TWHP


John Sutter, 1803-1880   

A bankrupt from Germany who traveled to America in search of success, John Sutter proved a man of limited vision who squandered great opportunities because of an inability to adjust to fast changing conditions. Of Swiss descent, Sutter left his family behind when he traveled in 1839 to Monterey, California, where he convinced the Mexican governor to grant him 50,000 acres somewhere east of Yerba Buena/San Francisco. Mandated to settle the land at the north end of the Central Valley, Sutter was supposed to pacify the Indians and discourage trappers, Russian expansionists and American settlers from entering the region. Choosing a site at what is now Sacramento, Sutter constructed a substantial adobe fort at the point where what he called the American River joined the Sacramento River. He named his fiefdom New Helvetia in honor of his Swiss heritage, and within the decade he reunited his family within the little empire. He employed legions of Indians in a vast enterprise that came to include extensive fields of grain, large orchards and 13,000 head of cattle. Despite the orders to eject American settlers, Sutter proved a hospitable host who more often than not eased their way into the new land, behavior that served him well during the turbulent period marked by the Mexican War and its aftermath. About the same time the conflct ended in 1848, one of his employees--John Marshall--discovered gold along the American River while building a sawmill. Sutter's response was to try to keep it a secret and continue as before with his dreams of agrarian splendor. As the hordes flooded in, he saw his land and cattle carved up by voracious squatters. Sam Brannan arranged with Sutter to open a store at the fort, and later to sell off his land; Brannan became a millionaire while Sutter slid into penury. But while Brannan drank, made deals and grabbed at every opportunity, Sutter drank and drifted into a helpless despair as he saw his original hopes rendered irrelevant; rather than adjust, he felt sorry for himself. He slid into bankruptcy in 1852, and spent most of the rest of his life lobbying Washington for compensation for his losses. He died there on one such mission, and despite self-pity at his misfortune, he could at least claim a decent home of his own. Sam Brannan, California's first millionaire and Sutter's erstwhile partner, died under a squalid roof not his own, penniless but unbowed.


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