Every California schoolchild learns of the hundreds of pioneers, seeking a better life for their families, who came overland in covered wagons in the 1840s to settle here when the territory was owned by Mexico. Those settlers indeed brought a new social order; but before them, many individuals entered California in the late 1820s and 1830s, who were just as influential in a different way.
In the 1820s – 1830s, almost all of them were men. They came as fur trappers, hunters of beaver and otter; as agents for the various hide and tallow trade shipping interests; as merchants, horse traders, ship captains, ordinary sailors and roving adventurers, all of them foreigners insofar as the citizens of Mexican California were concerned. Some were simply visiting, while others stayed to become permanent citizens.
The first intruder from the east was Jedediah Smith, an American who entered the province via a southern route with his party of fur trappers in 1826, and again in 1827. Greeted with suspicion, Smith finally convinced Mexican authorities to allow him passage (though he ignored the limitations imposed), but was later killed in New Mexico. William Wolfskill, another American trapper, arrived in 1831 with fellow trapper George Yount. Wolfskill settled in Los Angeles and was very influential in the development of California agriculture, not only becoming the largest wine producer in the region, but credited with developing the Valencia orange. George Yount become the first permanent settler in the Napa Valley.
Of the more notable sea captains involved in commercial maritime pursuits, several were in residence here before 1830, as was Abel Stearns, an American trader who soon became a prominent citizen in Los Angeles. Thomas O. Larkin, a merchant later appointed United States’ consul to Mexican California, arrived by sea in 1832. The following year he married his shipmate Rachel Holmes, the first American woman to live permanently in California.
Excepting certain difficulties with the early trappers, the newcomers, as a class, were law-abiding citizens of considerable influence in the province. In those years the Californians were, as a rule, favorably disposed towards foreigners, appreciating their industriousness and the benefits they brought. Many of these young foreign men married into prominent families, became naturalized citizens, and accepted the Mexican lifestyle of the period.
By 1840, the year before the first overland immigration of Americans began, the total population in California (excluding Indians) stood at 5,780, of which an estimated 380 were foreigners.
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