Johann August Sutter was born on February 23,1803, in Kandern, Baden, to Johann Jakob Sutter, a foreman at a paper mill, and Christina Wilhelmine Sutter.
34 Facts About John Sutter
2.
John Sutter's father came from the nearby town of Runenberg, in the canton of Basel in Switzerland, and his maternal grandfather was a pastor from Grenzach, on the Swiss-German border.
3.
John Sutter operated a store but showed more interest in spending money than in earning it.
4.
John Sutter originally planned to cross the Siskiyou Mountains during the winter, but acting chief factor James Douglas convinced him that such an attempt would be perilous.
5.
John Sutter had missed the only ship outbound for Alta California, and had to remain in the Kingdom for four months.
6.
The brig Clementine was eventually hired by John Sutter to take freight provisions and general merchandise for New Archangel, the capital of the Russian-American Company colonies in Russian America.
7.
John Sutter had to go to the capital at Monterey to obtain permission from the governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado, to settle in the territory.
8.
However, shortly after his land tract was granted and his fort was erected, John Sutter quickly reneged on his agreement to discourage European trespass.
9.
Construction was begun in August 1839 on a fortified settlement which John Sutter named New Helvetia, or "New Switzerland," after his homeland.
10.
John Sutter's Fort had a central building made of adobe bricks, surrounded by a high wall with protection on opposite corners to guard against attack.
11.
John Sutter employed or enslaved Native Americans of the Miwok and Maidu tribes, the Hawaiians he had brought, and employed some Europeans at his compound.
12.
John Sutter envisioned creating an agricultural utopia, and for a time the settlement was in fact quite large and prosperous.
13.
John Sutter believed that Native Americans had to be kept "strictly under fear" in order to serve white landowners.
14.
Observers accused him of using "kidnapping, food privation, and slavery" in order to force Indians to work for him, and generally stated that John Sutter held the Indians under inhumane conditions.
15.
Heinrich Lienhard, a Swiss immigrant that served as John Sutter's majordomo, wrote of the treatment of the enslaved once captured:.
16.
John Sutter has sent these little Indian children as gifts to people who live far from the place of their birth, without demanding of them any promises that in their homes the Indians should be treated with kindness.
17.
Note: In early 1846, John Sutter hoisted perhaps the above version if not another in red, white, and green.
18.
However, John Sutter gave Marsh a choice: either join the army or be arrested and put in jail.
19.
In 1845, John Sutter's forces met the Californio forces at the Battle of Providencia.
20.
The Americans agreed and quit the fight, and as a result, John Sutter's forces lost the battle.
21.
John Sutter was intent on building a city on his property, including housing and a wharf on the Sacramento River, and needed lumber for the construction.
22.
John Sutter concluded that it was, in fact, gold, but he was very anxious that the discovery not disrupt his plans for construction and farming.
23.
Large crowds of people overran the land and destroyed nearly everything John Sutter had worked for.
24.
The younger John Sutter, who had come from Switzerland and joined his father in September 1848, saw the commercial possibilities of the land and promptly started plans for building a new town he named Sacramento, after the Sacramento River.
25.
John Sutter gave up New Helvetia to pay the last of his debts.
26.
John Sutter rejoined his family and lived in Hock Farm.
27.
John Sutter got a letter of introduction to the Congress of the United States from the governor of California.
28.
John Sutter moved to Washington DC at the end of 1865, after Hock Farm was destroyed by fire in June 1865.
29.
John Sutter sought reimbursement of his losses associated with the Gold Rush.
30.
John Sutter received a pension of US$250 a month as a reimbursement of taxes paid on the Sobrante grant at the time Sutter considered it his own.
31.
John Sutter wanted three of his grandchildren to have the benefits of the fine private Moravian Schools.
32.
John Sutter built his home across from the Lititz Springs Hotel.
33.
For more than fifteen years, John Sutter petitioned Congress for restitution but little was done.
34.
Two days later, on June 18,1880, John Sutter died in the Mades Hotel in Washington DC He was returned to Lititz and is buried adjacent to God's Acre, the Moravian Graveyard; Anna John Sutter died the following January and is buried with him.