The 31st state admitted to the US was California, on September 9th, 1850. California's state motto is "Eureka!", which means "I have found it" in Greek. It is known as the Golden State after the Gold Rush and the Golden Gate Bridge. California is the state that wetsuits, Barbie dolls, and fortune cookies were invented. There are more people in the state of California than the entire country of Canada. Avocado farms and vineyards of wine grapes thrive with the weather. The one drawback is that there are over 100,000 earthquakes in California every year. The state capital is Sacramento, the state bird is the California Quail, the state flower is the California Poppy, and the state tree is the Redwood.
For over 20,000 years, people have lived in what is now known as the state of California. From the northern mountains, to the central valley, to the southern coastline, the state has three very large and distinct regions with their own culture, peoples, and lifestyle. About 70,000 indigenous, mostly the Yokuts, gathered in the San Joaquin Valley. Many villages of coastal Southern California were inhabited by the Chumash and Tongva. The Bay area wetlands were populated by tens of thousands Ohlone, Coast Miwok, Sierra Miwok, Patwin, and Wappo people. It was said that there were somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 California Natives living in the state before Spanish and Russian explorers first arrived. They spoke around 300 dialects of 100 different languages, as one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world.
Some of the worst diseases plagued the state when the Europeans arrived. Spanish colonists brought new diseases, and built missions in 1769 as a chain from San Diego to Sonoma in order to convert Natives to Christianity and get their free labor. The Spanish brought their own domestic stock animals that destroyed Native crops, they intimidated Indigenous people using scare tactics, and they made a plan to "convert" Natives to their Christian religion within a 10-year period of time. Around 100,000 indigenous peoples died by disease, malnutrition, and poor conditions. Parents and children were separated due to labor demands, and plantation-like mission labor camps were used to control the Indigenous peoples, and get them to work for no exchange of energy at all. Natives were viewed as "uncivilized" by the Spanish, and they believed that by baptizing them, they would become Christians and feel obligated to follow their rules. If they escaped, they were hunted down and punished. In 1771, a group of Tongva raided a mission after one of the women in their tribe was raped by a Spanish soldier. This type of behavior and retaliation continued over the next 60 years, all throughout California.
In 1821, Mexico won independence from Spain, and in 1824, Natives were granted full citizenship by a new Mexican federal constitution. Unfortunately, between 1769 and 1834 and the secularization by the Mexican government, over 37,000 Indigenous people died at the missions due to epidemics, crowded conditions, starvation, overwork, or mistreatment. There were many different massacres of natives that followed the Mexican-American War, and the Indigenous population decreased by 80%. Some called it a "campaign of extermination" that continued for years to come. Whites were able to murder Natives with both legal and social impunity.
In 1846, the US declared war on Mexico, and the Mexican-American War of 1848 concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which offered California to the US. The following year, Californians went for statehood by 48 delegates meeting in Monterey to draft the constitution. They based their constitution on New York and Iowa by making the state "free" from slavery. Popular vote allowed the constitution to be ratified on November 13, 1849. On September 9, 1850, the 31st Congress passed the California Statehood Act that was signed by President Fillmore. This allowed the state to be admitted as the 31st to join the union. This "Compromise of 1850" ended a longtime heated debate on whether or not California was a free, non-slavery state.
Despite the bloody history and horrific actions that took place against Indigenous peoples, today there are around 1.4 million American Indian and Alaskan Natives in California, making it the largest number of Indigenous people of any state. California also has 109 federally recognized tribes, and many non-federally recognized tribes trying to become recognized. The state has come a long way, and there is still much more work to do in order to honor the lives that were lost and the devastation that took place.
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