Before the 1849
California Gold Rush,
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n fur hunters were drawn to
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
(and then
Mexican)
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
in a California Fur Rush, to exploit its enormous fur resources. Before 1825, these Europeans were drawn to the northern and central California coast to harvest prodigious quantities of southern
sea otter (''Enhydra lutris nereis'') and
fur seal
Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the subfamily Arctocephalinae in the family '' Otariidae''. They are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears (pinnae), relatively l ...
s (''Callorhinus ursinus''), and then to the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
and
Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta to harvest
beaver (''Castor canadensis''),
river otter (''Lontra canadensis''),
marten,
fisher
Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral.
Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to:
Places
Australia
*Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland
*Elect ...
,
mink,
gray fox
The gray fox (''Urocyon cinereoargenteus''), or grey fox, is an omnivorous mammal of the family Canidae, widespread throughout North America and Central America. This species and its only congener, the diminutive island fox (''Urocyon littor ...
(''Urocyon cinereoargenteus''),
weasel
Weasels are mammals of the genus ''Mustela'' of the family Mustelidae. The genus ''Mustela'' includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender b ...
, and
harbor seal
The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared se ...
. It was California's early fur trade, more than any other single factor, that opened up the West, and the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
in particular, to world trade.
Coastal or maritime fur trade
Just three years after
Juan de Ayala
Juan Manuel de Ayala y Aranza (28 December 1745 – 30 December 1797) was a Spanish naval officer who played a significant role in the European exploration of California, since he and the crew of his ship the ''San Carlos'' are the first European ...
sailed the first ship to pass through the Golden Gate in 1775, North America's
Pacific Coast fur trade began, but not by the Spanish who had sailed the California coast since
João Rodrigues Cabrilho
João is the Portuguese equivalent of the given name John. The diminutive is Joãozinho and the feminine is Joana. It is widespread in Portuguese-speaking countries. Notable people with the name are enumerated in the sections below.
Kings
* ...
's voyage in 1542 and
Sebastián Vizcaíno
Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548–1624) was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Asia.
Early career
Vizcaíno was born in 154 ...
's mapping of coastal California in 1602. It began in 1778 with
Captain James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
's third voyage, when otter skins were obtained at
Nootka Sound
, image = Morning on Nootka Sound.jpg
, image_size = 250px
, alt =
, caption = Clouds over Nootka Sound
, image_bathymetry =
, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry = Map of Nootka So ...
on the
Northwest Coast and, although Cook was killed in Hawaii on the way to China, his men were shocked at the high prices paid by the Chinese.
A profit of 1,800% was made. In 1783, when John Ledyard reported in Connecticut that enormous profits could be made selling otter skins to China, New England began sending American ships to hunt sea otter, and later, beaver, on the Pacific coast as early as 1787.
[ That the California fur trade had begun by 1785, just ten years after Ayala landed in San Francisco Bay, is evidenced by the Spanish issuance of regulations to govern the collection of otter skins in California.] The west coast fur trade enabled New England merchants to recover from the economic collapse which followed the American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, and was exacerbated by closure of British home and colonial ports to American trade.
France sent La Pérouse to California in 1786 to investigate the fur trade opportunity and he "obtained about a thousand sea otter skins which he sold in China for ten thousand dollars" and shared that "The Indians...at Monterey...catch them on land with snares...". La Perouse also said that "Antecedent to this year (1786) an otter's skin bore no higher value than two hare's skins; the Spanish never suspected that they would be much sought after."[ Apparently the Spanish had not earlier appreciated the value of furs, being from warmer climes, despite sea otter described in 1776 off Fort Point (then ''Cantil Blanco'') in San Francisco Bay by Father Pedro Font on the ]De Anza Expedition
Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736 – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fa ...
. Font wrote, "I beheld a prodigy of nature, which is not easy to describe.... We saw the spouting of young whales, a line of dolphins or tunas, besides seals and otters..." However, they mounted a major commercial otter hunting enterprise in California when Vicente Vasadre y Vega arrived just one month before La Perouse, and implemented a plan whereby all otter skins had to be sold to him and they quickly recruited the Christian Indians at the Missions to bring in pelts. Vasadre sailed to San Blas on November 28, 1786 with 1,060 otter skins, to be shipped to the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
on the Manila galleon
fil, Galyon ng Maynila
, english_name = Manila Galleon
, duration = From 1565 to 1815 (250 years)
, venue = Between Manila and Acapulco
, location = New Spain (Spanish Empire ...
s.
Robert Gray, captain of the ship ''Columbia'' rediscovered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792 on his second voyage to the Pacific Coast. Although the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta
Bruno de Heceta (Hezeta) y Dudagoitia (1743–1807) was a Spanish Basque explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Bilbao of an old Basque family, he was sent by the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, to explore the area nort ...
came to the river's mouth in 1775, no other explorer or fur trader had been able to find it since. By the 1790s American ships dominated the coastal fur trade south of Russian America.[ In fact, ]Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
ian ships dominated the fur trade between California and China through the 1820s, when the sea otter supply was exhausted, and well before the first American mountain man, Jedediah Smith pioneered overland to California in pursuit of beaver pelts in 1826.
The Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty (russian: Под высочайшим Его Императорского Величества покровительством Российская-Американс ...
's Ivan Kuskov
Ivan Aleksandrovich Kuskov (russian: Иван Александрович Кусков; 1765–1823) was the senior assistant to Aleksandr Baranov, the Chief Administrator of the Russian-American Company (RAC).
Biography
He was a native of Tot ...
sailed into Bodega Bay in 1809 on the ''Kad'yak'' and returned to Novoarkhangelsk (Sitka) with beaver skins and over 2,000 sea otter pelts. They settled Fort Ross
Fort Ross ( Russian: Форт-Росс, Kashaya ''mé·ṭiʔni''), originally Fortress Ross ( pre-reformed Russian: Крѣпость Россъ, tr. ''Krepostʹ Ross''), is a former Russian establishment on the west coast of North America i ...
and vicinity in order to pursue the animals in the region and to provide food for their Alaskan settlements. In his 1896 history of the Russian settlement of California, Thompson wrote of Kuskov's first voyage to Bodega Bay in 1809: "After carefully exploring the surrounding country, some temporary buildings were erected, some otter and beaver skins were procured, and friendly relations were established with the Indians".[ Before establishing a southern colony at ]Fort Ross
Fort Ross ( Russian: Форт-Росс, Kashaya ''mé·ṭiʔni''), originally Fortress Ross ( pre-reformed Russian: Крѣпость Россъ, tr. ''Krepostʹ Ross''), is a former Russian establishment on the west coast of North America i ...
, the Russian-American Company contracted with American ships beginning in 1810, providing them with Aleuts
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the U ...
and ''baidarka
The baidarka or Aleutian kayak (Aleut: iqyax) is a watercraft consisting of soft skin (artificial or natural) over a rigid space frame. Its initial design was created by the native Aleut (or Unangan) people of the Aleutian Islands. The Aleut pe ...
s'' (kayaks) to hunt otter on the coast of Spanish California. From 1810 to 1812, Americans contracted to the Russians snuck Aleuts into San Francisco Bay multiple times, despite the Spanish capturing or shooting them while hunting sea otters in the estuaries of San Jose, San Mateo, and San Bruno
San Bruno (Spanish for " St. Bruno") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, incorporated in 1914. The population was 43,908 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is between South San Francisco and Millbrae, adjacent to ...
and around Angel Island Angel Island may refer to:
*Angel Island (California), historic site of the United States Immigration Station, Angel Island, and part of Angel Island State Park, in San Francisco Bay, California
* Angel Island, Papua New Guinea
* ''Angel Island'' (n ...
.[ Kuskov, this time in the schooner ''Chirikov'', returned to Bodega Bay in 1812; finding otter now scarce, he sent a party of Aleuts to San Francisco Bay where they met another Russian party and an American party and caught 1,160 sea otters in three months. By 1817, sea otters in the area were practically eliminated and the Russians sought permission from the Spanish and the Mexican governments to hunt further and further south of San Francisco. In 1824, Russian-American Fur Company agent and writer Kiril Timofeevich Khlebnikov contracted with Captain John Cooper to take several of their hunting baidarkas on his trading schooner ''Rover'' along with Aleut hunters to hunt sea otter as far south as the 30th parallel on the Baja California peninsula.]
The American ships ''Albatross'' under Nathan Winship ''O'Cain'' under his brother Jonathan Winship were sent from Boston in 1809 to establish a settlement on the Columbia River. In 1810, they met up with two other American ships at the Farallon Islands, the ''Mercury'' and the ''Isabella'', and at least 30,000 seal skins were taken. By 1822, the Farallons' fur seal hunt had diminished to 1,200 annually and the Russians suspended the hunt for two years.[ Although American ships had already exploited the islands, the Russians maintained a sealing station in the Farallon Islands from 1812 to 1840, taking 1,200 to 1,500 fur seals annually, . From 1824 on, the subsequent catch continued a steady decline until only about 500 could be taken annually; within the next few years, the seal was extirpated from the islands.]
The California fur trade ended as fur-bearers of all kinds were depleted in the first half of the nineteenth century. After sailing up and down the California coast, Richard Henry Dana recorded on May 8, 1836 at his last stop in San Diego how the trade in cattle hides had overtaken the fur trade: "Our forty thousand attlehides and thirty thousand horns, besides several barrels of otter and beaver skins, were all stowed below, and the hatches calked down." As the marine fur-bearers became too depleted to hunt and contracts with the Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...
provided food for the Alaskan settlements, the Russians abandoned Fort Ross in 1841.
