The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915 Page: 137
438 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Early Sentiment for A nnexation of (California
first part of 1845. His book was immediately seized upon by a
public hungering for news of the regions west of the Rocky
Mountains.3 Written in a terse and interesting style, it at once
brought its author into prominence and drew the attention of hun-
dreds of readers to the country of which he wrote.
Though only a portion of the complete report dealt with Cali-
fornia," no other part was equal to this in graphic description.
After a month of constant battle with the snows and starvation
of the mountains," Fremont and his party had reached the valley
of the Sacramento at a time of the year when it was to be seen
at its best. The contrast between the life and death struggle in
the Sierras and this land of grass and flowers, well watered and
timbered, full of game, and with the same "deep-blue sky and
sunny climate of Smyrna and Palermo," was most dramatic in
its appeal to the imagination." One does not wonder that visitors,
eager to hear more of this new land, so crowded upon the Ameri-
can explorer that he was compelled to. secure a separate building
for his workshop ;7 while Webster, still the friend of annexation,
invited him to dine and "talk about California."''
'The report ran through four editions within two years. It is interest-
ing to note that one of Fremont's chief objects was to discover whether or
not the mythical Buenaventura River flowed from the basin east of the
Rocky Mountains into the Pacific, thus opening up a waterway for the
western outlet of the Mississippi Valley and a transcontinental route for
the Chinese trade. Because no such river was found to exist he placed
much more importance on obtaining the Columbia for the United States.
Report, 255-256.
'The description of Fri6mont's passage of the Sierras and his stay in
California occupies pages 229-256 of the Report.
"Two men went temporarily insane; half their mules were killed for
food. Report, 229-244. Sutter wrote to Larkin, March 28, 1844, ".
for a month . . . the company had subsisted entirely on horse or
mule flesh-the starvation and fatigue they had endured rendered them
truly deplorable objects." Official Correspondence, Pt. II, No. 3. The
passage of the mountains occupied nearly a month. The party reached
Sutter's March 6th.
FrmOnont's description of California cannot be given by separate quota-
tions. The whole of it must be read to be appreciated. One sentence,
written after his departure, may be cited- merely as an example. "One
might travel the world over," he wrote, "without finding a valley more
fresh and verdant-more floral and sylvan-more alive with birds and
animals-more bounteously watered-than we had left in the San Joaquin."
Report, 256.
'John Charles Fr6mont, Memoirs of My Life (Chicago and New York.
Bedford, Clarke and Company, 1887), I, 413.
"Ibid., 420.137
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915, periodical, 1915; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101064/m1/143/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.