By the time the United States of America was officially formed in 1776, the East Coast had been heavily settled while the rest of our country was still controlled by various nations, mainly Spain. Sonoma County (and, in fact, Northern California) had yet to even be explored!
In 1775, a Spanish expedition led by Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega mapped and named the present-day waters of Bodega Bay and its harbor, but chose not to establish a settlement on the land.
- The next explorer to arrive was a Russian fur trader, Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, who sailed into Bodega Bay over 30 years later, in 1809. Kuskov had been sent to Alta California by the Russian-American Company, which had a monopoly on the fur trade in then Russia-controlled Alaska. They needed to find a new source of animal pelts and supplies for Russia’s Alaskan settlements, and he discovered an abundance of resources in the area.
- With cooperation from the Kashaya Pomo people who inhabited the area, Kuskov built Fort Ross, a settlement 20 miles north of Bodega Bay. The name Ross comes from the word for Russia (Rossiia). Fort Ross became a center of agriculture, milling, brickmaking, blacksmithing and foundry work and remained the southernmost Russian settlement in North America for nearly 30 years.
- In 1821 Mexico won its independence from Spain. Alta California then became a territory of Mexico. The Mexican government operated very differently than the Spanish monarchy. Mexico allowed trade with merchants from the United States and foreign countries for the first time, and also allowed foreigners to own land (once they became Mexican citizens and converted to Catholicism), which brought the first wave of settlers to California from across the United States.
- On July 4, 1823, Padre José Altamira founded Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma in the present-day City of Sonoma. It was the last and northernmost California mission and the only one established in California under independent Mexico.
- In 1833, General Mariano G. Vallejo was sent to our region by Mexico’s Governor, Jose Figueroa, to settle the area for Mexico and maintain a close watch over the Russian settlement at nearby Fort Ross. Vallejo was very important to our region’s development and is considered to be the founder of the cities of Sonoma and Petaluma.
- General Vallejo, who was then 27 years-old, received a land grant from the Mexican government, called Rancho Petaluma, consisting of about 44,000 acres stretching from present-day Sonoma to Petaluma.4 He later received another grant of Rancho Soscol which increased his holdings to more than 66,000 acres– or 100 square miles.
- Vallejo resided in Sonoma and oversaw construction of Sonoma’s eight-acre central plaza (still the largest in California) and street grid, including the 110-foot wide Broadway, which leads directly to the plaza (now called Sonoma Square or Sonoma Plaza).
- El Presidio de Sonoma (Sonoma Barracks) was constructed in 1836, to house General Vallejo’s troops.
- From 1834-1846 Vallejo also built Petaluma Adobe in Petaluma, which served as the headquarters of his large ranching operation. By 1845, Vallejo owned 10,000 head of cattle, 24,000 sheep, and several large herds of horses making him the wealthiest, and one of the most politically powerful men in California.
- Keeping it in the family, in 1834 Vallejo’s brother-in-law, John B. R. Cooper was granted El Molino Rancho (molino means mill), which is present-day Forestville. Cooper constructed California’s first water-powered sawmill. The mill and surrounding settlement helped the area develop and served as a barrier to Russian expansion.
- In 1837, Maria Ignacia Lopez Carrillo, Vallejo’s mother-in-law, became the only woman to ever be directly given a Mexican land grant.5 She built an adobe home on Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa (referring to the head of the Santa Rosa Creek). Santa Rosa was named by Father Juan Amorosa after performing a baptism in the creek on the feast day of Santa Rosa (Saint Rose) de Lima.
- In 1841 Captain Henry D. Fitch of San Diego, another of Vallejo’s brothers-in law, was granted Sotoyome Rancho (named for a Wappo tribe), which is now Healdsburg. Fitch hired Cyrus Alexander to manage the Rancho in exchange for an 8,800-acre parcel of land at the edge of the Rancho.
- When Alexander’s contract ended in 1845, Mose Carson (brother of famous frontiersman Kit Carson) took over as manager and Alexander settled on his tract in what is now our famed wine growing region of Alexander Valley. Sonoma Becomes the Capital of the Republic of California
- By the 1840s, settlers were beginning to move West in large numbers, traveling on newly-established overland routes; mainly the northern California Trail that came into Sacramento and the southern Old Spanish Trail into Los Angeles. Steamships from San Francisco brought travelers and settlers to San Pablo Bay, south of Petaluma, and stagecoaches carried them overland to towns across our area.
- As a result, the immigration of new settlers into our region from the United States picked-up quickly.
- Feeling the pressure of encroaching American settlement, in 1841 the Russian- American Company sold Fort Ross and its surrounding land to Captain John Sutter (who would soon discover gold in northern California). Sutter had the outbuildings dismantled and items transported to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. Sutter’s manager William Benitz moved into Fort Ross in 1846, establishing a ranching enterprise which endured through a succession of owners for more than 100 years.
- The Republic of Texas broke away from Mexico in 1845 and was annexed by the United States, but Mexico still claimed ownership and refused to cede the land to the U.S. As a result, tension began to mount between the Americans in the Sonoma area and the Californios (Mexicans living in Alta California) with rumors that Mexico was planning to attack the local settlers.
- On June 14, 1846, a small group of mostly American settlers marched on the Sonoma Barracks and took General Vallejo and his men prisoner. They issued a proclamation which declared Alta California to be a Republic independent of Mexico.
- This uprising became known as the Bear Flag Revolt after a hastily designed flag depicting a grizzly bear (for strength) and a five pointed star (for the Lone Star of Texas) with the words “California Republic” was raised on a flagpole in Sonoma’s Plaza.6
- The Republic of California only lasted about three weeks! The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) had already begun nearly two month earlier in Texas. Once news about the war starting finally reached Sonoma on July 9, 1846, the Bear Flag was replaced with the American Flag.
- In January 1847, U.S. troops attacked and captured Los Angeles, forcing the surrender of hundreds of Mexican troops, and ending the Mexican resistance in California.
- The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, marked the end of the Mexican-American War. The United States agreed to pay Mexico $18.25 million; Mexico formally ceded California and the future U.S. states of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, as well as portions of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming to the United States.
- When the United States took possession of California in 1848, the Americans passed a Land Act that forced landholders to validate the title to their ranchos. By this time, ranchos had passed through generations and portions had been sold or traded with very few records kept.
- Many of the grants were not validated resulting in families either losing their land or losing all of their money from long court battles with the government. Ranchos became townships, and unresolved disputed grants later became our public lands.
- Although Mariano G. Vallejo was later elected to the California Senate, he lost almost all of his real estate, which once amounted to nearly 7 million acres. His home in Sonoma was all that remained of his once immense land holdings when he died in 1890.
- The timing couldn’t have been better for the U.S. to gain possession of California. In January 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 40 miles east of Sacramento, which began the California Gold Rush.8 An amazing 300,000 gold-seekers poured into Northern California over the next five years. Those that didn’t strike it rich started farms and businesses to support, and profit from the miners.
- On September 9, 1850, California became the 31st state admitted into the Union and Sacramento eventually became our capital.
- It’s hard to imagine with today’s technology, but because of its remoteness from Washington D.C., Californians didn’t get the news about becoming a state until more than a month later on October 18th, when the steamship Oregon sailed into San Francisco Bay with a banner stating “California is a State!”
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