Recently, Katy Perry claimed on her Instagram page that California has always belonged to Mexico and is another example of U.S. racism and bigotry.
That’s not quite … right. California, like most of the world, has a history that’s slightly more complex than will fit an average bumper sticker.
Prior to the Spanish arrival in 1542, there were more than 100 different tribes inhabiting modern-day California. Most were small, and the total population of the area is estimated to be approximately 300,000.
Although there were some minor explorations and small settlements, Spain left California largely unexplored and unsettled for nearly the next 200 years. This was due to a combination of factors such as distance from Spain, the strained Spanish finances, and also because there were no pack animals, little agricultural tradition, and a food supply that was less than appealing to Spanish palates.
By the late 18th century, however, the Spanish decided they needed to better organize their North American territories to preempt incursions from other European powers, particularly the French and Russians. As a result, Spain began a more robust exploration of the state and would slowly colonize it, setting up missions along the vast coastal areas.
By the early part of the 19th century, however, Spain’s fortunes were changing, the empire was stretched too thin, and after a decade of fighting, Mexico gained its independence in 1821. The new nation included what is today Mexico, as well as California and much of the American Southwest, stretching east to Texas and north to Colorado. Here’s where the rub in the argument that the United States stole California begins.
The population of California in 1800 was approximately 300,000 — almost all natives — essentially the same as it had been for centuries. By 1848, however, it had dropped to half of that due to disease, which was responsible for 60-80 percent of the decline, and the Spanish working to death or killing the natives.
California, at the time of Mexico’s independence, was sparsely populated, with just 200,000 people, and that number was rapidly shrinking. For perspective, that’s 0.5 percent of today’s 40 million inhabitants. Add to that the fact that Mexico could barely be called a functioning country, as in the 27 years from 1821 to 1848, it had literally 40 heads of government. As would seem obvious, the governments were dysfunctional, had an incredibly large land mass to govern, little tax revenue coming in, and very limited finances with which to field an army to secure it, never mind to carry out the minimum responsibilities of a government.
To better understand how dysfunctional and empty Mexico was, consider Texas. In 1835, Texas had a population of less than 45,000 people, 30,000 of whom were Anglo settlers who’d been given permission to settle the lands by the Mexican government. The remainder included approximately 7,000 Mexicans and 5,000 black slaves. Because of conflict with the Mexican government on issues from slavery to religion, in October of that year, Texas started a war for independence. By March 1836, it had declared itself the Republic of Texas. That could never have happened had Mexico been able to populate the area on its own or keep it from breaking away. But it couldn’t, so Texas was born.
The American annexation of Texas, a decade later in 1845, was the catalyst that brought California into the United States. When the U.S. annexed Texas, Mexico disputed exactly where the southern border was. The Americans said it was the Rio Grande while the Mexicans said it was the more northern Nueces River. After negotiations failed to reach an agreement, American troops marched to the Rio Grande to bolster the American claim. The Mexicans, seeing this as an encroachment on their land, attacked the American troops, and the United States then declared war.
The war, like the Texas War for Independence, was short, with hostilities ending in September of 1847. After the war, Mexico ceded California and much of what is today the southwest of the United States, as well as relinquished all claims to Texas. At the same time, the Americans paid Mexico $15 million and assumed $3.5 million of debt owed to Americans. After negotiations of terms, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the war was signed in February 1848, and California was admitted to the Union in 1850.
The census of 1850 recorded California’s population at approximately 92,500. But that number only considered the number of whites and did not include blacks, Indians, or Spanish-speaking residents. Over the next 20 years, that native population would decline to approximately 30,000, with diseases being the main cause, but with upwards of 20-25,000 deaths from new settlers killing natives.
The year of 1848 was, of course, an important year for California for another reason: The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill would bring over 300,000 prospectors and treasure hunters into the state from across America and elsewhere. By the 1860 Census, the population of the state was recorded as 379,000, 90 percent of whom were white.
Here, we get to the most interesting part of this argument. If it were truly the case that California belonged to the people who lived there previously, it most certainly wouldn’t be Mexicans. When California became a state, there were very few Mexicans living there, and 50 years later, that had not changed. According to the Census of 1900, California had a population of 1,485,000 people, of which only 8,086 were from Mexico. That’s less than one percent and only two percent of the foreign-born. Compare that to Brits at 85,000, Germans at 72,000, Chinese at 40,000, and half a dozen other countries who had more than Mexico, including Italy, Ireland, France, Sweden, and even Switzerland with 10,000. Certainly, some of the 1.1 million native-born Californians may have had Mexican heritage, but based on the 1860 Census, not very many did.
Which brings us to modern-day California. Today, 40 percent of the state’s 40 million people are Hispanic, and if we suppose that 65 percent of those are Mexican or of Mexican heritage, that would mean about 10 million people living in California are of Mexican heritage.
Ten million is a big number, but the reality is, it doesn’t do a single thing to support the notion that California belongs to Mexico, or that they are the original natives to California. They are clearly not. Almost all of them, or their parents or grandparents, came to the United States within the last century, most likely during the last half century.
The reality is, Californians of Mexican heritage not only have no more claim on California than anyone else, they actually have much less than white and Asian families that go back to the 19th century. Mexico itself has no claims against California because its country was too weak and dysfunctional to even maintain it, never mind defend it.
The United States won California because of winning a war — the way lands have changed hands for virtually all of human history. This latest attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the United States in general and its western states in particular is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst. But of course, leftists never let facts get in the way of a good victimization story.
Vince Coyner writes on politics, culture, entrepreneurship and business.
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