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Post-Fascist Japan
 SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan

Series Editor: Christopher Gerteis, SOAS, University of London (UK)

Series Editorial Board:

Steve Dodd, SOAS, University of London (United Kingdom)
Andrew Gerstle, SOAS, University of London (United Kingdom)
Janet Hunter, London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom)
Helen Macnaughtan, SOAS, University of London (United Kingdom)
Timon Screech, SOAS, University of London (United Kingdom)
Naoko Shimazu, Yale-NUS College (Singapore)

Published in association with the Japan Research Centre at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, UK.

SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan features scholarly books on modern
and contemporary Japan, showcasing new research monographs as well as translations
of scholarship not previously available in English. Its goal is to ensure that current,
high-quality research on Japan, its history, politics, and culture, is made available to an
English-speaking audience.

Published:
Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan, Jan Bardsley
Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan, Emily Anderson
The China Problem in Postwar Japan, Robert Hoppens
Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th Century Japan, The Asahi Shimbun Company
(translated by Barak Kushner)
Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations on Screen, Griseldis Kirsch
Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith,
Thiam Huat Kam and Björn-Ole Kamm
Politics and Power in 20th-Century Japan, Mikuriya Takashi and Nakamura Takafusa
(translated by Timothy S. George)
Japanese Taiwan, edited by Andrew Morris
Japan’s Postwar Military and Civil Society, Tomoyuki Sasaki
The History of Japanese Psychology, Brian J. McVeigh
Postwar Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands,
Pedro Iacobelli
The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan, Sari Kawana
Post-Fascist Japan, Laura Hein

Forthcoming:
Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan, Taka Oshikiri
Mass Media, Consumerism and National Identity in Postwar Japan, Martyn Smith
Japan’s Occupation of Java in the Second World War, Ethan Mark

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

The Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University were
inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a wider public the results of significant new research
on modern and contemporary East Asia.
 Post-Fascist Japan
Political Culture in Kamakura after
the Second World War

Laura Hein

Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY
 Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2018

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

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Cover image: Faculty and Students walking to the Kamakura Akademia. Image courtesy of
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For Vinca and Cora and their generation—with apologies from mine.
Try to fight less with the people who share your values.
 Contents

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Post-Fascist Political Culture 1

1 Kamakura: The Place 29
2 The Kamakura Akademia and Humanities Education 65
3 Telling Stories in the Museum: The Kamakura Museum
of Modern Art 103
4 Urban Administration: Social Science and Democracy 139
Conclusion 171

Notes 184
Selected Bibliography 225
Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute 247
Index 249
 List of Figures

I.1 Map of Kamakura 3

I.2 Ōmori Yoshitarō 8
I.3 Osaragi Jirō 12
1.1 Zushi Beach 39
1.2 Betty Boop 41
1.3 Wakamiyaōji Avenue 47
1.4 The Great Buddha of Kamakura 52
1.5 View of Enoshima and Mt. Fuji, from Shichirigahama 59
2.1 Main gate of Kōmyōji Temple, the first home of the Kamakura
Akademia 73
2.2 Kamakura Akademia faculty photograph 77
2.3 Saigusa Hiroto, President of the Kamakura Akademia 81
2.4 Kamakura Akademia faculty and students commuting 86
3.1 Kamakura Museum of Modern Art building exterior 109
3.2 Hijikata Teiichi 115
3.3 The Kamakura Museum’s internal courtyard 119
3.4 Poster “Masterpieces of Modern Japanese Art: From Takahashi
Yūichi to Matsumoto Sannosuke” exhibit 123
3.5 Poster for Art of Central Asia exhibit. 1952 133
4.1 The eastern entrance to the JR Kamakura railroad station 146
4.2 Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine 157
4.3 Enoden train passing Shichirigahama 160
 Acknowledgments

Writing these acknowledgments brings home how deeply embedded I am in my

transnational scholarly community. The list of people who have expanded my
thinking, enriched my knowledge, and corrected my errors reads very much like
a comprehensive roster of the Japan Studies field. I name here only some of the
many individuals to whom I owe gratitude.
In Kamakura, Emi Hirata at the Kamakura City Central Public Library, and
Yoshino Miyako both shared their deep knowledge of the city and their extensive
human networks. Hashizume Yukiome, Hattori Hiroaki, Hijikata Yukue, Hori
Takahiko, Katō Shigeo, Koizumi Chikataka, Mizusawa Tsutomu at the Museum
of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, Nakamura Teruko, Watanabe Akira,
and Yamanouchi Shizuo at the Kamakura Museum of Literature shared their
memories and clear-eyed analyses. Kazu Mori always welcomed me home.
In Tokyo, I benefited from the indispensable advice of Amakawa Akira, Aoki
Shigeru, Mark Caprio, Katalin Ferber, Fujiwara Kiichi, Katō Tetsurō, Jeff Kingston,
Koseki Shōichi, Nicola Liscutin, Moriguchi Chiaki, Nishizawa Tamotsu, Odaka
Konosuke, Okuda Hiroko, the late Ōuchi Tsutomu, Lawrence Repeta, Sakai
Kunihide, Makiko, and Yū, Sakai Tadayasu at the Setagaya Museum of Art,
Sasamoto Yukue, Shibata Tokue, Shimizu Hiroshi, the late Takemae Eiji, Tanaka
Atsushi at the Tokyo Bunka Zaidan Kenkyūjo, Tsuru Tsuyoshi, Wakimura Tarō,
Emiko Yamanashi, Yoshimi Shunya, Yoshimi Yoshiaki, and Yui Daizaburō. Narita
Ryūichi and Osawa Machiko graciously hosted me in 2009 as a Visiting Researcher
at Japan Women’s University, while Nakamura Naofumi, Gregory Noble, and Uno
Shigeki offered a collegial home at the University of Tokyo Institute for Social
Science in Fall 2011. In Yokohama, Fukagai Yasunori, Kagesato Tetsurō, Koizumi
Chikataka, Kamibayashi Tokurō at the Institute for Public Policy in Kanagawa
Prefecture, Yokohama, and Kubo Takao were all compelling interviewees.
Tanabe Kōtarō generously shared his work on Masaki Chifuyu. The authors
of Shōnan no Tanjō introduced me to their world. In Kansai, Fujiwara Tetsuya,
Julie Higashi, Hosoya Masahiro, Iguchi Kazuki at the Kyoto Prefectural Archive,
Rebecca Jennison, Kurihara Nanako, both Matsuda Takeshi and Matsuda Ken
Takeshi, Miyamoto Ken’ichi, and Murakami Mitsuhiko provided sage advice, as
did Mitani Wataru of the Tanabe City Art Museum. At Osaka University, Sugita
x Acknowledgments

Yoneyuki and Nakano Kōtarō, aka Rocky, each in his distinctive way, made every
trip there a professional pleasure, particularly the three years I spent as Sugita’s
guest as a Specially Appointed Professor of Research.
In London, I very much enjoyed a stint as a 2015–2016 Centenary Fellow
at SOAS, University of London, and the stimulating colleagues there: my host,
Christopher Gerteis, and also Stephen Dodd, Janet Hunter, Alejandra Irigoin,
Griseldis Kirsch, Angus Lockyer, Helen Macnaughtan, Timon Screech, Naoko
Shimazu, and Sarah Teasley. Mark Pendleton at Sheffield University and Mami
Mizutori at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures
introduced me to their lively circles of colleagues. I spent April 2007 at the
University of Leiden, Modern East Asia Research Center, as a Visiting Professor.
Thanks go to Katarzyna Cwiertka, Curtis Gayle, Naomi Goto, Christopher
Goto-Jones, and Rikki Kersten for enlivening that opportunity.
Closer to home, Andrew Barshay, Peter Carroll, Annika Culver, Timothy S.
George, Christopher Gerteis, James Huffman, Ann Sherif, and Peter Siegenthaler
read complete drafts of the manuscript. Lonny Carlile, John W. Dower, Andrew
Gordon, Hiromi Mizuno, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Patrick Noonan, Mark Selden,
Franziska Seraphim, and Amy Stanley each read parts of it. I know how much
work that is. Thank you.
Among others, E. Taylor Atkins, Beth Berry, Daniel Botsman, Jan Bardsley,
Rebecca Copeland, Kevin Doak, Alexis Dudden, Steven Ericson, Norma Field,
Sabine Früstück, Glen Fukushima, Sheldon Garon, Carol Gluck, Jeffrey Hanes,
Ellen Hammond, Akiko Hashimoto, David Howell, Ted Hughes, Edward Lincoln,
Vera Mackie, Michele Mason, Masuda Hajimu, Laura Miller, Mark Metzler,
Hiromi Mizuno, Tessa Morris - Suzuki, Jordan Sand, Mark Ravina, Franziska
Seraphim, Julia Adeney Thomas, Mark Tilton, Hitomi Tonomura, Stephen
Vlastos, Samuel Yamashita, and Louise Young have all been great colleagues
whose ideas enrich my own. Audiences at University of Washington, Seattle,
SOAS, Osaka University, University of Tokyo, Yokohama National University,
the Social Science History Association, and the Association for Asian Studies
have allowed me to test my ideas.
Northwestern provides an intellectually stimulating moriawase of relevant
scholarship, including by Michael J. Allen, Kevin Boyle, Peter Carroll, Haydon
Cherry, Alexa Deleon, Ben Frommer, Jon Glassman, Daniel Immerwahr, Tessie
Liu, Melissa Macauley, Sarah Maza, Austin Parks, Michael Sherry, Lauren Stokes,
Emilie Takeyama, and Helen Tilley. My Japan Studies colleagues, especially
Andrew Leong, Patrick Noonan, and Amy Stanley, add a whole new exciting
dimension to my intellectual life. One of the side benefits of this project was the
 Acknowledgments xi

