Note 2 — Group II. BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN IDEA. (continued 2)

Sutter's Fort. Captain John A. Sutter was by birth a Swiss. He came from Missouri to California in 1838-39, and made the first settlement in the valley on a tract granted him by the Mexican Government in consideration of his keeping the Indians in check. To this end he built a fort, and armed it with guns bought of the abandoned Russian Colony at Bodega. The fort was a quadrangular structure, built of adobe, mounting twelve guns, and capable of containing a thousand men, though Fremont found in it but thirty whites, and forty Indians whom Sutter had domesticated. It stood on the banks of a creek running to the American River. Vessels ascended to within two miles of it. Fremont found in Sutter's Fort a base ready prepared for his operations against the Californians. Though holding a Mexican commission, Sutter soon joined the American party himself. The fort is perhaps best known in connection with the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, now Coloma, fifty miles above it. Sutter lived here independently, raising large crops and herds with Indian laborers. His extensive grant was called New Helvetia, and included the site of Sacramento City. Except this, the Spaniards had neither post nor settlement in the great basin of California.