page_title: John Sutter
section_title: Beginnings of Sutter's Fort
hierarchical_section_title: John Sutter / The New World / Beginnings of Sutter's Fort
caption_attribution_description: Sutter's Fort -- New Helvetia, ca. 1849
context_page_description: John Augustus Sutter, born Johann August Sutter, was a German-born Swiss immigrant of Mexican and American citizenship, known for establishing Sutter's Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento, California, the state's capital. Although he became famous following the discovery of gold by his employee James W. Marshall and the mill-making team at Sutter's Mill, Sutter saw his own business ventures fail during the California Gold Rush. Those of his elder son, John Augustus Sutter Jr., were more successful.
context_section_description: At the time of Sutter's arrival, Alta California was a province of Mexico and had a population of only about 1,000 Europeans and an estimated 100,000-700,000 Native Americans. Sutter had to go to the capital at Monterey to obtain permission from the governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado, to settle in the territory. Alvarado saw Sutter's plan of establishing a colony in Central Valley as useful in "buttressing the frontier which he was trying to maintain against Indians, Russians, Americans and British."
  The governor stipulated however that for Sutter to qualify for land ownership, he had to reside in the territory for a year and become a Mexican citizen, which he did on August 29, 1840. Construction was begun in August 1839 on a fortified settlement which Sutter named New Helvetia, or "New Switzerland," after his homeland, "Helvetia" being the Latin name for Switzerland. Sutter often began to identify himself as 'Captain Sutter of the Swiss Guard'. When the settlement was completed in 1841, on June 18, he received title to 48,827 acres (197.60 km²) on the Sacramento River. The site is now part of the California state capital of Sacramento.
  A Francophile, Sutter threatened to raise the French flag over California and place New Helvetia under French protection, but in 1846 California was occupied by the United States in the Mexican–American War. Sutter at first supported the establishment of an independent California Republic but when United States troops under John C. Frémont briefly seized control of his fort, Sutter did not resist because he was outnumbered.
caption: Contemporaneous illustration of Sutter's Fort
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