Book Notes

(from the California HISTORIAN)

John Sutter: A Life on the
North American Frontier

By Albert L. Hurtado

University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 2006
412 pages, $34.95 hardback, $24.95 paperback

Reviewed by Robert J. Chandler
Wells Fargo Historical Services

Albert L. Hurtado, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, returns to his birthplace of New Helvetia to present the finest biography yet written of John Sutter (1803-1880). Succinct chapter titles outline the story, while short, pointed chapters stuffed with graceful, lucid prose fill it out. Hurtado’s Sutter embodies complexities, a confidence man, yet an ethical dreamer; an alcoholic for 20 years, but an able manager; a horrible businessman and still an optimistic believer in the goodness of humanity.

An able preface states “enthusiasm and optimism marked everything that Sutter did. Generosity was perhaps his most endearing trait.” Above all, “he really did like people.” Still Sutter moved always one step ahead of his creditors, from Switzerland, to Missouri, to New Mexico, to Hawaii, and in 1839, to California. He lived for fame, Hurtado, astutely observes. “He only cared for what money could buy,” not money itself. He would become “someone to be respected and reckoned with.” (xiii-xiv)

Sutter gambled his life when he settled on the California frontier among the Nisenan and Miwok Indians to be a wheat grower, cattle rancher and horse trader. He built an empire on Indian labor, alternately conciliating, employing, praising, promoting and governing his friends, and defeating, capturing and selling his foes. Exercising life and death can be most reprehensible and Hurtado rightly condemns excesses. Sutter, though, did not wantonly exterminate Indians, as did Captain John Frémont in 1846 and gold seekers later.

Angry Indians instead could have exterminated Sutter at any time, but his Indian army of 150 infantry and 50 cavalry protected his fort. Sutter mediated between tribes and worked individually with Indian horse thieves and slave traders, disreputable American trappers and settlers, Mexican and Californio politicians, and anyone else who showed up, yet Hurtado tells of no assassination attempts. In contrast, Michele Shover details two almost successful plots in the 1850s by Indian workers to kill John Bidwell, Sutter’s well respected former clerk.

From his earliest days in America, the glib Sutter set a pattern, he “misled and swindled” partners, yet so did everyone else on the harsh frontier. In Sutter, such men “recognized in him a man who was as calculating and ruthless as they were” in determination to succeed. (26, 51)

“His most important asset was himself,” Hurtado asserts throughout the book. “Sheer energy and optimistic enthusiasm suffused all of his plans, no matter how grandiose or improbable of realization. Sutter was convinced that if he dreamed enough large dreams eventually he would succeed—if only he could hold off narrow-minded and unreasonable men who demanded payment when notes fell due.” However, even his Russian creditors for the sale of Fort Ross declared “Captain Sutter was the best and surest debtor.” They did not want the penniless Mexican government buying New Helvetia, for Sutter worked to fill his wheat contracts and ultimately paid his bills. (66, 162)

Hurtado admits, “The whole province did business on promises to pay” and the web of debts and credits tied all together. The United States Government did business similarly. Those who used their own funds during the exigencies of Indian wars or fulfilling mail contracts, for instance, tried for decades to get reimbursement. The 2008 collapse of a financial market built on promises to pay emphasizes that such behavior has not vanished. Now, enslaved corporate “Indians” suffer for the mistakes and greed of their chiefs. (85)

With revived interest in the Bear Flag Revolt, Hurtado rehabilitates it from the 1880s scorn by historians Josiah Royce and Hubert Howe Bancroft. As sentiment for war grew between Mexico and the United States, on November 11, 1845, Comandante General José Castro worked to protect his frontier. He opened negotiations for the Mexican Government to buy New Helvetia and expel Sutter, the settlers’ greatest friend, from California. Castro also proclaimed, in what Hurtado alleges was “a conciliatory gesture,” that the American settlers could remain provisionally. Newly arrived Americans, instead, became wary. (162)

Well they should have been alarmed. In late May 1846, Castro, rather than buying New Helvetia, wished instead to kill all of the foreigners and especially Sutter. “Sutter was a special target of Castro’s Indian war,” Hurtado states. “With Castro’s encouragement, Indian raiders were to torch the tinder-dry wheat fields, steal livestock, and harass the settlers. Castro would then fall upon the weakened and demoralized settlers.”

In particular, Castro made the fight personal. He gave “the Muqueleme leader Eusebio a rifle with which to kill Sutter.” Hurtado concludes that Sutter held “a sincere belief that [the plot] was real” and he promptly dispatched a courier to Captain Frémont’s camp. Within two weeks, the Bears marched on Sonoma.
During the Gold Rush, Sutter brought his wife and children from Switzerland, yet he ignored the good actions of son August who got him virtually out of debt. Sutter, the alcoholic and ignorer of details, squandered away his land. Rapacious land sharks led by Sam Brannan stripped his financial bones, for participants in “the California land game” gained wealth through “words, lawsuits, and gall.” (305)

In such a detailed biography, an overview becomes misty. Chapter by chapter, Hurtado’s theme is: “Eventually Sutter’s luck would run out, as it always did.” Yet, was Sutter a failure? Compare him with his prominent contemporaries of 1846. Today, only scholars can name the Californio and Mexican government officials. Astute General Mariano Vallejo, no drunkard, also lost a fortune, while soulless Sam Brannan ended up drunk and broke. John Frémont had numerous opportunities for fame and fortune and failed at both. As for John Sutter, from 1841 through 1848 overland wagons rolled in and he gave “succor to strangers in a strange land.” Hurtado concludes, “This was his finest moment as a human being.” (107, 90).

After an arsonist burnt Hock Farm in 1865, Sutter had lost all. Yet, he gained redemption. Sutter stopped drinking, settled in the Pennsylvania German town of Lititz, and with his wife Anna, raised grandchildren.

Al Hurtado writes a good book, regardless of subject. John Sutter: A Life on the North American Frontier is his ablest. Buy it.