The total population of Upper California (our California, in
contradistinction to the peninsula still held by Mexico), was estimated,
on the 1st of January, 1849, at twenty-six thousand; viz.: natives of
the country (not including Indians) thirteen thousand; United States
Americans, eight thousand; Europeans, five thousand. The aborigines were
estimated, in 1856, by Colonel Henley, superintendent of Indian affairs,
at sixty-five thousand. I deem this a gross exaggeration. Six Indian
reservations have been officially established in different sections of
the state, on which all the Indians have been gathered that could be;
and these amount to barely seventeen thousand two hundred and five,
according to the official returns, which, being the basis of
requisitions on the government, are certain not to fall below the truth.
I do not believe there are so many more Indians in the state; and,
whatever may be the number, it is steadily and rapidly diminishing.
These Indians are generally idle and depraved, while the white men who
come in contact with them are often rascals and ruffians, who hold that
Indians have “no rights that white men are bound to respect.” By these,
the poor savages are intruded upon, hunted, abused, robbed, outraged,
until they are themselves driven to acts of violence, when a “war”
ensues, and they are butchered without mercy. If an honest census of the
various tribes and bands be taken in 1860, their number will not be
found to much exceed thirty thousand, which 1870 will find reduced to
ten thousand. The native or Spanish Californians are already reduced in
number since 1849, and are now mainly confined to the southern
agricultural counties. I have not seen half a dozen of them in a month’s
travel through the heart of the state.
The census of 1850 made the total population of California (Indians not
counted) ninety-two thousand five hundred and ninety-seven; but there
were some counties from which no returns were received, which, it was
estimated, would increase the aggregate to one hundred and seventeen
thousand five hundred and thirty-eight. Only two years thereafter, a
state census was taken, which increased the number to two hundred and
sixty-four thousand four hundred and thirty-five—it having more than
doubled (by immigration) in two years. Of this number, only twenty-two
thousand one hundred and ninety-three were females—less than one-tenth
of the whole; while the great majority were men in the vigorous prime of
life. The state of public morals among a population so disproportioned,
in a land far removed from the restraining influences of home and
kindred, were better imagined than described.
To-day, the total population of the golden state (excluding Indians) is
probably not less than half a million; the census of 1860 will doubtless
give a still larger aggregate. Of these, I judge that some fifty
thousand are Chinese, with about an equal number of Europeans or
Mexicans, not including those who, by treaty or naturalization, have
become American citizens. Of the half million, probably seventy-five
thousand are under eighteen years of age, while perhaps an equal number
are women and girls over eighteen, though I fear not. This would leave
three hundred and fifty thousand men, including boys over eighteen,
nearly all in the prime of life—vigorous, active, enterprising, and
industrious. There are idlers, and drones here as elsewhere; but there
probably was never before a community of half a million people capable
of doing so much good work in a year as this population of California.
The facts that they mine gold to the extent of fifty millions of dollars
annually, while growing four millions of bushels of wheat, five millions
of bushels of barley, with large amounts of other grains and an ample
supply of vegetables and fruits for home consumption, would go far
toward establishing the fact.
But the industry of California produces important results which are not
exhibited above. No part of the union is making more rapid strides in
building, fencing, opening farms, setting fruit-trees, breeding stock,
etc. The number of grape-vines alone was increased from 1,540,134 in
1856 to 3,954,548 last year, (of which 1,650,000 were in the southern
county of Los Angeles alone.) The aggregate will be carried this year
above 6,000,000. Los Angeles in 1857 produced 350,000 gallons of wine.
Probably no other market on earth is so well supplied with fruit
throughout the year as that of San Francisco—a city hardly yet ten years
old. Strawberries are abundant here to-day, and are in season from April
to December. Raspberries are ripe in May, and are now plentiful and
perfect. Peaches are fresh from June to November. Grapes come in July,
and are sold till December. All these and other fruits require
preparation and outlay before they begin to make returns. The orchards
and vineyards of California have cost millions of dollars, which are
destined to return to their proprietors with interest in the course of a
few years. As yet, there are probably more apple-trees in the state than
there have been gathered bushels of apples up to this day.
The following are the latest school statistics of the state that I have
been able to find:
Year. Com. Schools. Teachers. [13]Pupils.
1853 53 56 11,242
1856 313 417 30,019
1857 367 486 36,222
Footnote 13:
This number of pupils was not in actual attendance on the schools, but
is a return of all the children between four and eighteen years living
in the cities or towns which had organized schools. The number who
actually attended school for even a part of a term was of course much
smaller.
Next after the deficiency of women shown to exist in the population of
California, this “beggarly account” of schools is the darkest shade in
the picture. I believe I have seen but _two_ school-houses outside of
cities or considerable villages in the course of my travels through the
state. And, so long as _ranches_, of five hundred to many thousand acres
each, stand in place of small, neat, well-cultivated farms, this
deficiency, though it may be modified, will continue.
I have visited several of the common schools of San Francisco, and found
them admirable in their appointments, under intelligent and vigilant
supervision, and in a high state of efficiency. There may somewhere be
better managed Seminaries than the High School, but I never entered
their doors. Most of the smaller cities are taking hold of the subject
in the right spirit, but under many disadvantages. Youth are too often
kept away from school to earn money which their parents could do
without, and many parents wait till they have improved their
circumstances essentially before they think of educating their children.
I was told in Marysville that many of the pupils of fourteen years and
upward, in her schools, were just learning to read. There ought to be
two thousand good common schools in operation this winter in California;
but I fear there will not be six hundred. I entreat the early and
earnest attention of her better citizens to her lamentable lack of
schools. In no way can her energy and wealth be better employed than in
multiplying and improving them.