Research Catalog

Title

California : a study of American character : from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in San Francisco / by Josiah Royce ; introduction by Ronald A. Wells.

Author

Royce, Josiah, 1855-1916

Publication

Berkeley : Heyday Books, c2002.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Wells, Ronald, 1941-

Description

xxxviii, 394, xv p.; 21 cm.

Series Statement

A California legacy book

Uniform Title

California legacy book.

Subject

• San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1856
• National characteristics, American
• California > History

Genre/Form

History

Note

• Originally published: Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1886.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• 1. Introduction: The territory and the strangers -- The land -- Outlines of older California history -- The Californians as a people -- The Americans in California before the conquest -- 2. The American as conqueror: the secret mission and the bear flag -- The confidential agent, and the beginnings of war -- The bear flag heroes -- Sloat, the administration, and the mystery of the secret mission -- The mystery as formerly expounded by Captain Fremont's friends -- Californian hostility as a cause for war -- The mystery as now expounded by General Fremont -- The mystery deepens -- Only one dispatch contains the secret mission -- The mystery as expounded by the one dispatch -- Supplementary evidence and summary
• 3. The conquest completed, the interregnum, and the birth of the state -- The conquerors and their consciences -- Sloat, the Larkin intrigue, and the English legend -- The wolf and the lamb -- The revolt and the reconquest -- The conquerors as rulers and as subjects; quarrels, discontent, and aspiration -- The beginnings of the American San Francisco -- Gold, newcomers, and illusions -- The ways to the new land -- The struggle for a constitution -- The Constitutional Convention and its outcome -- 4. The struggle for order: self-government, good humor, and violence in the mines -- The philosophy of California history during the golden days -- The evolution of disorder -- Pan and cradle as social agents: mining society in the summer of 1848 -- Mining society in 1849 and 1850, and the beginning of sluice-mining -- The spirit of the miners' justice of 1851 and 1852: the miners on their own law -- Miners' justice in action: characteristic scenes and incidents -- A typical history of a mining camp in 1851-2 -- The warfare against the foreigners -- The Downieville lynching of July 5, 1851 -- The attainment of order
• 5. Social evolution in San Francisco -- The new city and the great fires -- The moral insanities of the golden days -- Conservatism, churches, and families -- Popular justice in February 1851 -- The first vigilance committee -- Social corruption and commercial disaster -- The new awakening of conscience -- The crisis of May 1856 -- Popular vengeance and the new movement -- Perils and triumphs of the great committee -- 6. Land-titles and politics -- Early land troubles -- The native population, and the later struggle for the land -- Early political conflicts -- Conclusion.

ISBN

189077152X (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2002010510

OCLC

• 50149529
• SCSB-11045718

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library