Before gold was discovered in January 1848 at Sutter’s Mill on the South Fork of the American River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas east of Sacramento, the European-American population of California was less than 10,000. A month later, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceding California and the majority of the American Southwest to the United States. By the time President James K. Polk proclaimed California the golden state in his State of the Union address on December 5,
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