s elite: his half brother had come to California before him and was one of the two Americans who married into the family of General Vallejo in Sonoma. Larkin himself, after thirteen years in California, was a successful merchant and a player in local politics, sometimes lending money to California officials. In his role as consul he didn’t receive much support from home—he complained that the State Department was regularly rejecting his expenses, even refusing to reimburse $31.34 he paid for a United States flag and staff—but he saw his future in a California that was part of the United States.

  John had never met Larkin but probably had seen his work. The New Englander was the source of some of the stories about California that were appearing in eastern newspapers. A man like Larkin in some remote place could write a letter to an editor such as James Gordon Bennett, who controlled the New York Herald with its nationwide circulation—and if Bennett judged the information credible and entertaining, or at least entertaining, he might publish the letter as an article. Larkin’s letters were the ones describing California as paradise. He wrote of sailors from visiting American warships who “spent their leisure time ashore hunting wild deer or dancing with the tame dear, both being plenty in and about Monterey.” Beautiful women were just one of the attractions: “What do you think of a salmon weighing sixty pounds, and other fish every day in the year?” In 1844, as the looming annexation of Texas raised the prospect of war with the United States, one of Larkin’s dispatches suggested that Mexicans would not defend Monterey. The same year he extolled the raw but healthy state of the country: “We have . . . no elections, nor political mobs; no doctors nor much sickness; no surgeons, nor those with amputated limbs; no lawyers, therefore no court-houses nor prisons . . . Solomon, in all his glory, was not more happy than a Californian.” California was a dreamland—sunny, abundant, whimsical, undeveloped, and available to the first nation that came to take it.

  * * *

  LARKIN WAS AN EFFECTIVE CONSUL. “I never make to the Government an unreasonable request, therefore never expect denial, and have for many years found them well disposed toward me,” he told John. After the captain had a night’s sleep in Monterey, Larkin took him around town to have his visit to California properly authorized. They could not meet the governor of California, who had temporarily moved to Los Angeles, so Larkin sought other officials, of whom the most important was José Castro, the commander of the department’s military forces.

  General Castro was in his late thirties, a man of John’s generation, solidly built, with bushy hair and sideburns connecting with his mustache. He owned a magnificent uniform but had few troops to command. Whenever Castro needed an army he had to raise it from the colonial population, recruiting men to meet this or that Indian war. But he was capable of making trouble, and John set out to pacify him. He said he was a lone US Army officer, and that his men were civilians; he was simply exploring the best route from the United States to Oregon. He said he would keep his men away from Mexican settlements, except when they needed to purchase supplies, and that he would leave for Oregon as soon as his men had rested and refitted. In response, General Castro apparently avoided ordering Captain Frémont to leave, while also not quite authorizing his visit. He was finessing the situation—he knew Mexico’s government would view the captain’s appearance with alarm, but did not want a confrontation. For the record, Castro wrote out a formal request to Larkin for information about the expedition. Larkin then wrote out a formal explanation, and Castro did not reply.

  Returning to the interior, John at last united the two wings of his force and moved them to an abandoned rancho on the far eastern side of the Santa Clara Valley, well east of Monterey. Curious Californians came to meet them. John said the locals showed off their horsemanship, and “very friendly relations grew up with us,” but not for long. The captain learned that three of his men had gone off drunk and insulted Californians. For this he apologized. But he responded differently when a Californian came to accuse the expedition of stealing horses, a charge John indignantly denied. He followed up with an intemperate letter to a Mexican civil official, declaring that the accuser was not only wrong but offensive, and should have received “a severe horsewhipping” for opening his mouth. Forgetting that he was a visitor whose problematic presence was barely tolerated, he had swiftly become an entitled local who imagined he had every right to be where he was. He demonstrated more of this attitude in late February, when the expedition broke camp and moved out. Traveling to Oregon required John to ride north—yet he did not. He moved westward, across the Santa Clara Valley and over a chain of coastal mountains. He camped near the summit, studying groves of two-hundred-foot redwood trees, then drifted even farther westward, down to the Pacific, aiming for the coastal settlement of Santa Cruz.

