Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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His good name made it possible for Frémont to purchase in 1847 the Rancho Las Mariposas land grant in the Sierra Nevada foothills outside of Yosemite, where gold discoveries enriched the young and energetic 33-year-old adventurer. He acquired large landholdings in San Francisco, including a Golden Gate mansion, and had a luxurious lifestyle in Monterey. By 1850 he was a wealthy and successful man.

Of course, what generated popularity for Frémont among the Anglo-American settlers in California from 1846 to 1850 in no way aided his legacy. Many of his actions were intemperate and ill-conceived, and reflected a mean streak not always complimentary to his character. After meeting with President James K. Polk in Washington, DC in the early months of 1845, Frémont went to St. Louis and organized a group of military volunteers who traveled with him to Sutter’s Fort in California, arriving in December of that year. In May 1846 he and his volunteers, including Kit Carson, attacked and destroyed a Modoc fishing village at Lake Klamath in south-central Oregon. Although the action was supposedly in retaliation for an earlier Indian assault, the evidence suggests that the villagers were not involved in the first action. Later the bloodlust continued when Frémont and his followers without provocation wiped out a series of Maidu villages on the Sacramento River, slaughtering men, women, and children.⁴¹