opportunity to work with art historians. In addition to the people mentioned

above, special thanks to Kendall Brown, S. Hollis Clayson, Huey Copeland, the
late Brian A. Curran, Christine Guth, Asato Ikeda, Justin Jesty, Maki Kaneko,
Aya Louisa McDonald, Christopher Reed, Ming Tiampo, Yasuko Tsuchikane,
Toshio Watanabe, Gennifer Weisenfeld, Bert Winther-Tamaki, and Alicia Volk.
The Fulbright organization offered its amazing support with a 2008–2009
Fulbright Senior Research Award to Japan. May it long survive. Daniel Zellner
and Dru Parrish at Academic Technologies digitized some of the images and
Timothy S. George provided the gorgeous photographs of Kamakura. Vinca
Merriman copy-edited and proof-read the manuscript.
 Introduction: Post-Fascist Political Culture

Failed wars can lead to either intense polarization with recurrent violence
or a new direction. Japan after the Second World War exemplifies the latter
path. To an impressive degree, in late 1945 many Japanese people turned their
energies toward creating a new political culture, that is, new social and political
behaviors, policies, and institutions that would give young people skills—ones
they themselves had not possessed—to prevent an erosion of civil liberties at
home and coercive policies abroad. Many Japanese concluded that the Asia-
Pacific War had been not only stupid and shameful but also unnecessary, and
their regret at their own complicity in that disaster fueled a tremendous sense of
purpose for them. For that reason, more than is commonly realized, they took
responsibility for transforming their national political culture. The result was a
far more equitable, democratic, and peaceful society than before surrender. The
failed states and endemic violence around the world today make clear the rarity
of this achievement.
In stark contrast to the presurrender years, by the 1960s Japan achieved a
high standard of living for essentially all citizens, a widely accepted system to
provide opportunity for young people, and flawed but functional democratic
governance. Japan also managed to avoid armed conflict with other nations.
These are no small things. On the other hand, in the twenty-first century, Japan
seems stuck in neutral, with institutions that work fairly well for older people
but are failing young adults. Japan today features growing economic inequality,
heightened insularity, and startlingly dysfunctional political leadership.1 Most
of all, the optimism and energy displayed by so many Japanese in the first
postwar decades have dwindled away, making Japan a sadder place than its
postwar self.
What caused these outcomes? The central argument of this book is that
the seismic shift of the first few postwar years and the dynamism of the next
two decades were due in significant part to the actions of elite professional
2 Post-Fascist Japan

left-wing Japanese working through a variety of organizations, often at the

local level, and their long-term engagements with more conservative leaders,
the general public, and the American occupiers. The individuals highlighted
here formed a particularly cohesive internal community that sustained and
propelled them. They also framed nearly all their professional and public
actions in political terms, leading to new narratives of historical change and
national identity and—even more crucially— new institutional structures,
all designed to forestall what they saw as the return of fascism. Much of this
work was done from 1945 to about 1980, the timeframe of this book, but their
activities infused a broad variety of institutions with democratic practices
that were visible everywhere into the twenty-first century, but are now being
dismantled.
My primary example is the overlapping sets of individuals who built local
institutions in the small city of Kamakura, an hour’s train ride south of Tokyo.
Some of my protagonists were long-time Kamakura residents while others were
relative newcomers, but when they sought to create new intellectual spaces, they
did so in a real geographic space, one that—as they understood—imposed its
own specific opportunities and challenges to people seeking change. Kamakura
has been a religious, artistic, and intellectual center for nearly a millennium.
Modern Kamakura, with a population of 173,331 at its postwar peak, has long
been in Tokyo’s powerful orbit, but is also distant enough to forge its own
political and cultural identity.
Kamakura was also one of the first places in Japan to be re-imagined as modern
in the nineteenth century. While Kamakura’s boosters celebrated the city’s rich
cultural past, they did so in a thoroughly contemporary manner. Like all modern
places, as both Edward Soja and Prasenjit Duara have argued, Kamakura is
socially constructed from within and without and, as Soja stresses for cities in
general, its urban character not only shaped the lives of its inhabitants but also
contributed to their effectiveness and creativity.2 Kamakura’s distinctiveness as
a place that encouraged cultural, artistic, and intellectual innovation was one of
the perennial resources available for mobilization, both during and after the war.
The city became a site where ideas about postwar Japanese national culture were
worked out together with local culture, in part because many of the individuals
most closely associated with Kamakura also operated on the national and even
international stages. To put the point another way, Kamakura’s local modernity
simultaneously challenged and reaffirmed generalizations about what it meant
to be Japanese.3 Kamakura was by no means the only locality where more
democratic institutions developed, but it was an important one.
 Introduction 3

Figure I.1 Map of Kamakura, showing the train lines, main roads, the most famous
religious sites, the beach, and several walking paths. 1953. Used by permission of JTB
Publishing.
4 Post-Fascist Japan

When the war ended, Kamakura residents took many actions to rebuild their
own lives and their social world. One manifestation, discussed in Chapter 2, was
a new university, the Kamakura Akademia, that opened its doors in May 1946,
established by people who were not teachers themselves but wanted to provide a
different kind of education to their youth. They believed that local identity was
itself an important resource that helped people feel secure and able to trust and
constructively engage each other. After the war, they consciously remobilized
these local ties for new ends and anchored them to new local institutions. As
Saigusa Hiroto, the president of that university, explained in 1951, engaging
“people who get their energy from places such as Kamakura and Yokohama, that
is, the political potency (yūryoku) of local places” was key to his vision of a better
future.4 Like the other cultural and civic leaders discussed in this book, Saigusa
thought the Japanese people should have more forcefully resisted their own
government’s acts of repression at home and war abroad and that local identity
could help them do so.
Many of the most motivated people in Kamakura and elsewhere were those
who had turned a critical eye on society long before the shock of defeat, people
who had been jailed, lost their jobs, or watched as friends were silenced for
activities that had only a few years earlier been both legal and socially acceptable.
Their own experience also often sensitized them to social inequalities within
Japan, such as the fact that Okinawans were required to sacrifice far more than
were others. They strove to both heal the damage done during the war and chart
a new direction for postwar society—and they expended astonishing amounts
of energy in the service of these goals at a time when many other Japanese were
exhausted. Their labors established a set of practices that justified and protected
peace, democracy, and fairness in Japan. They also accomplished a great deal
without ever capturing control of the national government—the biggest prize.
The vast literature on historical memory can help us understand why these
wartime critics had such an outsized postwar impact. Wars—and remembrance
of them—always involve contests over meaning, because war’s aftermath always
requires some kind of reconciliation. And the terms of that reconciliation shape
postwar societies.5 Bigger wars require more retrospective management given
that they disrupt social arrangements to a greater degree than do limited ones,
for example by sending most young men overseas for lengthy tours of duty.
Since the 1931–1945 Asia-Pacific War mobilized all of Japan’s resources, it
forced changes in every social institution. Moreover, military defeat complicated
remembrance of the domestic as well as the international dimensions of that
conflict. As Akiko Hashimoto has cogently argued, in defeated nations, war
 Introduction 5

remembrance is “ultimately irreconcilable and incapable of engendering a

coherent, unified account for the nation.” That conflict over the war’s meaning
created obstacles to “memory work,” in which Japanese people “reformulated
narratives that make … self-knowledge coherent and emotionally resonant.”6
This as-yet-unresolved desire for coherence and emotional resonance has meant
that Japanese people have continued to revise the narrative of the war to this day.
To be clear, I am not arguing that the wartime critics made postwar Japan
alone. On the contrary, the force of their arguments was enhanced by the actions
of others—especially the new power of working-class people to collectively
chart their own futures through labor unions, the ballot box, and the practices
of everyday life. Likewise, women took advantage of the new legal structure to
simply stop accepting many of the sacrifices formerly assigned to them by their
male relatives. The men—and they were all men—profiled here also benefited
from the backing of the Occupation forces in the early years. Considerable
reform would have happened without them. Nonetheless, as long as they
were at the heart of Japanese political culture, these individuals consistently
mobilized public opinion against remilitarization, social inequities, and cultural
essentialism, while simultaneously reshaping most of the institutions they
touched. Even today, their inventiveness, boldness, and generosity are striking.
So are their snobbery, their pride, and their sexism.

