Marcia Ehinger is a retired physician who writes in many genres, poetry and prose. A member of the Sacramento Branch of the California Writers Club, she has had poems and short stories published in several CWC anthologies and the regional medical society journal.
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Early European Settlers in California, Part 1
Rethinking California Historical Figures:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – John Sutter and John Bidwell
Early European Settlers in California, Part 1
Rethinking California Historical Figures:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – John Sutter and John Bidwell
In California, fourth grade is the time to learn about our state’s past. When I was nine years old, the focus was on the Spanish missions. When my daughter was in fourth grade, Gold Rush sites were popular. Today, students begin with the lives of indigenous people and follow the story through colonization, agriculture, aerospace, and Hollywood. Field trips remain a vital part of the curriculum.
That’s how I found myself at the Lake Oroville Historical Park’s museum with my grandchildren. In the exhibit on European exploration after Mexican independence, I saw that John Sutter was the first to arrive in California by ship, and John Bidwell was the first by wagon train.
I turned to my son and said, “I know about John Sutter, but who’s John Bidwell? There’s an East Bidwell Street near where you work in Folsom, but that’s seventy miles from here.”
John Sutter: Founder, Fort Builder—and Flawed Figure
John Sutter: Founder, Fort Builder—and Flawed Figure
John Sutter is remembered as the founder of Sacramento, our state capital. His fort—center of his agricultural and trading empire near the Sacramento River—is now a state park. In 1987, a statue was placed outside the Sutter Health headquarters, partly funded by the General Sutter Distillery in Switzerland, his homeland. He was admired in two countries.
Sutter crafted his legacy through letters of recommendation, journals, and interviews. But other voices—his contemporaries—began to tell a different story.
Sutter evolved from a young man who preferred partying over hard work into a sophisticated con man and abusive slaveholder—not of Black Africans, but of California’s Indigenous peoples.
Born in 1803 as Johann Suter to a family that owned a paper mill, he learned English and Spanish in addition to his native German and French. After marrying the daughter of a wealthy widow and borrowing heavily from his mother-in-law, he fled the country when debts caught up to him. He abandoned his wife and five children, forged documents, and made his way from Europe to New York, then to St. Louis.
Shortly thereafter, Captain John Sutter, formerly of the Royal Swiss Guards of King Charles X of France was born. He was charismatic, wore a uniform, and spoke of persecution back home. He recruited investors and traded along the Santa Fe Trail until his lifestyle of charming men, seducing women, and imbibing too much led to legal trouble.
Wearing a military uniform, spinning tales of exile, and charming everyone he met, he gained investors and influence while trading along the Santa Fe Trail. But again, legal trouble followed. He skipped the country—this time to Mexico.
Sutter joined fur traders on the Oregon Trail, sailed to Hawaii (then the Sandwich Islands), traveled to Alaska, and finally arrived in Alta California—chartering ships and buying goods on credit along the way.
With letters of recommendation in hand, he impressed Mexican officials, who granted him land along the Sacramento River in exchange for loyalty and keeping other foreigners out. In 1839, he began building his empire.
John Bidwell: Teacher, Explorer, and Agrarian Visionary
John Bidwell: Teacher, Explorer, and Agrarian Visionary
In 1841, John Bidwell arrived at Sutter’s Fort after traveling from Missouri on a wagon train. A former teacher, he became Sutter’s business manager.
When gold was discovered in 1848 at Sutter’s sawmill—just after California became a U.S. territory—Bidwell was the one who carried the gold that triggered the Gold Rush. Ironically, it also triggered Sutter’s downfall: most workers abandoned their jobs to search for gold, including Bidwell.
Bidwell struck it rich and purchased Rancho del Arroyo Chico, where he had already been raising cattle. With newfound wealth, he expanded his agricultural operations, laid out the city of Chico, and founded a school that later became California State University, Chico.
For years, Bidwell worked alongside the local Machoopa (Machoopda) people, trying—though not always successfully—to shield them from the flood of fortune seekers. When Mexico relinquished control in 1848, California’s European-descended population was about 2,000. By statehood in 1850, that number had ballooned to nearly 100,000.
Legacy Under Fire: Statues and Flames
Legacy Under Fire: Statues and Flames
In 2021, Sutter’s treatment of Indigenous Californians came under renewed scrutiny. During the Black Lives Matter protests, his statue at Sutter Health was defaced and later removed—a symbolic reckoning with a painful legacy.
In 2024, a more literal fire struck: John Bidwell’s mansion burned to ashes, destroyed by arson.
The arsonist claimed he was protesting class disparity. Members of the present-day Machoopda Tribe also felt that Bidwell’s legacy needed reexamination. Surprisingly, the defense attorney blamed the city of Chico, alleging that poor fire detection systems delayed response time, which might have otherwise saved the historic structure.
Rethinking History
Rethinking History
As Californians, we must grapple with a complicated past—one where the same men who founded cities and shaped commerce also committed serious wrongs. History, especially when told from multiple perspectives, allows us to better understand how we got here—and where we might go next.
Continued next issue in Part 2.
~ Marcia Ehinger
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