Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Bartlett, John Bartlett. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, During the Years 1850, '51, '52, and '53. New York, London: D. Appleton and Company, 1854.

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John Russell Bartlett. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, During the Years 1850, '51, '52, and '53. New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1854. opposite p. 2:72.

After surveying the new postwar boundary line between the United States and Mexico, Bartlett marveled at San Francisco becoming a global city almost overnight in the early 1850s.

Read a passage from the book

On the 24th of February, I embarked with several officers of the Commission in the steamer Sea Bird, for San Francisco. The boat stopped on the way at the several ports of San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and Monterey; but as the weather was boisterous and attended with rain, I did not land. On the evening of the 27th we reached San Francisco.

To give an account of this wonderful city which has sprung into existence in the last four years, and whose rapid growth and extraordinary prosperity have astonished the world, is not my intention. No city on the face of the globe has ever attained the position that San Francisco has in the same period; and it is yet progressing. It is now almost the first in population on the western coast of the American continent; and but a few years will elapse before it will surpass all the rest. In point of commerce, the great ports of Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the United States alone, can vie with it. As the outlet of the principal and almost only rivers of California, it will continue to bear the same relation to the interior as New Orleans and New York do to the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The harbor of San Francisco is one of the most spacious in the world, easy of access, of a convenient depth for anchorage, and protected from storms. The city itself now presents a strange medley of buildings, from the rudest hovel and canvas tent to the elegant mansion and the most substantial warehouses. The former, however, are rapidly giving way to the latter; and now that bricks of a superior quality are made here, and excellent building stone is found near at hand, no one will think of putting up wooden buildings within the city. In the streets of San Francisco all is bustle and confusion. Crowds are constantly passing and repassing. The wharves are thickly lined with magnificent ships from every quarter of the globe, pouring in their thousands of immigrants, and discharging their valuable cargoes. The ocean steamers, each bearing from five hundred to one thousand passengers, are weekly arriving; while the river boats, which take their daily departure for the interior every morning and evening, present the same moving crowds going and coming as the Hudson River boats at New York. All go full; and one is as much puzzled to find a spare seat or stool on which to rest his weary limbs, as on board the excursion boats from our Atlantic cities. The stages and other means of conveyance are equally crowded. The throng moves to and fro, from the city to the mines and the interior, and thence back again to the city. Go to the business streets, and the auctioneer’s hammer is heard at every turn, knocking off to the anxious bidder every article of commerce. Stocks, gold mines, ships, whole cargoes of merchandise, are bought and sold with the same freedom as in the Royal Exchange of London, the Bourse of Paris, or in Wall-street, New York. There are customers for every thing, and an abundance of gold to meet any purchase however large. There is no project too great for the Californian of the present day. He is ready for any undertaking, whether it be to make a railroad to the Atlantic, to swallow up Mexico, or invade the empire of Japan. New York is now the first city on the American continent, and San Francisco is destined ere long to be second.

San Francisco is said to have obtained its name in the following manner: “When Father Juniper Serra received his orders from the Visitant-general respecting the names which he was to give to the new missions in California, he observed that the name of the founder of their order was not among them, and called the attention of his superior to the fact, exclaiming, ‘Is not our Father San Francisco to have a mission?’ to which the Visitant-general replied, ‘If San Francisco desires a mission, let him show you a port, and he shall have it.’ In the year 1769 an expedition was dispatched from San Diego, for the purpose of settling Monterey. The expedition missed the port, but discovered a much larger and finer bay further to the north, which had been till then unknown. The commander of the expedition and his religious associates decided that this discovery must be the work of St. Francis, and accordingly they gave his name to the place, setting up a cross, and taking possession after the usual manner.[”]

To show the striking contrast between the wants of the zealous priests who colonized California in the year 1770 and the Americans of 1850, I give another quotation from a letter written by the same excellent man to Father Palou. “As May made a year since I received a letter from any Christian country, your Reverence will imagine how deficient we are in news: but for all that, I only ask you and your companions, when you can get an opportunity, to inform me what our most holy Father the reigning Pope is called, that I may put his name in the canon of the mass; also to say if the canonization of the beatified Joseph Cupertino, and Serafino de Asculi has taken place; and if there is any other beatified one, or saint, in order that I may put them in the calendar, and pray to them; we having, it would appear, taken our leave of all printed calendars. Tell me also, if it is true, that the Indians have killed Father Joseph Soler in Sonora, and how it happened; and if there are any other friends defunct, in order that I may commend them to God; with any thing else your Reverence may think fit to communicate to a few poor hermits separated from human society. We proceed to-morrow to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi (although in a very poor manner), in order to scare away whatever imps there possibly may be in this land.”

The Californians of our day, instead of asking for information about beatified men or saints, in order to put them on the calendar and pray to them, would feel a much deeper interest in knowing the state of political parties in the Atlantic States, or the prices of stocks, of sugar, and whiskey; and where one would care to hear about the Pope of Rome, a hundred would prefer news respecting the Emperor of China.