The mammals today
California golden beaver are recolonizing the Bay Area by traversing north San Francisco Bay (from east to west) : Kirker Creek in the Dow Wetlands of Pittsburg, Fairfield Creek in Cordelia
Cordelia is a feminine given name. It was borne by the tragic heroine of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' (1606), a character based on the List of legendary kings of Britain, legendary queen Cordelia of Britain, Cordelia. The name is of uncertain origi ...
, Alhambra Creek in Martinez, Southampton Creek in Benicia State Recreation Area
Benicia State Recreation Area is a state park unit of California, United States, protecting tidal wetland. It is located in the Solano County city of Benicia, west of downtown Benicia and borders Vallejo's Glen Cove neighborhood. The park cov ...
, the Napa Sonoma Marsh
The Napa Sonoma Marsh is a wetland at the northern edge of San Pablo Bay, which is a northern arm of the San Francisco Bay in California, United States. This marsh has an area of 48,000 acres (194 km2), of which 13,000 acres (53 km2) are ...
in north San Pablo Bay
San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water c ...
, the Napa River
The Napa River is a river approximately long in the U.S. state of California. It drains a famous wine-growing region called the Napa Valley, in the mountains north of the San Francisco Bay. Milliken Creek and Mt. Veeder watersheds are a few ...
, and Sonoma Creek
, name_etymology =
, image = Beaver Dam Sonoma Creek, Sonoma Thanksgiving 2009.jpg
, image_caption = Beaver dam on Sonoma Creek at Maxwell Farms Regional Park in Sonoma, California, 2009
, image_size = 300
, ma ...
. These beaver likely emigrated from the Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta")
* Delta Air Lines, US
* Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19
Delta may also ...
which once sustained the densest beaver populations in North America. In addition, beaver were re-introduced in the 1930s by the California Department of Fish and Game to Pescadero Creek
Pescadero Creek is a major stream in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties in California, United States. At ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 15, 2011 it is the longes ...
and sometime before 1993 in Lexington Reservoir
Lexington Reservoir is an artificial lake on the Los Gatos Creek near Los Gatos, California. The James J. Lenihan Dam, a high, thick earthen dam, forms the third-largest reservoir in Santa Clara County.
Background
The reservoir i ...
in the south San Francisco Bay area, where they have colonized Los Gatos Creek, then the Guadalupe River, and then traversed the south Bay to colonize Coyote Creek.
The spring 2007 sea otter survey counted 3,026 sea otters in the central California coast, down from an estimated pre-fur trade population of 16,000. California's sea otters are the descendants of a single colony of about 50 southern sea otters discovered near the mouth of Bixby Creek along California's Big Sur coast in 1938; their principal range is now from just south of San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
to Santa Barbara County
Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria.
Santa Barba ...
.[
]Northern fur seal
The northern fur seal (''Callorhinus ursinus'') is an eared seal found along the north Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk. It is the largest member of the fur seal subfamily (Arctocephalinae) and the only living species in t ...
s (''Callorhinus ursinus'') began to recolonize the Farallon Islands in 1996.
Both the California golden beaver and southern sea otter are considered keystone species, with a stabilizing and broad impact on their local ecosystems.
See also
* Maritime fur trade
* List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area
These watercourses (rivers, creeks, sloughs, etc.) in the San Francisco Bay Area are grouped according to the bodies of water they flow into. Tributaries are listed under the watercourses they feed, sorted by the elevation of the confluence so tha ...
* Ecology of the San Francisco Estuary
* Martinez, California beavers
The Martinez beavers are a family of North American beavers living in Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, California. Best known as the longtime home of famed 19th/20th-century naturalist John Muir, Martinez has become a national example of ur ...
* North American beaver
The North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') is one of two extant beaver species, along with the Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber''). It is native to North America and introduced in South America ( Patagonia) and Europe (primarily Finland ...
* Beaver in the Sierra Nevada
The North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') had a historic range that overlapped the Sierra Nevada in California. Before the European colonization of the Americas, beaver were distributed from the arctic tundra to the deserts of northern ...
* Sea otter
* Sea otter conservation
Sea otter conservation began in the early 20th century, when the sea otter was nearly extinct due to large-scale commercial hunting. The sea otter was once abundant in a wide arc across the North Pacific ocean, from northern Japan to Alaska to Me ...
* California hide trade
The California hide trade was a trading system of various products based in cities along the California coastline, operating from the early 1820s to the mid-1840s.
In exchange for hides and tallow from cattle owned by California ranchers, sailors ...
References
External links
The Martinez Beavers
Beaver Mapper (interactive maps of the current distribution of beavers in CA and OR)
{{Fur trade regions
Pre-statehood history of California
History of the San Francisco Bay Area
Maritime history of California
Russian America
Fur trade
Commodity booms