Forestalling the return of fascism

From 1945, the attention of my protagonists was riveted on their conviction that
they personally had survived a fascist era and also had a responsibility to destroy
it—a stance I call “post-fascism” rather than anti-fascism because their response
focused on the processes revealed by direct experience as much as on abstract
theory. (I reserve the term for people who opposed fascism, unlike Gaspar
Miklos Tamas, who uses it to mean something closer to neofascism, that is, a
new expression of fascist ideas.7) As the Kyoto-based literature scholar Mashita
Shin’ichi explained, “we learned from our double dose of tragedy—fascism
and war,” stressing that these were two distinct calamities.8 When he spoke of
fascism, Mashita meant the justifications for imprisoning him which included
“spiritual renovation” of the nation. He was engaging directly with fascist ideas
and social mobilization strategies themselves. After 1945, many thoughtful
Japanese continued to take fascism seriously as an ideology that had succeeded
because it had addressed real problems.
6 Post-Fascist Japan

Just as in Europe, fascism had developed from the common view that democracy
had failed, politically, economically, and culturally, and, furthermore, that fascism
was the only viable alternative to colonial and working-class radicalism. As Reto
Hofmann’s recent book shows, many Japanese were interested in fascism in the 1920s
and 1930s, attracted to the dynamic persona of Benito Mussolini, the economic
successes of both Italy and Germany, and the ways that fascist ideology promised to
energize and reunite a divided people.9 And, while this ideology stressed Japanese
uniqueness, the anxiety that powered it was both transnational and generic, since
fascist regimes everywhere proclaimed their uniqueness in essentially the same
ways. Interwar fascism was a fundamentally modern nationalist movement,
hostile to both liberal democracy and communism, and, in Japan, as elsewhere,
fascists championed violence in order to create a hierarchical community without
visible dissent. Maggie Clinton has recently made a similar argument for China in
the same period, although Chinese fascists foregrounded anti-imperialism more
than did Japanese ones.10 In Japan, even before the war, men such as economists
Ōuchi Hyōe, Arisawa Hiromi, Ōmori Yoshitarō, Wakimura Yoshitarō, and Masaki
Chifuyu had already explained the rise of fascist ideology and policies as the result of
the modern processes of capitalism. In their view Japan was part of a common
global experience, and they had a very large readership for their comparative
analyses, both in the early 1930s and again after 1945.11 Unfortunately, the
argument that Japan’s war was the result of its stunted and failed attempts to
properly modernize is today all too often treated as if it was once universally
accepted but this was never true.
The reasoning of the leftists who saw Japan as a modern society—and one
dangerously flirting with fascism—was typified by a September 1937 essay on
food shortages in Germany by Kamakura resident Ōmori Yoshitarō. Ōmori, an
economist, argued that military spending was causing inflation, which reduced
civilian purchasing power, meaning that Germans “are eating potatoes instead of
meat and making their bread with corn.” He went on to warn that Japan was in
danger of triggering the same unwelcome substitutions, explicitly predicting that
this scenario would become “the economic base of Japanese fascism.”12 Decades
later, the official postwar history of Kamakura City opened its chapter on the
war years with an analysis that echoed Ōmori’s. When in the 1930s the Japanese
government expanded military, rather than domestic, spending, it explained, “as
one would expect, the ensuing chronic economic hard times led to a collapse in
the standard of living for farmers and workers, intensifying class conflict and
sparking recurring waves of repression, as well as the advance of the ‘monopoly
stage’ of capitalism. This led to the march down the path of fascism.”13
 Introduction 7

Nor were the economists alone. Tosaka Jun, another widely read intellectual,
argued along similar lines in the early 1930s. Historians Harry Harootunian,
Naoki Sakai, and their students have brought Tosaka’s work to the forefront of
Japanese studies in recent years precisely because he developed a sophisticated
critique of Japanese fascism in the 1930s, treated Japan as part of the modern
world, and identified the weaknesses in liberal thought that made it an
inadequate barrier to fascism’s spread. They concur with Tosaka that the rapid
pace of change that characterizes modern life and the intrinsic unevenness of
capitalist development acted to generate anxiety about contemporary society.14
Fascism, or “reactionary modernism,” as Jeffrey Herf usefully termed it, was the
panicked response.15 Indeed, right-wing nationalists in 1930s Japan themselves
were torn between claiming fascism as a satisfyingly modern form of nationalism
and rejecting it as intrinsically Italian and therefore inappropriate for domestic
consumption, meaning that Japan still had to invent its own modern path. In
Reto Hofmann’s words, not only did fascism and nationalism operate as “two
ideologies that were at the same time conflicting and overlapping,” but this
internal incoherence over national uniqueness was part of the logic of fascism
itself.16 In short, the modern nature of fascism was obvious to many Japanese
themselves at the time.
More precisely, the people who saw fascism as the outcome of capitalism
conceived of it fundamentally as ruling-class backlash motivated by fear of
revolt. While the larger population was mobilized through celebrations of
nativism and fear of foreigners, the true benefits were enjoyed elsewhere. Visual
and performance artist Murayama Tomoyoshi, who was more interested in
cultural than economic trends, thought fascism sprang from elites’ unwillingness
to provide social support to their compatriots in interwar Germany, Italy, and
Japan, indeed, from their total lack of empathy for them. He had visited Weimar
Germany where he was much influenced by visual artists George Grosz and
Otto Dix, enjoying both their pointed social commentary and their eye-catching
imagery.17 Ōmori, Tosaka, and Murayama all believed that fascism was produced
by and benefited elites at the expense of others, making its promises of national
unity a cruel hoax.
They also saw the problem as both an institutional and an emotional and
cultural one. The intervening step in Ōmori’s 1937 economic analysis, for
example, was that working-class desperation would trigger elite anxiety, leading
to repression. While capitalist instability was rooted in massive global political-
economic institutions, Ōmori believed the real damage was done by the desire
to allay anxiety. Ōmori’s 1937 analysis meshes well with two different streams
8 Post-Fascist Japan

Figure I.2 Ōmori Yoshitarō was among the many writers and artists who moved to
Kamakura in late 1920s. They patronized Kamakura’s growing number of bookstores
and coffee shops, such as this one. Ōmori published on a broad range of topics from
fiscal policy to film criticism, and warned against fascism until his arrest in late 1937.
Ca. 1931. Used by permission of Ei Masako. Photograph courtesy of Kamakura City
Central Public Library.
 Introduction 9

