ألتا كاليفورنيا
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Alta California (بالإنگليزية: Upper California), founded in 1769 by Gaspar de Portolá, was a polity of New Spain and after the Mexican War of Independence in 1822, a territory of Mexico. The region included all of the modern states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
Neither Spain nor Mexico ever colonized the area beyond the southern and central coastal area of present-day California, so they never exerted any effective control beyond Sonoma in the north or the California Coast Ranges in the west. Most of interior areas such as the Central Valley and the deserts of California remained in de facto possession of indigenous peoples until later in the Mexican era when more inland land grants were made, and especially after 1841 when overland immigrants from the United States began to settle inland areas.
Large areas east of the Sierra Nevada and San Gabriel Mountains were claimed to be part of Alta California, but were never colonized. To the southeast, beyond the deserts and the Colorado River, lay the Spanish settlements in Arizona.
Alta California ceased to exist as an administrative division separate from Baja California in 1836, when the Siete Leyes constitutional reforms in Mexico re-established Las Californias as a unified department. The areas formerly comprising Alta California were ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican–American War in 1848. Two years later, California joined the union as the 31st state. Other parts of Alta California became all or part of the later U.S. states of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.
الاستعمار الاسباني
الحكم الاسباني
رانشو
المكسيك المستقلة
الحرب الأمريكية المكسيكية
In the final decades of Mexican rule, American and European immigrants arrived and settled in Alta California. Those in Southern California mainly settled in and around the established coastal settlements and tended to intermarry with the Californios. في شمال كاليفورنيا، they mainly formed new settlements further inland, especially in the وادي ساكرامنتو، وthese immigrants focused on fur-trapping and farming and kept apart from the Californios.
الأعلام التي رفرفت فوق كاليفورنيا
| Spanish Empire, may have been flown by the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542, upon entering the bay of San Diego, and by the Portolá expedition that founded the colony of Alta California in 1769. | |
| St. George Cross of England, June 1579, voyage of the Golden Hind under Captain Francis Drake at Bodega Bay, Tomales Bay, Drakes Bay or Bolinas Bay (exact location disputed). | |
| October 1775, the Sonora at Bodega Bay, under Lt. Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra until 1821, when New Spain gained independence from the Spanish Empire. | |
| Russian-American Company, by Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, the founder of Fort Ross and, from 1812 to 1821, its colonial administrator. The Russian-American Company only controlled a small portion of the northern coast of California, while the entire territory was diplomatically recognized as territory of Mexico; this situation was terminated when the Russians sold Fort Ross in 1841 to John Sutter, and subsequently left the area in 1842. | |
| on a ship from Argentina, by Hippolyte Bouchard, a French-born pirate who attacked Monterey Bay from November 24 to November 29, 1818, in order to annoy Spain, who ruled Argentina. Bouchard claimed California on behalf of Argentina, but this claim was never recognized, even by the Argentine government. | |
| First Mexican Empire, August 24, 1821, Mexico under Emperor Agustín de Iturbide (October 1822, probable time new flag raised in California) until 1823. | |
| United Mexican States military, 1823, until January 13, 1847, at Los Angeles. | |
| Flag of California, from 1836, when the Diputación, or Legislature, of California declared independence from Mexico (the Declaration of Independence is available on Wikisource). In 1838, Mexico recognized California as a "free and sovereign state," but this was later rescinded and government from Mexico was re-established prior to 1846. | |
| Bear Flag of the California Republic, June 14, 1846, at Sonoma until July 9, 1846. The California Republic was declared by American citizens who had settled inland (in the valley of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers), and it is thought that the inclusion of one star and one stripe was meant to highlight their American origins. The Republic's existence was never officially recognized by any other government. | |
| United States of America, July 9, 1846; see History of California. |
For even more Californian flags see: (PDF). Sacramento: State of California, Military Department. 2002.
In popular culture
- In the second half of the 19th century, there was a San Francisco-based newspaper called The Daily Alta California (or The Alta Californian). Mark Twain's first widely successful book, The Innocents Abroad, was an edited collection of letters written for this publication.
- In the 1998 film, The Mask of Zorro, fictional former Governor Don Rafael Montero plans to purchase the area from Mexico to set up an independent republic, roughly corresponding to historical Alta California.
- The Carl Barks comic book Donald Duck in Old California! provided a glimpse into the lives of the Californios.
See also
Spanish and Mexican control
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Russian colonies
United States control
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Notes
- ^ José Bandini, in a note to Governor Echeandía or to his son, Juan Bandini, a member of the Territorial Deputation (legislature), noted that Alta California was bounded "on the east, where the Government has not yet established the [exact] border line, by either the Colorado River or the great Sierra (Sierra Nevada)." A Description of California in 1828 by José Bandini (Berkeley, Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1951), 3. Reprinted in Mexican California (New York, Arno Press, 1976). ISBN 0-405-09538-4
- ^ Chapman explains that the term "Arizona" not used in period. Arizona south of the Gila River was referred to as the Pimería Alta. North of the Gila were the "Moqui", whose territory was considered separate from New Mexico. The term "the Californias," therefore, refers specifically to the Spanish-held coastal region from Baja California to an undefined north. Chapman, Charles Edward (1973) [1916]. The Founding of Spanish California: The Northwestward Expansion of New Spain, 1687–1783. New York: Octagon Books. pp. xiii.
== المراجع ==
- ^ "the American Conquest of California" Wilson, John L. Stanford University
- ^ "Biographical Notes: Sir Francis Drake" Wandering Lizard. Consulted on 2008-08-07.
- ^ Sterling, Richard and Tom Downs. San Francisco: City Guide. (Lonely Planet, 2004), 233–234. ISBN 978-1-74104-154-5
- ^ Starr, Kevin. California: A History. (New York: Modern Library, 2005), 25. ISBN 0-679-64240-4
Additional reading
- Beebe, Rose Marie (2001). Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535–1846. Berkeley: Heyday Books. ISBN 1-890771-48-1
- Fink, Augusta (1972). Monterey, The Presence of the Past. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-8770107204
- Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1910. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. ISBN 0-87919-132-5
وصلات خارجية
- Worldstatesmen.org: Provinces of New Spain
- Alta California grants in
- Mexican Land Grants of Santa Clara County at the University of California, Berkeley, Earth Sciences & Map Library
