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Up The Road: Bear Flag Republic

Håkan Dahlström
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Flickr, Creative Commons
California Republic flag.

Today we head up the road to downtown Sonoma to appreciate the growling of the Bear Flag Republic. There’s no time like our nation’s birthday celebration to recall that California, too, had its day as a rowdy, independent republic—a very short day.

Credit Ashley Van Haeften / Flickr, Creative Commons
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Flickr, Creative Commons
The Bear Flag draped and tied around the Bear Flag Monument, Sonoma, ca.1915.

Remember that in 1823, when California’s last mission was established at Sonoma, California was Mexican. And Mexican leaders feared Russian territorial ambitions. (Consider nearby Fort Ross. So Mexican General Mariano Vallejo (Vah-YAY-ho, more properly) was sent to found a frontier pueblo for Mexico’s Alta California, or upper California. Due to Native American resistance, shall we say, Vallejo initially failed. His third try, the town of Sonoma, was laid out near the mission in 1835. Troops rode out to subdue northern natives on many occasions, but General Vallejo secured the town through his alliance and friendship with the chief of the Suisun, baptized “Solano.”

Peace otherwise reigned until June 14, 1846, when a scruffy band of armed gringos rode into town and took over. Taking orders from Captain (later General) John C. Fremont, these ragtag revolutionaries waged their war for land acquisition and independence unaware that the U.S. had already declared war against Mexico, in May.
 

Credit Suzi Rosenberg / Flickr, Creative Commons
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Flickr, Creative Commons
Mission San Francisco Solano with bell.

There was no battle. Fremont and his freedom fighters met with Vallejo, who peacefully surrendered after graciously offering the Americans some wine. The whole town surrendered, in fact, largely amused by the drama. To dress-up their theft with greater purpose, the Americans declared California a new republic, and quickly fashioned an appropriate banner and ran it up the flagpole on Sonoma Plaza. (Almost no one saluted.) The banner of the Bear Flag Republic flew over Sonoma for just a few weeks, though, before U.S. Navy Commodore John Sloat sailed into Monterey Bay and on July 9 raised the American flag over the Alta California capital, ending Fremont's dream of an independent western republic.

Credit mk97007 / Flickr, Creative Commons
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Flickr, Creative Commons
Seven flags over Sonoma.

About that first California banner: William Todd, a nephew of later President Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary, designed the primitive flag that flew over Sonoma in 1846. The grizzly bear, its primary symbol, was reverse psychological warfare, because the rude, rough-and-tumble Americans had long been nicknamed bears or osos, by the Mexicans. Like the republic’s one star, the flag’s original grizzly was drawn on a petticoat with berry juice. The original artwork was so clumsy, however, that the flat-faced bear was widely mistaken for a pig. A strip of red flannel was stitched along the bottom, below the words "California Republic." The same basic design, with a red star in the upper corner, was officially adopted as the state’s flag in 1911. At last report charred fragments of the original flag (destroyed by fire caused by the massive 1906 San Francisco earthquake) were still on display in the Sonoma Mission museum.

Wander downtown Sonoma to get your bearings, historically. This California-style town was originally adobes and stone buildings built around an eight-acre central plaza. There’s an impressive if romanticized monument to the bear flaggers on the plaza. But spend your time exploring Sonoma State Historic Park, which includes the Sonoma mission and barracks; the remnants of Vallejo's La Casa Grande, or grand original home; the Blue Wing and Toscano Hotels; and Vallejo's adobe-insulated Gothic Victorian retirement home just outside town.
 

Credit Jim Bowen / Flickr, Creative Commons
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Flickr, Creative Commons
General Vallejo’s retirement home outside Sonoma.

As for Vallejo, following the Bear Flag revolt he was rudely imprisoned at Sutter’s Fort for two months. But he went on to become the district’s first state senator, and later, Sonoma’s mayor. Vallejo owned more than 175,000 acres of California lands at one time, though his holdings shrank to a mere five acres by the time he died in 1890. Unlike other California pioneers he wasn’t bitter, despite wild swings in his fate and fortune. “I had my day,” he said, “and it was a proud one.”

Kim Weir is editor of Up the Road, a nonprofit public-interest journalism dedicated to sustaining the Northern California story. A long-time member of the Society of American Travel Writers, Weir is also a former NSPR reporter.