of today’s scholarship, which typically focus on either the institutional or the

cultural-intellectual nature of fascism. Michael Mann, in the institutional
camp, has recently found that European fascists gained power in places where
elites most over-reacted to the twinned threats of social disorder and leftist
political muscle.18 Mann rests his sociological analysis on Jeffrey Herf ’s older
scholarship mentioned above that demolished the arguments that fascism most
attracted shopkeepers and rural small-holders and that it was a manifestation
of underdeveloped modernity in Germany. Herf showed that rather than a
movement of the nostalgic petit bourgeoisie, as famously argued by Marxists,
“fascism was a movement of the lesser intelligentsia,” that is, the educated elite.
Peter Hayes makes a similar point for the smaller group who actively directed
the slaughter of Europe’s Jews. Indeed, three decades ago Yoshimi Yoshiaki found
that precisely the same kind of people were the most enthusiastic mobilizers of
their compatriots in Japan, since they already played an outsized role in shaping
Japan’s political culture.19
Michael Mann has shown that, cross-culturally, fascist movements’ core
constituencies everywhere are young men in higher-educational, military, and—
especially—paramilitary organizations, including veterans’ associations, in part
because young men are far more likely to think they will prevail using violence
than are other groups.20 While Mann himself concludes that Japan was not fascist
because paramilitary gangs never overwhelmed the official armed forces, it seems
to me that the Japanese Imperial Army in the 1930s was both so independent of
civilian control and so faction-ridden that it functioned much like the bands of
paramilitary thugs of southern and central Europe.21 Moreover, given that the
Army High Command very nearly succeeded in carrying out its plan to lead the
entire Japanese population—men, women, and children—into “glorious self-
destruction,” the nihilism and “pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-
statism” that Mann locates in the paramilitary surely characterized the Imperial
Japanese Army itself by 1945. When units of the formal military system no
longer fear being disciplined, they have no reason to create an ostensibly separate
organization, another argument Yoshimi Yoshiaki made long ago in Grass Roots
Fascism. This logic is also similar to Kenneth Ruoff ’s in Japan’s Imperial Zenith,
who argues that Japan fit the fascist condition of a charismatic leader because the
cult of the emperor functioned much as did celebrations of charismatic leaders in
Italy and Germany, even though the emperor as an individual did not.22
After the war, this elite and military over-reaction had intense personal
meaning for its survivors. When Ōmori was imprisoned for the publication
described above, it marked a grim “signpost on the road to fascism” for his
10 Post-Fascist Japan

friends.23 Neither Ōmori nor Tosaka lived past 1945, both dying of medical
neglect, Tosaka in prison and Ōmori shortly after early release due to the gravity
of his illness. Later, when their colleagues focused on the attitudes of elite
Japanese, they did so not because other people seemed less important but because
they thought this group had caused their friends’ deaths. Their Herculean efforts
to democratize the institutions through which all Japanese interacted was a form
of commemoration for their fallen comrades.24
Meanwhile, precisely because they were painfully aware that fascism had
been popular, these individuals focused on precisely how all kinds of people
had been mobilized to support it. They recognized that, as Mark Mazower
stressed for Europe, “Capitalism does not create feelings of belonging,” while
fascism did, explaining why so many Japanese had thought accepting it would
lead to a better society.25 Mazower’s focus on emotion meshes closely with Alan
Tansman’s recent argument that fascist aesthetics drove changes in political
and economic institutions rather than the other way around in Japan. Tansman
suggests that it is more useful to think of fascism “as an ideology that sought
to intervene in culture” than as “an established political system.”26 He drew on
several studies to demonstrate “the government’s efforts to instill daily life with
an ideology of beauty and purity,” creating aesthetic pressure to acquiesce in
war and repression. The liveliest example, in a chapter by Aaron Skabelund,
shows how “the symbol of a loyal dog [Hachiko] acquired pedagogic force for
promulgating values of racial purity and national essence.”27 This emotionally
driven aesthetics is how the general population learned to like fascism, despite
the obvious harm to them of fascist political and economic policies. As do
Mann, Hofmann, and Yoshimi, Mazower and Tansman reject the argument that
fascism was insufficiently modern but they foreground affective, discursive, and
cultural processes rather than political-economic ones. Affection for animals,
rather than either mass rallies or an embrace of “potatoes instead of meat,” was
a typical pathway by which a broader group of Japanese first accepted fascist
priorities in this stream of analysis. Decades earlier my protagonists also paid
close attention to this emotional dimension because they thought fascism had
assuaged fears among Japanese that were understandable although overblown.
In retrospect, postwar Japanese people often felt most ashamed of having
gloried in the emotional fantasy that violence and death in service to a community
were beautiful. Kamakura-based novelist and popular historian Osaragi Jirō later
recognized that he had indulged in what Tansman, following Susan Sontag, has
identified as the core fascist aesthetic, one that “glorifies [personal] surrender,
exalts mindlessness, and glamorizes death.”28 In 1939 Osaragi was awed by the
 Introduction 11

demeanor of a group of Hitler Youth members who visited Tokyo, Kamakura,

and Kyoto. He was most impressed by their handsome healthy bodies, “like
saplings in the forest,” and by the degree to which the 14- to 18-year-olds were
physically attuned to each other on the sports field. As he wrote, “they have
had flawless training so they move in total concert with each other.” At other
moments during the war, he celebrated the physicality and manliness of soldiers
deployed in Manchuria and the “admirable deportment” of kamikaze pilots,
sounding much like the Europeans of the same era described by George Mosse
in The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity.29
At the time Osaragi and other Japanese hoped that the sincerity and selflessness
implied by serving up these handsome young men as battlefield sacrifices would
guarantee victory. Afterward these community leaders felt less that they had
been tricked than forced to acknowledge a more painful reality: they had lost
their sense of moral proportion. Precisely because all aspects of society had been
mobilized for war and subsumed into fascist culture, everything was already
tangled together in a highly politicized way. Unraveling those knots became an
obligation for postwar Japanese like Osaragi. We know that he personally felt
compelled to do so because he served as a councilor in the first postwar Cabinet,
headed by Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, for two months in early autumn 1945.
Osaragi spent most of his energy on repealing the Peace Preservation Laws, which
had legalized the persecution of leftists.30 His regret at having supported a wanton
waste of human life served to retrospectively mark the war years as fascist.
When Japanese people who lived through those years remembered their
dead, that commemorative act also rekindled the memory of how easily those
warped priorities had prevailed. Today, attention to the ways that Japanese
national subjects were abused by the wartime government is dismissed as self-
exculpatory “victim consciousness.” But such comments functioned for decades
primarily to remind other Japanese that the war years had also been an era of
fascism, particularly when the dead being remembered were in prison rather
than in uniform.31 And, as long as this context remained dominant, the topic
of domestic repression opened an avenue to enable, rather than block, self-
criticism about Japanese aggression in Asia.

The post-fascist “community of contrition”

When the war ended, Japan’s small educated elite continued to play a central role
in political culture, with the exception of career military men.32 The wartime
12 Post-Fascist Japan

Figure I.3 Osaragi Jirō (the pen name of Nojiri Haruhiko) and Ōmori Yoshitarō
shared an interest in photography and this snapshot of Osaragi is by Ōmori. Ca. 1931.
Used by permission of Ei Masako. Photograph courtesy of Kamakura City Central
Public Library.
 Introduction 13

dissidents in these pages were among the tiny fraction of men—and handful
of women—who had risen through the prewar educational ranks, generally
emerging with degrees from Japan’s best universities. Sociologist Takeuchi Yō
reports that the premier gateway of educational achievement, the First Higher
School, educated only about 300 students at any one time in the 1920s. As a
consequence, left-wingers whose politics were far out of the mainstream
frequently had slept and studied next to the men who later persecuted them.33
While the architects of the war and their critics later came to think of each other
as dangerous fanatics, these shared teen-aged experiences meant they also had a
great deal in common. Masaki Chifuyu, for example, wrote that one of the most
painful features of incarceration for him was that several of his jailors had been
his middle school classmates. In intimate ways, they knew a great deal about the
people who ran Japan during the war.34
Somehow, beginning in late 1945, the members of this generation had to
rebuild their deeply damaged relationships along lines radically different from
those dominant just a few months earlier. Mashita Shin’ichi, who was arrested in
1937 for leftist activity, remained under police surveillance until the last day of
the war. He later explained how traumatic that experience had been and why he
thought of it as surviving fascism. During the conflict, he had avoided thinking
about Japan’s impending defeat because he was afraid he would be murdered
by the police. “At that critical point I didn’t know what was likely to happen to
people such as myself who were on a list to be taken into ‘protective custody.’ I
was not sure I would have survived that moment.” Given that the military police,
working with Tokyo officers, had used the opportunity of the 1923 earthquake
to detain and kill Ōsugi Sakae, Itō Noe, their preschooler American nephew,
and ten labor organizers—and had evaded punishment—his fears that the police
would respond violently to defeat were hardly paranoid.35
Mashita spent the day before the surrender at the Kyoto headquarters
of the Special Higher Police, summoned to “help them with their enquiries.”
Increasingly anxious as the conflict drew to an end, the police had seized books
and papers from Westerners living in the region and required Mashita to search
for signs of Jewish Freemasonry, even though they were under no illusions that he
shared their political views. On this occasion, probably with advance knowledge
of the surrender, the Section Chief, a tall, painfully thin man of about Mashita’s
age, walked close to him and murmured quietly, “So in the end, we’ve lost to you
people,” stressing the political antagonism that accompanied the external war.36
These personal experiences explain the postwar priorities chosen by men such
as Mashita. As Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan argued, collective remembrance
14 Post-Fascist Japan

