2023-05-21 02:47:49
California is one of the fifty states that make up the USA. Located on the west coast, it is the most populated in the country and the third largest in area. Known for its long Pacific coastline and landmarks such as Death Valley, it also has a significant influence in the field of technology. An importance that, for a time, even made it a Republic and raised a conflict between the United States and Mexico, with whom it borders to the south.
The Republic of California existed for a mere twenty-five days, between June and July 1846. A short-lived episode in American history, but with a far greater scope than expected. A legacy that can be appreciated today when viewing the current official state flag: a grizzly bear that walks on the green step and a star located between the blue background that makes up the banner. But the most striking, a red stripe at the bottom in which you can read “California Republic”.
This was the “revolt of the bear flag”, with which the US took California from Mexico
The flag has a reason, since it commemorates the so-called “Bear Flag Revolt”, a revolution that raged for nearly 177 years in Sonoma Plaza, located north of San Francisco. There, some American settlers revolted on June 10, 1846 against the government of Mexico, to which that province called Alta California belonged.
The precedent for this dispute was the birth of the Republic of Texas, an independent nation headed by settlers that lasted until in 1845, when the US Congress voted to annex it to the union. That decision generated a series of disputes with which the United States declared war on Mexico, in March 1846. And in the middle of all the disputes, was Alta California. “Word got out, whether it was true or not, that the Mexican government was preparing to expel all Americans, and that they would have to leave without their cattle or their guns,” local writer and veteran journalist Gay LeBaron told BBC.
Thus, led by fur trapper Ezekiel Merritt, “the bears” (as they called themselves) crossed the Sacramento River and recruited more men until they reached Sonoma on June 14. Some thirty rebels gathered there, entered the house of military commander Mariano G. Vallejo and took him prisoner.as collected in his chronicles by the historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft and explained by the BBC.
Thus, a republic was born. William Ide was chosen as leader. They made a flag among themselves, as a Californian woman donated a piece of light brown muslin, and the partner of John Sears, one of the rebels, sewed a red stripe torn from a petticoat at the bottom. In addition, with a mixture of brick dust, linseed oil and Venetian red tip, they included the bear, the animal that represented them, and a red star. And in black, in the center, they wrote “California Republic.”
On June 23, the American commander John C. Frémont arrived with an army of sixty armed men, who joined the rebels and took the territory by force after the so-called Battle of Olompali. An important step for independence, but one that brought with it a future annexation to the United States.
The first president of this brand new republic would be William B. Ide. But on July 7, a US Navy frigate and two sloops defeated the Mexican Coast Guard in the port of Monterrey. The war between the US and Mexico was at its peak, and “the bears” abandoned the idea of creating an independent republic, which they saw as “utopia” after verifying the power of the US government. Thus, they joined the US intention to annex California.
Ide’s presidency lasted twenty-five days, and he would end up being the sole leader of this short-lived state. After the American annexation of California, he would become a simple soldier in the “California Battalion”, controlled by Frémont.
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