  This was a fateful provocation. It was impossible to pretend that he was keeping his promise to stay out of settled areas. Was he trying to trigger a Mexican attack that would justify a war? Probably not; this would require Machiavellian strategic foresight that he did not demonstrate elsewhere. Did he have a vague intention to kill time until news arrived of a declaration of war? This was plausible. In a letter that spring he wrote that a declaration of war was “probable,” and he sent a note to Larkin in Monterey, asking for “any intelligence you may have received from the States.” He may have thought his mission was simply to wait and see what came up. But if it was his plan to wait for news, he could have done it safely in the interior. Why wander to the settled coastline where he had promised not to go? Usually when he defied authority he had a reason that made sense, at least to him. In later years he would give several explanations, most of which could be disproven by surviving documents. But there was one expla
nation John gave that was plausible and fit his increasingly entitled frame of mind. He said he was shopping for real estate.

  “I had before my mind the home I wished to make in this country,” he explained. “First one place and then another charmed me. But none seemed perfect where the sea was wanting, and so far I had not stood by the open waves of the Pacific. . . . [Only the coastline had] the invigorating salt breeze which brings with it renewed strength. This I wanted for my mother.” He had loved the sea since he was a boy. His happiest moments had been spent in places where “the eye ranges over a broad expanse of country, or in the face of the ocean,” walking the Battery alone or exploring the shore with Cecilia. Now he sought to recover that feeling on the western coast, and had heard that Santa Cruz was especially beautiful. John Charles Frémont risked war between the United States and Mexico because he wanted to shop for beachfront property to share with his mother.

  After inspecting Santa Cruz he drifted southeastward, farther from Oregon and nearer Monterey. He camped a few miles outside the capital at the start of March, and messengers began passing between the camp and Thomas Larkin’s New England house in town. In a letter to Larkin, he suggested that he was passing time until the snow melted in the mountains. He also suggested he was technically following his promise to stay away from settlements because he was not bringing his main force into the center of Monterey: “I therefore practice the selfdenial which is a constant virtue here and forego the pleasure I should have found in seeing some little of society in your capital.”

  The day that Captain Frémont sent this letter was the day California’s General Castro lost patience. Apparently someone disturbed the general’s breakfast with news of the wandering Americans. He wrote a letter and gave it to Larkin to translate for Frémont.

  At seven o’clock this morning [I] was given to understand that you and the party under your command have entered the towns of this Department, and such being prohibited by our laws I find myself obligated to advertise you that on the receipt of this you will immediately retire beyond the limits of this same Department.

  Larkin wrote a letter in reply, trying to smooth over the dispute by urging General Castro and another official, the Monterey prefect, to avoid any “unfortunate” clashes based on “false reports, or false appearances.” The prefect responded with mounting anger that there was no false appearance: Frémont was right there, and “must now either blindly obey the authorities or on the contrary experience the misfortunes which he has sought by his crime.” Larkin watched with alarm as General Castro began summoning armed men. Sixty men went up the road toward the Americans, then another forty, and Larkin expected that Castro might gather another hundred. The general also issued a proclamation warning of “a band of robbers commanded by a Capt. of the U.S. Army, J.C. Frémont,” and calling for all citizens to report to his headquarters to help him “lance the ulcer.”

  Outside town, Captain Frémont was defiant. When a Californian delivered Castro’s demand to depart immediately or face the consequences, John said it was an insult to the United States and that he would not retreat in shame. (His subordinate Theodore Talbot summarized John’s position in a letter: “Captain said that he wd leave the country, but wd not be driven out.”) His men broke camp, but only to move to higher and more defensible ground, a mountain called Gavilan Peak. They raised an American flag while John used his spyglass to watch California troops and artillery gather below. Soon a courier from Larkin arrived bearing a letter, which John did not take time to read before replying, scrawling a note in pencil so that the same messenger could carry it back down to Monterey. “I am making myself as strong as possible,” he told Larkin, “in the intention that if we are unjustly attacked we will fight to the extremity and refuse quarter, trusting to our country to avenge our death.” He added:

  I thank you for your kindness and good wishes and would write more at length as to my intentions, did I not fear that my letter will be intercepted; we have in no wise done wrong to the people or the authorities of the country, and if we are hemmed in and assaulted, we will die every man of us, under the Flag of our Country. Very truly yours,

  J.C. Frémont

  The captain envisioned himself a martyr. He might have imagined his struggle would win California for his country: his words echoed an earlier letter from a confrontation between Mexicans and Americans. In 1836, when Texas rebels were surrounded at the Alamo by thousands of Mexican troops, the Texan commander William Travis slipped a messenger through enemy lines with a note: “I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death.” It was said that Travis’s sacrifice inspired other Texans to victory. But it was also true that Travis and his men died in a pointless effort to hold an indefensible position from which he had been ordered to retreat, and in 1846 Captain Frémont had wiser second thoughts. He finally opened and read Larkin’s letter to him. It was a sober warning that if John did not have orders from Washington authorizing his incursion, then he was in trouble, because he was violating Mexican law. Even if John’s force could defend itself, warfare with the Mexicans would “cause trouble hereafter to Resident Americans.” American settlers, already under pressure, could face collective punishment. That night John’s men broke camp and slipped away. It was a good time to head for Oregon.