always results from concrete actions taken by social groups who compete with
each other to publicly represent the past. Winter and Sivan borrow a term from
anthropology to explain that these sets of individuals “constitute ‘networks of
complimentarity’ ” that provide a sense of internal community, which, in turn,
becomes the basis for a new narrative, one that, if successful, is adopted more
widely. The Japanese individuals highlighted here formed a particularly cohesive
internal community soldered together by their collective outrage at their own
treatment mingled with acknowledgment of two uncomfortable facts: others
had fared far worse, and they too all had in some ways supported fascism and
war. As Winter and Sivan conclude, “Each group highlights elements close to its
own traumatized members,” and the journey from star student to jailbird was
the exact center of trauma for them.37
Given the strong evidence that their experiences had indeed been traumatic,
it is noteworthy that these people typically faulted themselves as well as others
for having permitted fascism’s rise. As Murayama explained in 1975, individuals
who had been persecuted felt liberated by defeat but also “to a greater or lesser
degree, I think they all felt that they too bore some responsibility for the war,
through their own cowardice or mistakes or weaknesses. So to make amends
for that responsibility, they felt even more strongly the need to take action and
join together to create a future. I am certainly one such person.”38 Mashita too
lingered on the unsettling fact that he could not be sure any real differences
between himself and his jailers existed. In 1975, Mashita commented that during
the darkest years he spent in prison and police interrogation rooms, he retained
the belief that “people cannot live without freedom and love…The people who
have it snatched from them sooner or later always get it back.” When “the fifteen
years of fascism and war” were happening, “it was nothing to laugh about but in
the end the ones who can laugh are those of us who did not hold a blackness deep
in our hearts. Or maybe it was because we could perceive that inner blackness.”39
The sting in the tail of his remarks seems designed to remind himself as well as
others that he had not been immune to fascism’s appeal, despite having been
persecuted in its name.
Their sense of themselves as simultaneously victims and perpetrators
is central to the story of this particular “network of complimentarity,”
and is accurately captured by Andrew Barshay and J. Victor Koschmann’s
characterization of leftist intellectuals as comprising a postwar “community
of contrition.” As Koschmann’s foremost example, political philosopher
Maruyama Masao, explained, the key problem impelling him and “most of my
intellectually active colleagues” was a desire to understand why Japanese people,
 Introduction 15

especially intellectuals, had been so willing to accept “the onrush of a blindly

nationalistic militarism inspired by the crudest beliefs.”40 Truly understanding
those motivations and creating better responses seemed the central postwar—
and post-fascist—task to all these men.
The willingness to include themselves in their mental lists of fascist enablers
demands our attention for several reasons. One is the impressive confidence and
the even more impressive sense of social responsibility revealed by doing so. Those
qualities fundamentally flowed from these individuals’ educational experience,
professional training, and social status, all of which inclined them toward such
a stance. While their elitism often grated on others, it fueled their energy and
honesty. Another is the rarity of this response. Tony Judt finds little to match it
in postwar Europe, arguing that the “distrust of short-term memory, the search
for serviceable myths of anti-Fascism—for a Germany of anti-Nazis, a France
of Resisters or a Poland of victims—was the most important invisible legacy of
World War Two in Europe.”41 A third reason was that it felt true; it was easier to
face the fact that everyone was a perpetrator at a moment when most Japanese also
were absorbing the painful fact that the fascist promise of community had been
built on a savage lie. By late 1944, military leaders had begun exhorting the entire
population to engage in “glorious self-destruction” rather than surrender. This was
the logical endpoint of fascist culture, and essentially every adult in the postwar
years had to come to terms with their own participation—often enthusiastic—in
attitudes and actions that had led so insistently to that undesirable end.
Interestingly, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel framed the task of his
new government in very similar terms in 1990 when his country broke free
from the Soviet bloc. After beginning his first speech by promising not to lie to
his compatriots, as his predecessors routinely had, Havel said about their task,
“The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment … we
are all—though naturally to differing extents—responsible for the operation of
the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-
creator.” But, Havel continued, acknowledging this responsibility was actually
empowering. “If we realize this, then all the horrors that the new Czechoslovak
democracy inherited will cease to appear so terrible. If we realize this, hope will
return to our hearts.”42 In postwar Japan too, refusing to lie and acknowledging
one’s own complicity also meant recognizing one’s own power.
When these individuals expressed discomfort at their own attraction to
fascism’s emotional and aesthetic pull, as they often did, they were crafting a
new narrative and writing a new social contract that called on their compatriots
to democratize every aspect of life. A central component of that new narrative
16 Post-Fascist Japan

was accepting the fact that identifying morally correct behavior—even

retrospectively—is not just a difficult but is sometimes an impossible task. As
Arisawa commented in 1958, “Young people often argue that the old liberals
were inattentive and without a clear analysis, and so bear some of the blame
for being overwhelmed by the militarists.” But, he continued, “when I look
from the perspective of my own life, I don’t see any place where we could
have had the decisive battle to protect liberalism. Things just gradually got
worse. The postwar system built on respect for human rights will be harder to
topple but we must be watchful. That, to me, is the lesson of our experience.”43
Moral righteousness was not only unattainable; searching for it was counter-
productive.
Ienaga Saburō, another famously energetic member of the intellectual
“community of contrition,” also zeroed in on the difficulty he personally had
in identifying when and how he should have behaved differently. Including
himself in his critique, Ienaga explained that he wrote The Pacific War (pub.
1968, English 1978) because he had not known precisely when he should have
refused to cooperate. As he explained in the preface,
no one could live through those years without being directly involved in the war.
Choices had to be made: To cooperate with the authorities? Opportunistically
to make the best deal possible for oneself? To feign obedience and comply? To
watch the war from the sidelines? To resist? Everyone confronted these choices
in their daily thoughts and actions. Unless we look back at the decisions we
made and consider whether we acted properly or not, we cannot lead a serious
existence in the postwar world.44

