During the years California was ruled by Mexico, visitors
and settlers from the United States arrived in ever greater numbers.
These interlopers were harbingers of the change in sovereignty that
would come to California with the Mexican American War.
The earliest
visitors from the United States were sea-otter hunters who sailed
along the California coast. The story of "Jedediah
and the Beaver" reminds us that the first group of Americans
to arrive overland came in search of beaver pelts in California's
great Central Valley. New Englander Richard Henry Dana was among
those who came to take advantage of the Californio's penchant for
trading hides and tallow for imported manufactured goods.
The first
wagon train of overland settlers from the United States arrived
in California in 1841. The perils of the Donner Party while
attempting to cross the Sierra Nevada starkly revealed the dangers
of the overland trail--dangers that would take the lives of countless
others in the years ahead.
Official United States interest in acquiring
California grew steadily in the 1840s. The Jones Incident of 1842
was an embarrassing prelude
to the far more decisive events of the upcoming war between Mexico
and the United States.
