In 1836, Mexico repealed the 1824 federalist constitution and adopted a more centralist political organization (under the "Seven Laws") that reunited Alta and Baja California in a single California Department (Departamento de las Californias). Some 2,350 men in the California Column marched east across Arizona in 1862 to expel the Confederates from Arizona and New Mexico. Alta California was to be settled by Franciscan Friars, protected by troops in the California missions. Under Mexican rule, anyone could get a land grant. cit, p. 277; or in English book review by Duggan, op. Despite this, the natural abundance of California, and the environmental management techniques developed by California tribes over millennia, allowed for the highest population density in the Americas north of Mexico. They controlled the state through the new Republican Party. Coastal exploration by Spanish began in the 16th century, and settlement by Europeans along the coast and in the inland valleys began in the 18th century. Gutierrez, the military commandant, re-assumed the governorship, but he too was unpopular. Governor of California under Mexican rule who ordered the secularization or the end of church rule of the missions Lorenzo Asisara California Indian born and raised at Mission Santa Cruz said that Indians got only "old mares that were no longer productive" instead of healthy horses. Junípero Serra was a Majorcan Franciscan who founded the first Alta California Spanish missions. Vallejo returned to Monterey and ordered Castro to take 47 of the prisoners to San Blas by ship, to be deported to their home countries. The new state lacked judicial precedents, prisons, competent lawyers, and a coherent system of laws. In the Battle of Cahuenga Pass Victoria was wounded and resigned the governorship of Alta California. Also, people began to move into the area to trap and trade in beaver furs. [7], The staple foods then used by other indigenous American tribes, corn and/or potatoes, would not grow without irrigation in the typically short three- to five-month wet season and nine- to seven-month dry seasons of California (see Mediterranean climate). [29][30] In the mid-18th century, tensions were brewing between Great Britain and Spain. Acorn preparation was a very labor-intensive process nearly always done by women. In October, before Micheltorena reached Monterey, American Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones mistakenly thought that war had broken out between the United States and Mexico. Junta de Fomento de Californias Mexico: 1827 This book contains eight of the earliest written proposals for the political organization of California under Mexican rule, including a plan for “the foreign colonization of the territories of Alta and Baja California.” None of these missions were completely self-supporting, requiring continued (albeit modest) financial support. Alta California ceased to exist as an administrative division separate from Baja California in 1836, when the Siete Leyes constitutional reforms in Mexico re-established Las Californias as a unified department, granting it (in some ways) more autonomy. Between 1683 and 1834, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries established a series of religious outposts from today's Baja California and Baja California Sur into present-day California. Former Senator William M. Gwin, a Confederate sympathizer, was arrested and fled to Europe. By 1809, Spain no longer governed California because the Spanish king was imprisoned by the French. From mid-1846 to December, 1849, California was run by the U.S. military; local government continued to be run by alcaldes (mayors) in most places, but now some were Americans. The claimed territory included all of the modern U.S. states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The Californios consisted of about 800 families, mostly concentrated on large ranchos. Under Mexican rule, a larger number of land grants were issued which included ownership of the land. See for example, Randall Milliken, A Time of Little Choice: Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1810 (Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1995). The official word had been received — the Mexican–American War was on. Many of the missionary clergy were Spanish and aging, and gave in to the pressure to leave.