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This chapter talks about when the authors entered the one-time Western Pacific Railroad rail yard in Sacramento. It was October 20, 1995, thirteen years after they had first jumped on a train from the same place. They walked the tracks, climbed atop railcars, sat in the shadow of the icehouse. It was a reunion: they had not seen each other or talked by phone very much for a few years. They had grown a bit estranged because their 1980s had been so fierce—each of them was a reminder to the other of troubled times. In the 1980s, they had covered the war in El Salvador, where they had some bad experiences, and the revolution in the Philippines, among a slew of other intense projects. They had also produced two more books on poverty in America.

Chapter 1 analyzes the social and economic significance of the century-long colonial Portuguese presence in the Rio de la Plata region materialized in the Portuguese settlement of Colonia do Sacramento. I argue that, although illegal, the interaction between Spanish and Portuguese subjects was part of daily life in the region. This chapter suggests the strength and longevity of networks of family, trade, and religion that crossed imperial borders in Rio de la Plata. I emphasize the mutual dependence of Spanish and Portuguese subjects on trans-imperial trade networks, as well as the involvement of powerful mercantile and political groups in these networks.

Describes the tension between global environmental protection and a local focus on the most disadvantaged communities. The chapter analyzes the development of California’s landmark climate change legislation: Assembly Bill (AB) 32. It illustrates the contentious nature of defining climate change and how the entanglements of diverse knowledges and worldviews shape contemporary climate governance and decision-making processes.

This chapter demonstrates the difficulties confronting county officials in El Dorado County and San Bernardino County, and in San Francisco and Sacramento, as samples of the struggles counties faced to provide schools, law enforcement, fire and flood protection, and other basic services. The structure and functions of local government as they would continue to operate were successfully established throughout the state. The various county governments were not slow in levying the usual taxes, nor in directing either the county treasurer or sheriff to collect them. There is no question of the large degree of venality and inefficiency in San Francisco government during the early years of California statehood. There was naturally some chaos at the beginning in California, particularly because of the unprecedented influx of people associated with the Gold Rush and differences between their governmental preferences and the already existing forms established in the Spanish-Mexican era.

The Western Pacific Railroad no longer exists. Years before, it had been taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad. The engine repair shops had been torn down. Only the mainline track and a few sidings remained. Many rows of track had been pulled up. Gone was the boneyard where Dale Maharidge met a hobo named No Thumbs (real name: Thomas Jefferson Glenn). Those acres of former rail yard were thick with overgrown grasses and weeds. The icehouse had been razed and was now a parking lot for a community college. There weren't even any hobos around. Up the line, a mile or so north, was the Sacramento Bee building. The newspaper still published good work, but both the staff and the physical size of the paper had shrunk. The odds would be against an editor sending Dale Maharidge and Michael S. Williamson out to ride the rails for six days to do a story on today's hobos and hard times.

Sacramento may be the capital of California, but the city has a long history of a hardscrabble underbelly. Among the attractions are the waterways that run through the city—the clear American and the muddy Sacramento rivers join near downtown. The draw is not the presence of water in rare quantity for parched California, but the riverbanks thick with vegetation that conceals the camps of the homeless “river people.” Michael S. Williamson and Dale Maharidge spent a lot of time in these camps back in the 1980s and fittingly end their journey in the place where it began—Sacramento and the surrounding Central Valley. The camps Michael and Dale found in the early 1980s weren't as elaborate as those photographed by Dorothea Lange. One camp later grew in size, a village of shanties belonging to Montana Blackie and his hobo buddies. The cops kept the river people cowering in the shadows through the 1980s. Dale wrote stories about most of those sweeps, for the newspaper and in a book about Blackie, The Last Great American Hobo. Then he left town.