Neither ideology nor morality offered a reliable compass out of the fascist swamp.
Masaki Chifuyu, who later became mayor of Kamakura as covered in
Chapter 4, similarly recognized that his actions had supported the war effort and
he too stressed his own postwar inability to find a clear line between cooperation
and resistance, given the moral murkiness of the era. Even though Masaki’s four-
year stint in prison was traumatic, he described his war experience up until the
moment of his arrest as much like that of other Japanese. While he had expected
Japan’s defeat as early as mid-1939, based on the grim economic statistics he
faced every day at work, Masaki set himself apart from his countrymen in no
other way. The implication from his memoirs is that if the war had gone on
longer, all Japanese would have come to the same conclusion—and might have
found themselves imprisoned too—and thus his quandary was much like theirs.
Without minimizing his role in the war effort, Masaki wrote,
Another random document with
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and expected to be furnished with our meals among the other
accommodations of our boat. The captain generously offered us some
cheese and crackers, and after regaling ourselves on these, we commenced
instituting a search for sleeping-places. It was by this time dark, and black
clouds were sweeping over the sky. The wind had changed, and we were
beating off and on Angel Island, while the spray was dashing over our
boat’s sides, which were nearly level with the water from her great load. It
augured anything but a pleasant night, and here were eleven of us, with a
prospect of rain and spray, forced to find some means of sleeping on the
pile of barrels or boxes that loaded the boat, or pass a night of sleeplessness.
Sharper-sighted than my companions, I had spied out a box of goods
lying aft that rose above the mingled mass around it, and upon which, by
doubling myself into a most unnatural and ungentlemanly position, I could
repose the upper portion of my body, while my heels rested on the chines of
a pork-barrel, at an angle of about forty-five degrees above my head. With a
selfishness peculiar to the human race, I appropriated the whole of this
couch to myself, and was already in the land of dreams, with bright visions
of “big lumps” and bigger piles of gold flitting before my spiritual eyes,
when I felt myself roughly shaken, and awaking, found Higgins, one of my
companions, standing at my side, who coolly informed me that “my time
was up, and it was now his turn.” It seems that, during my absence in the
visionary world, a council had been held by all hands, in which it was
gravely decided and resolved, First, “that there was no other feasible
sleeping-place than the box then occupied by me;” Secondly, “that it was
contrary to the laws of all human society, that one man should appropriate
to his own private and individual use all of this world’s goods;” and
Thirdly, “that, for the next twenty-four hours, all hands should in rotation
take a nap upon the box.” When Higgins woke me, the rain-drops were
pattering upon my “serape,” and half asleep I jumped up, and going
forward, found a little place where I could half lie down; and in this
manner, with the rain-drops and surf dashing upon me, and every roll of the
little boat threatening to cast me upon the waters, I passed that night on the
bay of San Francisco,—a night which I shall never forget. My companions
and fellow-sufferers, when not occupying the box, were either catching an
occasional wink in a perpendicular position, or sitting upon the chines of a
barrel, wishing with all their hearts for daylight.
 Morning at length came, as morning always will, even after the longest
night, and the warm sun soon was shining upon us, and drying our wet
clothing, and invigorating our dampened spirits. We had passed, during the
night, out of the bay of San Francisco into that of San Pablo. This bay is
about ten miles in diameter, its form being nearly circular. Its entrance is
about eight miles from the town of San Francisco, and is marked by two
rocky islands known as the “Two Brothers,” lying a few yards from each
other, and white with birdlime. The usual channel is on the left of these
rocks. From the bay of San Pablo we entered the straits of Carquinez, thirty-
five miles from San Francisco, and at about noon we were abreast of the
town of Benicia.
The straits of Carquinez are about one mile in width, and six in length,
and connect the bay of San Pablo with that of Suisun. Near the head of the
straits and the entrance to Suisun Bay, is placed the city of Benicia. This
town was the first laid out among the new towns of California, and many
months before the discovery of the mines gave a tremendous impetus to
town making. Benicia seems destined to become a great city, and perhaps
rival San Francisco in point of commercial importance,—possessing, as it
unquestionably does, many advantages over it. The banks are bold and
steep, and sufficient depth of water is found here at all seasons for vessels
to lie and discharge their cargoes directly at the bank; while at San
Francisco the tide only serves once in twenty-four hours, and even then all
cargoes are obliged to be transported in launches and scows from the ships,
which are forced to lie at some distance from the shore, in consequence of
the broad flat in front of the town.
Leaving Benicia, we proceeded into the bay of Suisun, and passing the
delta of the San Joaquin, entered the magnificent Sacramento, the Hudson
of the western world. The lofty Palisades are not here; but to the lover of
the picturesque and beautiful, the tall oak groves, through which the deer,
the elk, and antelope are bounding, the golden hue of the landscape, the
snowy peaks of the distant Sierra, the lofty Mount Diablo, and the calm,
broad, and placid river, present a scene upon the Sacramento as enchanting
as that which broke upon the enraptured vision of old Hendrick Hudson. At
the entrance of the river the land is low and somewhat marshy, being
covered with a thick, rank growth of tule, a species of rush, of which the
Indians make baskets, chairs, and many little articles. On the left bank of
the entrance to the Sacramento was the magnificent city of Montezuma,
consisting of one unfinished house, through which the autumn winds were
rattling. This is one of the paper towns laid out some three years since, and
abandoned since the discovery of the placers has brought out more
favourable points of location. The Sacramento here is about a mile in width;
and to the right, rising up apparently from the end of the tule prairie, is the
rugged peak of Monte Diablo (Devil’s Mountain), four thousand feet in
height. The low, alluvial bottom lands along the shore appear susceptible of
the highest cultivation; and I doubt not, when the gold mania shall have
partially ceased, the rich bottoms of the Sacramento will be clothed with
farm-houses, the abodes of happiness, peace, and plenty, and that the music
of lowing herds will resound over its spreading prairies.
At the mouth of the river there is very little timber; but in our progress
upward we found the oak and the sycamore growing most luxuriantly; and,
extending back on the left bank as far as the eye could reach, a spreading
prairie of wild oats and mustard, the latter raising its yellow-flowered head
to the height of many feet. We “tied up” for the night about four miles from
the entrance of the river, and building a large fire on shore, and cooking
some potatoes and pork, with which the captain generously furnished us,
determining to spend this night stretched upon a level, went to sleep around
the camp fire, and made good ere morning for our previous night’s misery,
and slept in utter disregard of the wolves and grizzly bears which abound in
that region.
The next day, there being no wind, we were obliged to pull for it, and
about dusk reached Hala-chum-muck, or, as it is now called, “Suisun,” a
city under that cognomen having been laid out here. The “city” is on the left
bank of the river, and about fifteen miles from its mouth, on a bold, high
bank, and surrounded by a fine growth of oak timber. Hala-chum-muck is
an old stopping-place on the river; and finding the remains of a house here,
we “tied up,” and going on shore, and making a fire from the remnants of
some boards, which had been pulled from the roof of the house, cooked
another supper, and slept on the ground, with a small piece of roof over our
heads.
Hala-chum-muck derives its name from an Indian story connected with
it. Many years ago, a party of hunters were encamped here for the night,
and being attacked by Indians, after a brave resistance were all killed, with
the exception of one, who, as he was escaping, was followed with a cry
from the Indians of “Hala-chum-muck” (nothing to eat), probably, as he had
been forced to throw down his rifle, signifying thereby that they would
leave him to die of starvation. The spot has, ever since that time, borne the
name of “Hala-chum-muck.”
There were three families living here, with a stock of cattle, when the
placers were discovered, and Hala-chum-muck was bidding fair to be a
town; but on the reception of the golden news, they deserted their ranchos,
and the crews of launches which stopped here soon killed off the cattle and
destroyed the dwellings. Lots in Suisun, however, are now selling rapidly,
and at high rates.
We continued our progress up the river, occasionally stopping and
amusing ourselves by firing the woods on either side, and watching the
broad flames as they spread and crackled through the underbrush. On the
night of the 30th, we hauled up at the rancho of Schwartz—an old German,
of whom Bryant speaks as a man who has forgotten his own language, and
never acquired any other. He is certainly the most curious specimen of
humanity it was ever my lot to witness. He emigrated to California some
ten years since, and obtained a grant of six leagues of land, extending up
and down the Sacramento River; and in the progress of time he will
probably be one of the richest land-holders of California. He has built upon
the bank of the river a little hut of tule, resembling a miserable Indian
wigwam; and there he lives, a “manifest destiny” man, with “masterly
inactivity” awaiting the march of civilization, and anticipating at some
future day the sale of his lands for a princely fortune—a hope in which he
will probably not be disappointed. His language is a mixture of his old
mother German, English, Spanish, French, and Indian; and it would require
an apter linguist than it was ever my good fortune to meet with, to
comprehend his “lingua.”
I underwent an operation at Schwartz’s rancho, that sealed my full
connexion and communion with the region to which I was travelling. It was
no less than an impromptu baptism in the golden waters of the Sacramento.
We had built a fire on shore, and having purchased from Schwartz a few
pounds of beef at gold-digger’s price, i.e. one dollar per pound, had eaten
our supper, when I started for the launch, which lay about ten yards from
the shore, to get my blankets. The only conveyance was an old log canoe of
Schwartz’s; and seating myself in it, in company with one of my
companions and an Indian boy he had brought with him, we pushed off.
The Indian was seated in the canoe’s bow, and was frightened by the
oscillating motion given to it, when it was first pushed off from the shore.
To balance the roll upon one side, he leaned to the other, and finding a
corresponding motion in that direction, he reversed his position, and leaning
too far, upset the canoe, and all three of us. I, with a heavy overcoat on, and
my rifle in hand, tumbled into about fifteen feet of water. I dropped the rifle
as though it were boiling lead, and made the best of my way to the shore.
We all arrived safely on terra firma, and going on board alone in the canoe,
I changed my clothing. Telling old Schwartz that I must encroach upon his
hospitality, and drinking about a pint of some coloured New England rum,
which he assured me was “de tres best clasa de brandy,” I stretched my
blankets on the mud floor of his wigwam, and awoke in the morning in as
good health and spirits as though nothing had happened. I engaged the
services of a Kanaka, who was on board, to dive for my rifle; and after he
had brought it up, we got under way, and after sleeping another night on the
banks of the Sacramento, reached the “Embarcadero,” now Sacramento
City, on the evening of November 2d. The river here is about eight hundred
feet wide.
The beautiful plain on which is now located the thriving and populous
city of Sacramento, was, when I first landed there, untenanted. There was
not a house upon it, the only place of business being an old store-ship laid
up upon its bank. Where now, after a lapse of only one year, a flourishing
city with a population of twelve thousand stands, I pitched my tent on the
edge of a broad prairie.
To complete the party with which we intended going to the mines, we
were obliged to wait at the Embarcadero for three of our disbanded soldiers,
who had left the Pueblo de los Angeles about the time we did, and were
coming by land through the Tularè valley, as we required their horses to
pack the provisions we had brought with us.
We pitched our tent, cooked our provisions, and anxiously waited the
arrival of the men, a prey to the greatest excitement,—continually hearing
as we did, the most extravagant stories from the mining region. The intense
heat of the summer solstice had given way to autumn’s cooling breezes, and
parties were daily arriving at and leaving the Embarcadero; the former with
their pockets well lined with gold dust, and the latter with high hopes and
beating hearts.
 CHAPTER II.
Arrival of our Party—The Mountaineer—A “prospecting” Expedition—The Start—
California Skies in November—A Drenching—Go-ahead Higgins—“Camp Beautiful”—
John the Irishman—The Indian’s Grave—A “rock” Speech—The Return—Herd of
Antelope—Johnson’s Rancho—Acorn Gathering—Indian Squaws—Novel Costume—
The Rancheria—Pule-u-le—A Bear Fight.

