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California Republic ← 1846 → The Bear Flag Capital Sonoma, California Language(s) English and Spanish (de facto) Government Republic President William B. Ide History  - Independence from Mexico June 14, 1846  - Annexation by the United States of America July 9, 1846

The California Republic, also called the Bear Flag Republic, was the result of a revolt by Americans on June 14, 1846, in the town of Sonoma against the authorities of the Mexican province of California; the Republic lasted less than a month. The republic eventually became the present-day state of California.

U.S. Army Major John C. Frémont had spread rumors of impending action against settlers by the Mexican government and encouraged rebellion. A group of thirty-three men strode into the Sonoma town center, and raised a flag with a bear and star on it (the "Bear Flag") to symbolize a new California Republic, independent from Mexico. This use of the flag led these actions to be dubbed the "Bear Flag Revolt."

That same day, the men captured the former Mexican Commandante of Northern California, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who was the leader of a private military company at the Presidio of Sonoma. Vallejo was taken prisoner and sent to Sutter's Fort where he was imprisoned through August 1, 1846. The Republic's first and only president was William B. Ide^[1], whose term lasted twenty-five days. On June 23, 1846, Frémont arrived with his force of sixty soldiers and took over command of the combined forces. The Mexican governor was concerned, and he sent 50 troops to attack the Bear Flaggers. General Jose Castro attempted to the stop the revolt, but his forces were sorely defeated at the Battle of Olompali.

Unknown to the men, war had already been declared on May 13, 1846 between the United States and Mexico, but the news took until mid-July 1846 to reach California: On July 7, 1846 a frigate (Savannah) and two sloops (Cyane and Levant) of the U.S. Navy, commanded by John D. Sloat, routed the detachment of the Mexican Coast Guard garrisoning the port of Monterey, California^{[2] [3]} in a minor skirmish (the Battle of Monterey), and alerted Frémont and his men that the Mexican-American War had begun. In response the "Bear Flaggers" abandoned the idea of the Republic, and joined the efforts to make California part of the United States. They replaced their flag with the Stars and Stripes. Ide was demoted from president to private in the "California Battalion" controlled by Frémont.

The most noticeable legacy of the California Republic is the adoption by the State of California of the 1846 Bear Flag as the basis of the modern state Flag of California; the modern flag also has a star, a grizzly bear, and a colored stripe and the words "California Republic" near the bottom. The original Bear Flag was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The site on Sonoma Plaza of the raising of the original Bear Flag is commemorated as a California Historical Landmark.

The Bear Flag was designed and made by William L. Todd, who was a nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of future president Abraham Lincoln. Todd painted the flag on a piece of brown cotton, roughly a yard and a half in length. The flag featured a red star imitating Texas's lone star and what he intended to be a representation of a common bear in California.^[4]

The original Bear Flag, photographed in 1890. The original flag was destroyed in 1906. A replica of that flag is now on display at El Presidio de Sonoma which was established in 1836 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo as a part of Mexico's strategy to halt Russian incursions into the region.

• Bancroft, Hubert Howe The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California vol 22 (1886)
• Rice, Richard B. et al., The elusive Eden: A new history of California (2001) ch 7.

• Californian independence
• History of California
• Flag of California
• Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
• The Legend of Zorro, a 2005 film which references and depicts the site of the Bear Flag Revolt, albeit in a fictionalized manner.

• The Bear Flag Revolt (U.S. National Parks Service)
• John Bidwell, "Frémont in the Conquest of California", The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. XLI, no. 4, February, 1891
• Thomas Edwin Farish. 1915. History of Arizona. State of Arizona. Chapter VIII. Conquest of California by Fremont and Sloat.
• Web Spoof of Bear Flag Creation story
• The Bear Flag Museum