  * * *

  THEY RODE NORTH PAST SAN FRANCISCO BAY, past Sutter’s Fort, and through the flatlands at the heart of the Sacramento River Valley. By the first of April they were almost three hundred miles north of Monterey. One night the captain brought out his sextant and calculated that he was near 40 degrees latitude, a little less than two hundred miles from the Oregon border.

  Two men asked permission to quit the expedition and return to the United States. Captain Frémont agreed, realizing that he could give one of the men a letter to carry home to Jessie. He took out some paper to write by the fire. Informing his wife of the confrontation and retreat from Monterey, he put the best face on it. “The Spaniards,” he told her, “were somewhat rude and inhospitable.”

  My sense of duty did not permit me to fight them, but we retreated slowly and growlingly before a force of three or four hundred men, and three pieces of artillery. . . . Of course I did not dare to compromise the United States, against which appearances would have been strong; but, although it was in my power to increase my party by many Americans, I refrained from committing a solitary act of hostility.

  The letter was revealing, and not only because he probably inflated the size of the Mexican force at Gavilan Peak. By saying he could have increased his party “by many Americans,” he meant that he could recruit the American settlers of California just as Castro had called out the Californians. He still had this option. He was moving among settlers in the Sacramento Valley, stopping at some of their ranchos. One offered to raise a force of “hardy warriors,” an offer John declined for the moment. Another settler had already served under his command: Samuel Neal, who had come to California with the expedition in 1844, and dropped off at Sutter’s Fort to start a new life.

  John was acting like a settler himself, allowing himself to be drawn into local disputes. Some said they feared attack by Indians, and the captain responded by vowing to protect them. It was not clear what disagreements—over control of land or resources—might have led to this fear of war. But having made a grandiose promise, John had to keep it, and he decided to strike the Indians a crippling blow. It was a significant change in policy. In all his travels he had never fought a full-scale battle with natives, despite occasional episodes such as the fight with the “horse-thief Indians.” He normally came among Indians while carrying the lamps of science and reason. Not all had responded well to him—in early 1844 one of his men had wandered off alone and had been killed—but John’s men rarely fired first, instead keeping well armed and on guard. Why would he now take the side of white settlers he had ju
st met, by launching an armed conflict the origins of which he did not understand?

  Captain Frémont said he could not leave the settlers defenseless. They suspected California’s General Castro was sending messengers to rile up the Indians against white people. John embraced this fear, taking up a racial stereotype of natives at odds with his experience: “An Indian let loose is of all animals the most savage. He has an imagination for devilment that seems peculiar to him, and a singular delight in inflicting suffering.” But on this occasion it was white men who took a “delight in inflicting suffering.” His scouts found a village where men had “feathers on their heads, and faces painted black, their war color,” as if preparing for combat. The main body of John’s men charged, killing some natives and driving others into a nearby river. The horsemen rode on to several more villages, whose inhabitants scattered. One of the Americans, Thomas S. Martin, later declared in an oral history that the attackers killed 175 Indians. Martin’s guess was probably high—all the numbers in his oral history were unreliable—but there was no reason to doubt the visceral statement of Kit Carson: “We found [the natives] to be in great force. . . . We attacked them, and although I do not know how many we killed, it was a perfect butchery. The survivors fled in all directions.”

  * * *

  PUSHING NORTH TOWARD OREGON, the expedition rode past Mount Shasta, a snowbound volcano that loomed over the valley and blended into the clouds. They departed the Sacramento Valley and climbed into mountains and high plains, a land of extinct volcanoes and lava fields long since grown over with forest. By early May they were in Oregon and riding past Klamath Lake, its waters ringed by mountains. They had seen this landmark during their wanderings of 1843–44, and John had a hazy idea to track down a friendly native chief he’d met. But the first Klamath Indians he saw this time were not welcoming. “Our arrival took them by surprise, and though they received us with apparent friendship, there was no warmth in it, but a shyness which came naturally from their habit of hostility.” Captain Frémont did not understand why Indians who’d been living safely beyond the range of white settlement might be concerned by the explorers’ sudden appearance. One day a group of Klamath men walked into the explorers’ camp, asking for food and possibly sizing up the visitors.