On the 7th of November our party arrived,—their horses, of which they

brought five, jaded with the travel in the mountains; and it was not until the
16th that we were able to make a start. Being, of course, entirely ignorant of
the best locality to which to proceed, and being all young, strong, and
enthusiastic, we determined to strike out a new path, and go on an exploring
expedition in the mountains, in the hope that fortune would throw in our
way the biggest of all lumps, and that we might possibly find the fountain
head of El Dorado, where, gushing in a rich and golden lava from the heart
of the great Sierra, a stream of molten gold should appear before our
enraptured eyes.
Fortune, or rather misfortune, favoured us in this project. We were
visited one evening in camp by a man, who informed us that he had recently
been on a “prospecting” expedition with a party of three others, and that
after nearly reaching, as he thought, the fountain head of gold, the party was
attacked by Indians, and all, with the exception of himself, killed. The
“prospect,” he told us, was most favourable, and learning from him the
direction of the mountains in which he had been, with two pack-horses
lightly laden with hard bread and dried beef, six of us started on the evening
of November 16th on our Quixotic expedition, leaving one with the
remainder of our provisions and the tent at the Embarcadero.
We crossed the Rio de los Americanos about a mile above Sutter’s Fort,
and, encamping upon its opposite bank, started on the morning of the 17th.
The sky promised a heavy rain storm; nothing daunted, however, we pushed
on in the direction of the Bear River settlements, and about noon the sky’s
predictions were most fully realized. The rain fell in big drops, and soon
broke upon us in torrents. The wind blew a hurricane, and we were in the
apparent centre of an open prairie, with a row of sheltering trees about four
miles distant, mockingly beckoning us to seek protection beneath their thick
and wide-spreading branches.
We pushed on, and succeeded in reaching the trees, which proved to be
evergreen oaks, in a little more than an hour, wet to the skin. The little
clothing we had brought with us, and packed upon the horses’ backs, was
also wet, and our bread reduced to the consistency of paste. We were
dispirited, but managed to build a fire beneath the trees, and remained there
throughout the day. The rain ceased at nightfall, and making a sorry supper
from our wet bread and slimy meat, we stretched ourselves on the ground,
wrapped in our blankets, heartily cursing our folly in travelling out of the
beaten track with the hopes of rendering ourselves rich and our names
immortal. But tired men will sleep even in wet blankets and on muddy
ground, and we were half compensated in the morning for our previous
day’s adventures and misfortunes by as bright a sunshine and clear a sky as
ever broke upon a prairie. Gathering up our provisions, we made a start, for
the purpose of reaching, before night set in, a ravine, where we were,
according to our directions, to leave the main road and strike for the
mountains.
About dusk we reached a dry “arroyo,” which we supposed to be the one
indicated on the rough draft of the road we were to travel, given us by the
mountaineer who had first impressed our minds with the idea of this
expedition. We unpacked, built a roaring fire in the centre of the arroyo,
and placing our wet bread and beef in its immediate vicinity, had them soon
in a fair way of drying. We lay down again at night, with a bright starlit sky
resting peacefully over us, and hoped for an invigorating rest; but California
skies in November are not to be trusted, and so we found to our sorrow, for
about twelve o’clock we were all turned out by a tremendous shower of
rain. We gathered around the expiring fire, and our sorrows for our bodily
sufferings were all soon absorbed in the thought that there lay our poor
bread and meat, our sole dependence for support, once half dried and now
suffering a second soaking. There being no indications of a cessation of the
rain, we stretched over our provisions a small tent we had brought with us,
and for not having previously pitched which we cursed ourselves heartily,
and spent the remainder of the night in sleeplessness and wet.
The tantalizing morning again broke fair, and it was decided to remain
where we were throughout the day, and make another attempt at drying our
provisions, and at the same time fully decide what to do. Two of the party
(myself included) wished either to turn back and try some other part of the
“diggins,” or proceed on the main road which we had been travelling, and
near which we were then encamped, directly to the Yuba River, at a
distance, as we supposed, of about thirty miles. But the go-ahead party was
too powerful for us, and, headed by Higgins, a man of the most indomitable
perseverance, pictured to us the glorious results we were to achieve. We
were to go where the track of the white man was yet unseen, and find in the
mountain’s stony heart a home for the winter, with untold riches lying
beneath our feet. We yielded, and the next morning at daylight started
again, making a straight course for the mountains, lying in a northeasterly
direction, and apparently about twenty-five miles distant. And here we
were, started on an unknown track, to go among hostile savages, who we
knew had already killed our countrymen, our provisions for six consisting
of about twenty-five pounds of wet and already moulded hard bread and
some miserable jerked beef.
We travelled up the “arroyo” till nearly sunset, when we struck the foot-
hills of the mountains. We had seen no foot-tracks, except an occasional
naked one of an Indian, and I became fully satisfied that we had taken the
wrong “arroyo” as our diverging point. The ground over which we had
travelled that day was a miserable stony soil, with here and there a scrubby
oak tree growing. As we struck the foot of the mountains the scene was
changed. Rich, verdant, and fertile-looking valleys opened out before us,
and tall oaks threw a luxuriant, lengthened evening shadow upon the gentle
slope of their ascent. We entered the midst of these valleys, and, after
proceeding nearly a mile, came to the prettiest camping spot I ever saw. An
expansion of the valley formed a circular plain of about a mile in diameter,
surrounded on all sides, excepting at its one narrow entrance, with green,
tree-covered, and lofty hills. A tall growth of grass and wild oats,
interspersed with beautiful blue and yellow autumnal flowers, covered the
plain, and meandering through it, with a thousand windings, was a silvery
stream, clear as crystal, from which we and our thirsty horses drank our fill,
and relished the draught, I believe, better than the gods ever did their nectar.
It was a beautiful scene. The sun was just sinking behind the hills on the
western side, and threw a golden stream of light on the opposite slope.
Birds of gaudy plumage were carolling their thousand varied notes on the
tree branches, and I thought if gold and its allurements could be banished
from my thoughts, I could come here and live in this little earthly paradise
happily for ever.
We selected a gentle slope, beneath a huge rock, near the western hill-
side, for our camping ground, and, again building a fire, were about to
content ourselves with a supper of mouldy bread, when a jolly son of the
Emerald Isle who was one of our party, in diving among the little bags of
which our packs consisted, found one of burnt and ground coffee, which we
did not know we possessed, and another of sugar, both to be sure a little
wet, but nevertheless welcome. Talk of the delights of sipping the decoction
of the “brown berry” after a hearty dinner at “Delmonico’s!” That dish of
hot coffee, drunk out of my quart tin pot, in which also I had boiled it, was a
more luxurious beverage to me than the dew-drops in a new-blown rose
could be to a fairy. I slept delightfully under its influence till midnight,
when I was called to stand my turn of guard duty, which, as we were in an
Indian region, all knew to be necessary; and I, who so often with my sword
belted around me, had commanded guard as their officer, watched post with
my old rifle for nearly two hours.
The day broke as clear and beautiful upon our enchanting valley as the
previous one had closed. After partaking of another pot of hot coffee and
some mouldy bread, I took a stroll across the little stream, with my rifle for
my companion, while the others, more enthusiastic, started in search of
gold. I crossed the plain, and found, at the foot of the hill on the other side,
a deserted Indian hut, built of bushes and mud. The fire was still burning on
the mud hearth, a few gourds filled with water were lying at the entrance,
and an ugly dog was growling near it. Within a few feet of the hut was a
little circular mound enclosed with a brush paling. It was an Indian’s grave,
and placed in its centre, as a tombstone, was a long stick stained with a red
colouring, which also covered the surface of the mound. Some proud
chieftain probably rested here, and as the hut bore evident marks of having
been very recently deserted, his descendants had without doubt left his
bones to moulder there alone, and fled at the sight of the white man.
Leaving this spot, I returned to camp, and, as the gold-hunters had not
