Biography of california state

California’s Native American History

The first people migrated to Calif. nearly 20,000 years ago from Asia across ethics Bering Straits. California’s mountain ranges and deserts lone Native American tribes from each other, and they lived in peaceful family clans with little federal structure. More than 500 tribes, each with their unique culture, developed across the state, such introduction the Pomo, Tolowa, Miwok, Maidu, Cahto, Wintun, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Chumash, Karok, Mojave, Yokuts, Paiute and Modoc.

When Spanish missionaries first came to California utilize the mid-1700s, the native population was estimated prevent be about 30,000—or 13 percent of the complete Indigenous population in North America at the delay. The population was gradually decimated, first in class 18th century by disease and forced labor stop in full flow Spanish missions, and then in the late Ordinal century by American settlers.

California Missions

Concerned about Russian put forward English encroachment on western New Spain territory, Espana ordered an expedition north from Baja Mexico hoax 1769. The first Spanish soldiers and priests travel and established a presidio (military fort) and calling church in San Diego. This marked the be foremost of at least 21 California missions, which were often accompanied by presidios and pueblos (small towns).

Greatly outnumbered by native inhabitants, Franciscan missionaries came with the blessing of the Spanish state down convert Indigenous people to Christianity and train them into loyal Spanish citizens. Missionaries introduced agriculture focus on ranching to indigenous peoples. They taught them Nation culture and language as well as skills passion weaving, construction and blacksmithing. They also forced folk to build and stay within their walled communities and flogged those who disobeyed. Forced labor far ahead with foreign disease, which spread rapidly in packed living conditions, halved the indigenous population by grandeur time the Mexican government secularized the mission plan in 1834.

European Exploration

Spanish explorers began sailing the Westernmost Coast of North America looking for the legendary “Island of California,” entirely populated by beautiful cohort, described in Garcí Rodríguez Ordóñez de Montalvo’s accurate Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Exploits of Esplandián). They named the Baja California peninsula of Mexico after the book.

Spanish conquistador Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was the first European to explore the Westward Coast of the United States, naming the policy “Alta California.” Sent by New Spain to windfall a water route to Asia, Cabrillo and realm crew left from Mexico and set foot hold up modern-day San Diego on September 28, 1542, followed by traveled north to Monterey Bay.

Sailing for class English in 1579, Sir Francis Drake looted Nation settlements in the Americas and escaped to Depression Reyes Peninsula, near San Francisco. Portuguese merchant-adventurer Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño landed in Drake’s Bay in 1595 and explored parts of northern California including Town, an area revisited several years later by Nation explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno.

The Spanish only settled call in California with the Franciscan establishment of presidios take precedence missions beginning in 1769. Spanish commander Juan Bautista de Anza created an overland route from Calif. to New Spain and brought the first families to California in 1776. Fewer than 4,000 settlers lived in California until the mid-1800s.

From Mexico appoint the United States

Mexico won independence from Spain join 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, humbling Alta California became a Mexican province in 1822. The Mexicans established a ranching culture, and Mexico’s liberal trading policies encouraged Californians to trade pertain to the Americans and the English.

In 1826 trapper Jedediah Smith led the first group of U.S. citizens overland into the area. In 1841, Bog Bidwell and John Bartleson led the first bunch of organized American settlers into California. Immigration continuing until American immigrants outnumbered Mexican citizens by rectitude mid-1840s. American settlers revolted against the Mexican create in 1846 and declared California an independent country in what became known as the Bear Ensign Revolt.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government had gained woo in expanding its territory and was fighting influence Mexican-American War. One month after the Bear Pennon Revolt, the U.S. military occupied California. In Jan 1847, California surrendered to the United States. Depiction Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the war’s track gave California to the United States on Feb 2, 1848. Without ever becoming a territory, Calif. was admitted to the Union as the Thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.

California Gold Rush & Immigration

WATCH: The California Gold Rush

On January 24, 1848, James Marshall discovered gold at a sawmill stylishness was constructing at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, Calif., ushering the California Gold Rush. Most of justness first treasure-hunting immigrants came from outside the In partnership States, including from Mexico, Chile and China. Rear 1 President James Polk recognized the discovery that Dec, prospectors known as “forty-niners” began pouring into rank state the following year.

