finally shipped as supercargo of a ship bound for Sitka. In returning,
the vessel entered the Bay of San Francisco, but was not allowed to
land, and Monterey was reached before Sutter was permitted to set foot
upon California soil. From Governor Alvarado he obtained the right
of settling in the Sacramento Valley. After exploring the Sacramento,
Feather, and American Rivers, finally, on the sixteenth of August, 1839,
he landed near the present site of Sacramento City, and determined to
permanently locate. Soon afterward he began the construction of the
famous Sutter's Fort. He took possession of the surrounding country,
naming it New Helvetia. One of the first difficulties to be overcome was
the hostility of the Indian tribes who inhabited the Sacramento and San
Joaquin valleys. Kindness and humane treatment were generally sufficient
to cause these Indians to become his allies, yet in more than one
instance he was obliged to resort to arms. Considering the size of his
army, there is a sort of grim heroism in the fact that he successfully
waged at times a defensive and at times an aggressive warfare. His
entire army was composed of six white men, who had been collected from
different parts of the world, and eight Kanakas.

Dunbar, in describing Sutter's situation, says: "This portion of upper
California, though fair to look upon, was peculiarly solitary and
uninviting in its isolation and remoteness from civilization. There was
not even one of those cattle ranches, which dotted the coast at long
intervals, nearer to Sutter's locality than Suisun and Martinez, below
the mouth of the Sacramento. The Indians of the Sacramento were known
as 'Diggers.' The efforts of the Jesuit Fathers, so extensive on this
continent, and so beneficial to the wild Indians wherever missions were
established among them, never reached the wretched aborigines of the
Sacramento country. The valley of the Sacramento had not yet become the
pathway of emigrants from the East, and no civilized human being lived
in this primitive and solitary region, or roamed over it, if we except a
few trappers of the Hudson Bay Company."

Out of this solitude and isolation, Sutter, as if with a magician's
wand, brought forth wealth and evolved for himself a veritable little
kingdom. Near the close of the year 1839, eight white men joined his
colony, and in 1840 his numbers were increased by five others. About
this time the Mokelumne Indians became troublesome, and w