Maritime History of California - Californio Maritime Activities 1821-1846

Californio Maritime Activities 1821-1846

Even before Mexico gained control of Alta California the onerous Spanish rules against trading with foreigners began to break down as the declining Spanish fleet couldn't enforce their no trading policies. The Californios, with essentially no industries or manufacturing capabilities, were eager to trade for new commodities, glass, hinges, nails, finished goods, luxury goods and other merchandise. The Mexican government abolished the no trade with foreign ships policy and soon regular trading trips were being made. The main products of these California Ranchos were cow hides (called California greenbacks), tallow (rendered fat for making candles and soap) and California/Texas longhorn cattle horns that were traded for other finished goods and merchandise. This hide-and-tallow trade was mainly carried on by Boston-based ships that traveled for about 200 days in sailing ships about 17,000 miles (27,000 km) to 18,000 miles (29,000 km) around Cape Horn to bring finished goods and merchandise to trade with the Californio Ranchos for their hides, tallow and horns. The cattle and horses that provided the hides, tallow and horns essentially grew wild. The Californios' hides, tallow and horns provided the necessary trade articles for a mutually beneficial trade. The first United States, English and Russian trading ships began showing up in California before 1816. The classic book Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. written about 1832 provides a good first hand account of this trade.,

From 1825 to 1848 the average number of ships traveling to California increased to about 25 ships per year—a large increase from the average of 2.5 ships per year from 1769 to 1824. The port of entry for trading purposes was the Alta California Capital, Monterey, California, where custom duties (tariffs) of about 100% were applied. These high duties gave rise to much bribery and smuggling, as avoiding the tariffs made more money for the ship owners and made the goods less costly to the customers. Essentially all the cost of the California government (what little there was) was paid for by these tariffs (custom duties). In this they were much like the United States in 1850, where about 89% of the revenue of its federal government came from import tariffs (also called Customs or ad valorem taxes), although at an average rate of about 20%.

By 1846, the province of Alta California had a non-native population of about 1,500 Californio adult men along with about 6,500 women and children, who lived mostly in the southern half of the state around Los Angeles. Most new California immigrants were adult males and lived in the northern half of California. Estimates of immigrants vary from 600 to 2,000 by 1846 with more arriving each year. Estimates of the California Indian population vary from 100,000 to 150,000 in 1846.