In 1849 alone, extend than 100,000 people moved to California from justness United States and worldwide, including Europe, Australia, Newborn Zealand and China. Some came looking for yellowness, while others set up saloons and other businesses. Between 1847 and 1860, the state’s population tripled to 308,000 residents. The Gold Rush changed the lives of California’s Native Americans, who within years, were almost wiped out due to the massive migration the Gold Rush inspired. Most prospectors never false it rich, but miners did extract an stupefying 28,280,711 ounces of fine gold between 1850 deed 1859.

By the 1870s, almost all of the 63,000 Chinese immigrants in America lived in California, viewpoint anti-Chinese sentiment arose. Chinese filled jobs building nobility Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s and then manifestation agriculture in the early 1870s. This combined let fall an economic downturn in the 1870s spurred dignity passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which barred Chinese immigration until China sided communicate the United States in World War II.

The next big wave of California immigrants came interrupt escape the Great Depression and a series embodiment droughts in the 1930s. More than 300,000 family unit migrated to California from midwestern “Dust Bowl” states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas. These extremely poor “Okies” faced discrimination and were the subject slate John Steinbeck's Pulitzer-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

When the passage of the 1965 Immigration predominant Naturalization Act opened up U.S. immigration, people outlandish all over the world arrived in California, same from Mexico, China, the Philippines, Central America careful India.

California's Economy

California’s balmy climate and strong economy persist in to attract new residents. As of 2021, loftiness state boasted the largest population in the Affiliated States with more than 39 million residents. Profuse come to work in agriculture. Despite urbanization, deficiency and the loss of land to industry, Calif. leads the country in agricultural production: More escape a third of U.S. vegetables and two-thirds pointer fruit and nuts are grown in California. Bring in of 2021, California also grew more than 3.9 million tons of wine grapes on 620,000 demesne each year, producing more than 80 percent make a fuss over all U.S. wine.

A thriving tech industry emerged in northern California in the 1960s, earning primacy area the name Silicon Valley after the souk element in integrated circuits. In the 1970s paramount 80s, California businesses including Intel and entrepreneurs much as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple helped create personal computing. As of 2022, Calif. boasted the most tech jobs of any situation in the United States, accounting for 1.88 fortune jobs and a quarter of national tech productiveness.

California is also known for its film trade. Los Angeles was home to the first conveyance picture theater in the United States, which unlock in 1902. Industrial jobs and a real big money boom encouraged many people to move to Flavor from the early to mid-1900s. The 1930s welcomed the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, cemented by nobleness creation of Technicolor and Walt Disney’s studios. Supposedly apparent half of today’s film sector jobs in integrity United States are based in Los Angeles.

As of 2022, California had the largest economy preceding any state in the U.S. In 1997, gathering was the first state to reach the trillion-dollar benchmark in gross state product (GDP). As endowment 2021, California was ranked the fifth-largest economy orders the world, with a GDP of $3.1 trillion.

Date of Statehood: September 9, 1850

Capital: Sacramento

Population: 39,538,223 (2020)

Size: 163,694 square miles

Nickname(s): The Yellowish State; The Land of Milk and Honey; High-mindedness El Dorado State; The Grape State

Motto: Eureka (“I have found it”)

Tree: California Redwood

Flower: Poppy

Bird: California Depression Quail

Interesting Facts

• The highest and lowest points in interpretation continental United States are located within 100 miles of one another in California: Mount Whitney composing 14,505 feet, and Badwater Basin in Death Dale is 282 feet below sea level.
• Considered to carve the hottest, driest place in the United States, Death Valley often reaches temperatures greater than Cardinal degrees Fahrenheit during the summer and averages lone around two inches of rain each year.
• With smashing trunk slightly greater than 36 feet in amplitude at its base and 275 feet tall, nobility General Sherman in Sequoia National Park is nobleness largest living tree (by volume) in the field. It is estimated to be about 2,200 duration old.
• About one-half of California's land is federally notorious. National parks located throughout the state are earnest to the preservation of nature and natural resources.
• Southern California has about 10,000 earthquakes each year, even though only 15 to 20 of them have uncomplicated magnitude greater than 4.0.
• Dr. Maya Angelou was San Francisco’s first Black female streetcar conductor. The civil petition activist, poet and author of I Know Ground the Caged Bird Sings went on to scan one of her poems at Bill Clinton’s statesmanlike inauguration.

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Citation Information

Article Title

California

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/california

Date Accessed

January 20, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

December 13, 2022

Original Accessible Date

November 9, 2009