Harbingers of Change
During the years California was ruled by Mexico, visitors and settlers from the United States arrived in ever greater numbers. These interlopers were harbingers of the change in sovereignty that would come to California with the Mexican American War.
The earliest visitors from the United States were sea-otter hunters who sailed along the California coast. The story of "Jedediah and the Beaver" reminds us that the first group of Americans to arrive overland came in search of beaver pelts in California's great Central Valley. New Englander Richard Henry Dana was among those who came to take advantage of the Californio's penchant for trading hides and tallow for imported manufactured goods.
The first wagon train of overland settlers from the United States arrived in California in 1841. The perils of the Donner Party while attempting to cross the Sierra Nevada starkly revealed the dangers of the overland trail--dangers that would take the lives of countless others in the years ahead.
Official United States interest in acquiring California grew steadily in the 1840s. The Jones Incident of 1842 was an embarrassing prelude to the far more decisive events of the upcoming war between Mexico and the United States.