This chapter discusses the Innisfail Ranch, the farm Alexander and Kellogg built on Grizzly Island, Suisun Bay. This served as a business venture for Alexander, who desired to ensure the financial security and independence of Kellogg. The discussion also tackles the women's task of reclaiming a portion of the Sacramento River delta, which was subject to seasonal flooding and changes in salinity levels. It shows that the ranch quickly became a field site for the museum staff, as well as students who wanted to collect specimens on the premises. The discussion then shifts to the problems the women encountered with irrigation, the expansion of their farming enterprise, and their continuous search for reliable help. This ended with the arrival of Don Wilson, who was described as being as compliant and agreeable as Grinnell. Due to Wilson's assuring presence on the farm, the two women were able to continue their travels.

This chapter presents a paper the on Squatter Riot of 1850 in Sacramento, California. The scenes of violence themselves form but a small part of the real story of the movement, and the paper attempts to present a somewhat connected account of the events that preceded the riot and that culminated therein. The materials are drawn principally from the contemporary files of the Placer Times and the Sacramento Transcript; but Josiah Royce also seeks to accomplish what has certainly so far been neglected—to indicate the true historical significance of this little episode in the pioneer annals. He believes that the importance of the conflict was greater than even the combatants themselves knew; and most people are not in a fair way to comprehend the facts unless they remind themselves of a good many long since forgotten details of the narrative.

This chapter describes the California that met the French gold seekers. The final stage of moving to the goldfields, for most of the French Argonauts, involved two separate parts. The first was a trip by steamboat from San Francisco up the Sacramento River to the village of Sacramento. It was a one-day trip, made at considerable expense and not without the twin dangers of boating accidents and robbery. Still, most of the French Argonauts arrived safely in Sacramento, where they made arrangements for the final stage of their long trek to the goldfields, which was a long slog. For the French, among the most striking characteristics of gold rush society was that it turned out to be almost exclusively male.

This chapter examines the riparian vegetation of the Great Valley of California, which is restricted to areas influenced by the major rivers and tributaries that drain the surrounding uplands. It begins by discussing the ecosystem processes and landscape characteristics of the Sacramento hydrologic region, San Joaquin hydrologic region, and Tulare Lake hydrologic region, and then discusses the dominant plant species of Great Valley riparian systems. The chapter concludes with conservation and rehabilitation efforts for California's riparian vegetation systems.

If one has found the ruins of an ancient civilization on a distant planet, and the skeletal remains of some of the civilization-builders amid those ruins, there would follow a flood of questions—if the discoverers possess anything like human levels of curiosity, that is—about just what these beings were like. War-like and aggressive, or peaceful and harmonious? Socially cohesive and communicative, or individualistic? Sedentary or highly mobile? Rational or superstitious? Good or bad . . . What could an impartial observer, coming fresh to such a scene, make of humanity’s actions and habits and motives? It is hard—well, yes, impossible— for us to think through the mind of an extraterrestrial alien. It is hard enough to think through the mind of another human being. In the study of past humanity one might take the example of Stonehenge, a magnificent, geometrically highly ordered structure, designed and constructed by members of our own species with great ingenuity and eff ort. It served, quite obviously, a highly important purpose. But just what was that purpose? All we have is the structure itself, and the archaeological evidence that surrounds it (for there is a stratigraphy too in such studies, of placing physical evidence within a time framework). We have lost all contact with the constructors, for the chain of word-of-mouth history-telling has long been broken, and if any kind of written records were ever produced, none have been unearthed. But this is an artefact of our own species, remember, and there are many potential parallels, in modern and ancient culture, that we can draw on. Yet basic questions about its function continue to be debated. Was it produced for ritualistic purposes, from deeply felt religious motives? Or for purely practical purposes, to do with the organization and management of goods and labour. Or as an awe-inspiring symbol of naked political power? Did the people of those times go there as people go to church today, or as they go down to the pub, or to a wedding, or to the labour exchange or to Buckingham Palace or perhaps to a village council meeting? Or perhaps they went for different reasons at different times: the structure was built and embellished over something like a thousand years, so its function and context may well have evolved.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is part of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. It is the largest single source of California's water supply and supports many ecological, economic, and cultural functions. The Delta is now widely perceived to be in crisis, with dramatic population declines among several fish species, salinity intrusions, and levee failures. This book is about finding long-term solutions to the problems facing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It addresses four central issues: the salinity and quality of Delta waters, in-Delta land use and water supply, water supply exports, and the Delta ecosystem.

