getting hitched

I am the bride who has the font on her wedding invitations picked out before going on the first date.  California history is my potential husband, who likes me, but keeps saying we really need to get to know each other better before we start making plans.  And you all are my bridesmaids, who are going to have to listen to me yammer on for the next six weeks about every piece of minutia on my mad rush to the alter (btw, ladies! I picked out the most amazing band to play the wedding, but more on that once I actually get the song).

Speaking of alters, I had always thought the word libation to simply be another word for an alcoholic beverage, but I figured if I’m naming my podcast The Bear Flag Libation, I should have a better idea of the actual meaning.  It turns out a libation is any liquid that is used as a ritual offering to a god or the dead, usually poured out on a grave or alter.  So when you pour out some of your 40 oz. of Old English malt liquor on to the sidewalk for all your dead homies… that is a libation!  I like this meaning and that sealed the deal with the name.

To strain this wedding metaphor even further, I wanted your guys’ opinion on where I should get the knot tied and do my inaugural episode.  I even created a nice looking poll from the CHNM tool builder that asks this question, but does not record any votes (see below post).  Deciding where and when to begin a history is a tricky thing; here is the case for my top five prospective starting points:

Sonoma- An obvious choice considering the title of the project is taken from the Bear Flag Revolt, which took place in Sonoma in June of 1846.  Though the reports that eventually reached Washington DC described the incident as a siege of “a well-fortified presidio”, the truth was the American settlers had rode into the unmanned town in the middle of the night and simply knocked on the door of Commander Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo.  Despite Vallejo’s hospitality in opening his wine and brandy stores to the motley group of Los Osos (the Bears), they took him captive and sent him off to explorer and “topographer”, Captain John C. Fremont.  The rebels that stayed in Sonoma raised an ad-hoc flag with the picture of a bear and a red star and declared California it’s own free republic, making Sonoma the first American capital of the soon-to-be state (well... not really).

Monterey- The first capital of Alta California in the Spanish and Mexican eras (from 1877-1846), however it seems in the later years what little Californio government there was, was run out of Los Angeles.  There are also some good stories here in the lead up to the Mexican-American War, with Commodore Thomas Jones jumping the gun by four years and seizing the city under belief the war had started.  Also, Fremont shows up again a few months before the war to nonsensically provoke a standoff with General Jose Casto.  Monterey is the spot where the U.S. would officially claim California in July of 1846.

Bolinas- home of the actual oldest bar in California: Smiley’s Schooner Saloon, established in 1849.  I already wrote a piece of Smiley’s for the Boozing By the Bay blog, so makes my job a little easier.  It's also very near the place Sir Francis Drake landed in 1579 and declared the region to be "Nove Albionis" (New Britain).

Dana Point- Besides the fact that Richard Henry Dana gives a lot of insight into what California was like before there were­ many Americans here, there is my own sentimental value in Dana Point, having grown up there.  The first bar that I was ever served booze in was actually in Lubbock, Texas, but that’s another and unrelated story, but the second bar was a place called Turks in the Dana Point Harbor.  I believe I’m older than this bar, but it’s the only dive in town and was known as the place they don’t look at your ID too close.  Turk himself is an interesting character because he was this huge, burly old guy with a white beard that had been a B-movie actor in the 40’s and 50’s.  He always played a pirate or sailor or rapscallion of some sort.  I think there is a good angle about the contrast between R.H. Dana (true rugged sailor and icon of California History) and Turk (the Hollywood image of a rugged sailor, but Hollywood images are just as important to California history than the real deals).
 

Sutter’s Fort- I still don’t know much about the eccentric Swiss adventure and impresario who established New Helvetia (New Switzerland) at the spot where Sacramento now stands.  I’ve heard he had sailed up the Sacramento River from the San Francisco Bay with the plans of carving his own empire out of the unsettled and wild American West (ala Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now).  I know his was the first non-native settlement in the Central Valley.  He seems to have been of the dodgy sort, always swearing his loyalty and giving aid to both the Mexicans and the Americans at the same time.  It’s interesting that he was able to safely hedge his bets for so long and see who came out the winner.

So hopefully you guys can help me chose a good place to begin.  I’d have you vote on that nice looking poll below, but unfortunately my technological inadequacies outweigh my ambition.  So I said screw it and started a twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/BearFlagHistory.