The European settlement in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta resulted in the transformation of forested areas and vegetation into agricultural sites and urban communities. Vast areas of tidal wetlands were converted into farmlands surrounded by levees. This chapter presents the history and foundations of the modern delta economy. It describes the geologic and institutional factors that brought the Delta to its current state. The chapter also discusses the reclamation of Delta lands and efforts to provide solutions to the Delta's problems, such as levee construction, flood control, expansion of shipping channels, upstream mining activities, and salinity intrusion. It also highlights the first major public works project in the Delta—the Central Valley flood control system. The chapter concludes with several policy initiatives for developing sustainable solutions to Delta problems.

Before the European settlement, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was one of California's most dynamic landscapes. Today's Delta is unstable and has significantly changed from its historic condition. It faces inevitable changes in landscape, economy, and ecology, driven by land subsidence, changing inflows, sea-level rise, earthquakes, and biological invasions. All these changes increase future risks of Delta island flooding. This chapter focuses on the state's investments to resist or manage these changes through levee improvements and repairs. The Delta Levee Subventions Program, in particular, has significantly reduced levee failures and is the most important state investments in Delta levees today.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta moves water from Northern California watersheds to farmlands and cities south and west of the Delta. Recent water exports from the Delta have ranged from 5 to 6 million acre-feet per year, supplying much of the water used in the Bay Area, the southern Central Valley, and Southern California. This chapter discusses the state and regional use of Delta water supplies, strategies to manage water exports from the Delta, and some key economic and environmental considerations. It also describes four water export approaches: continue pumping exports through the Delta; divert water upstream and convey it around the Delta through a peripheral canal; combine the current through-Delta pumping strategy with a peripheral canal (so-called “dual conveyance” or “dual facility”); and end exports altogether.

This chapter examines the effects of physical changes in the Delta and different water management alternatives on Delta salinity. It uses hydrodynamic modeling tools to explore the effects of sea-level rise, island flooding, and changes in water management. The water analysis module (WAM) is used to examine the effects of sea-level rise and of Delta water management alternatives. Results from a more complete model for the Delta Risk Management Strategy (DRMS) flooded-island modeling work are also used to explore the effects of permanent island flooding.

Over the last decade, fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem has substantially declined. In the Delta, the water allocation strategy has resulted in a diminishing proportion of the water being made available for fish or ecosystem needs. This chapter addresses whether alternatives to the present through-Delta pumping strategy can transform the Delta ecosystem into a favorable habitat for desirable fish species and other organisms. It begins by discussing the basic concepts and premises that must underlie any rebuilding of the Delta ecosystem and then assesses the likely responses of key species to general export strategies. It concludes with a brief discussion of initiatives to manage the Delta as a resilient ecosystem that maintains desirable characteristics, as it adjusts to natural and human-induced climatic variability.

This chapter examines the impact of two Pacific voyages that Twain undertook on his attitude toward the Chinese. Sent by the Sacramento Union as a correspondent to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in 1866, Twain supported US annexation of the Islands and the importation of Chinese “coolie” labor to the plantations there. On this trip Twain became friends with Anson Burlingame, the then US Minister to China (1861-1867), who helped to deepen Twain’s understanding of and acquaintance with the Chinese. As Twain revisited the Sandwich Islands thirty years later in 1895 as part of his lecture series along the equator, he had become increasingly skeptical of European, and soon after, American colonization by means of economic dominance and missionary involvements in foreign territories. The cultural and ethnic diversity that Twain encountered beyond the American shore complicated the racial assumptions that he grew up with in the slave-holding South.