yet come back, still continued to stroll around it. The top of the rock
beneath which we had slept was covered with deep and regularly made
holes, like those found in the rocks where rapids of rivers have fallen for
centuries and worn them out. It was long before I could account for the
existence of these, but finally imagined, what I afterwards found to be the
fact, that they were made by the continual pounding of the Indians in
mashing their acorns. In the vicinity I observed several groves of a species
of white oak (Quercus longiglanda), some of them eight feet in diameter,
and at least eighty feet high. This tree is remarkable for the length of its
acorns, several that I picked up measuring two inches.
The gold-hunters finally returned, and with elongated countenances
reported that, though they had diligently searched every little ravine around
our camp, the nearest they could come to gold-finding was some beautiful
specimens of mica, which John the Irishman brought in with him, insisting
that it was “pure goold.” We camped again in the valley that night, and the
next morning held another council as to what we should do and whither we
should go. Higgins, as usual, was for going ahead; I was for backing out;
and the little party formed itself into two factions, Higgins at the head of
one, and I of the other. Mounting the rock, I made not exactly a “stump,”
but a “rock” speech, in which, to my own satisfaction, and, as it proved, to
that of the majority of the party, I explained the madness of the idea of
starting into the mountains on foot, without a guide, and with but about two
or three days’ provisions remaining. We had seen but few deer so far, and
knew not whether there were any in the mountains. I recommended that we
should immediately pack up, and strike what we thought to be the best
course for Johnson’s Rancho, on Bear River, about fifteen miles from Yuba.
I succeeded, and we packed up and retraced our steps, with somewhat
heavy hearts, down the little valley. We left our blessing on the lovely spot,
named our camping ground “Camp Beautiful,” and proceeded on our way,
following the base of the mountains. There was no road, and we knew not
whither we were going, only that we were in the right direction. The
country outside of the mountains was miserably poor and barren, the soil
being covered with a rocky flint. It is entirely destitute of timber, excepting
on the banks of the “arroyos,” which were then dry, and are all skirted with
magnificent evergreen oaks. We were travelling in a northwesterly
direction, and hoped to reach Bear River at night; coming, however, to a
little stream, we camped upon its margin, and the next day started again,
refreshed by a good night’s sleep, but dispirited from our ignorance of
where we were, or whither we were going, besides being foot-sore from our
travel over the flinty pebbles. About noon we saw, at a distance of some
three or four miles, an immense flock of what we took to be sheep. Elated at
the prospect of being near a rancho, we speedily unpacked a horse, and
using the pack lashing for a bridle, I mounted him, and galloped at full
speed in the direction of the flock, hoping to find the rancho to which they
belonged near them. I approached to within three hundred yards of them
before I discovered the mistake under which I had laboured, when the
whole herd went bounding away affrighted. What I had taken for a flock of
sheep was a herd of antelopes, containing, I should suppose, nearly a
thousand, and for a supper of one of which I would have freely given a
month’s anticipated labour in the gold mines. I returned to the party, and
dampened their already disheartened spirits by my report.
We travelled on slowly, for we were wearied and heartsick, and at about
four o’clock in the afternoon, having traversed a very circuitous route, the
horses were unpacked and the small quantity of remaining provisions put in
our pockets. Higgins, the owner of one of the horses, mounted his, and John
the Irishman, who was suffering with a rheumatic complaint, the other. I
was so weary and weak that I could scarcely support myself, and my feet
were so covered with blisters, and so swollen, that every step I took seemed
like treading on sharpened spikes. How I wished myself back in “Camp
Beautiful,”—in Texas—anywhere but where I was. I was lagging behind
the party, when John, turning round, saw me, and stopped his horse; as I
came up to him he dismounted and forced me to take his place. God bless
thee! generous Irishman. Beneath a rough exterior he had a heart which beat
with feelings and emotions to which many a proud bosom is a stranger.
How I loaded him with thanks, and only received his unsophisticated reply,
that I “was tireder than he was.” About dark we struck a stream of water,
and all but Higgins were ready and glad to camp and eat the last remains of
the mouldy bread and beef. The persevering energy of Higgins had not in
the least degree failed him, and without getting off his horse, he bade us
“good-bye,” and assured us that he would never return till he had found
Johnson’s Rancho. He left us: we built up a good fire, and about three hours
afterward, while speculating on his return, he came dashing into camp with
about a dozen pounds of fresh beef, some bread, and a bottle of fine old
brandy. We welcomed him as we would an angel visitant. My distaste for
his desperation changed into an admiration for his energy. It seems he had
found a road about forty yards from our camp, and a ride of five miles had
brought him to Johnson’s Rancho. We made a good supper of beef and
bread, and revived our fainting spirits with the brandy, and in the fulness of
our hearts unanimously voted Higgins excused from guard duty for that
night. Next morning, light-hearted and happy, we started for the rancho, and
crossing Bear River, on which it is situated, reached there about ten o’clock.
Johnson is an American, who many years since obtained a large grant of
fertile land on Bear River, and has been living here for years within fifteen
miles of a stream whose banks and bed were filled with incalculable riches.
We procured some provisions here, and started for the Yuba, and without
any mishaps reached the camping ground, about three miles from the river,
early in the afternoon. We camped, and Higgins and myself started on a
hunting expedition, for the purpose of getting some game for supper. We
made our way into the hills, and were travelling slowly, trailing our rifles,
when we stopped suddenly, dumbfounded, before two of the most curious
and uncouth-looking objects that ever crossed my sight. They were two
Indian women, engaged in gathering acorns. They were entirely naked, with
the exception of a coyote skin extending from the waists to the knees. Their
heads were shaved, and the tops of them covered with a black tarry paint,
and a huge pair of military whiskers were daubed on their cheeks with the
same article. They had with them two conical-shaped wicker baskets, in
which they were placing the acorns, which were scattered ankle deep
around them. Higgins, with more gallantry than myself, essayed a
conversation with them, but made a signal failure, as after listening to a few
sentences in Spanish and English, they seized their acorn baskets and ran.
The glimpse we had taken of these mountain beauties, and our failure to
enter into any conversation with them, determined us to pay a visit to their
headquarters, which we knew were near by. Watching their footsteps in
their rapid flight, we saw them, after descending a hill, turn up a ravine, and
disappear. We followed in the direction which they had taken, and soon
reached the Indian rancheria. It was located on both sides of a deep ravine,
across which was thrown a large log as a bridge, and consisted of about
twenty circular wigwams, built of brush, plastered with mud, and capable of
containing three or four persons. As we entered, we observed our flying
beauties, seated on the ground, pounding acorns on a large rock indented
with holes similar to those which so puzzled me at “Camp Beautiful.” We
were suddenly surrounded upon our entrance by thirty or forty male
Indians, entirely naked, who had their bows and quivers slung over their
shoulders, and who stared most suspiciously at us and our rifles. Finding
one of them who spoke Spanish, I entered into a conversation with him—
told him we had only come to pay a visit to the rancheria, and, as a token of
peace offering, gave him about two pounds of musty bread and some
tobacco which I happened to have in my game-bag. This pleased him
highly, and from that moment till we left, Pule-u-le, as he informed me his
name was, appeared my most intimate and sworn friend. I apologized to
him for the unfortunate fright which we had caused a portion of his
household, and assured him that no harm was intended, as I entertained the
greatest respect for the ladies of his tribe, whom I considered far superior in
point of ornament, taste, and natural beauty to those of any other race of
Indians in the country. Pule-u-le exhibited to me the interior of several of
the wigwams, which were nicely thatched with sprigs of pine and cypress,
while a matting of the same material covered the bottom. During our
presence our two female attractions had retired into one of the wigwams,
into which Pule-u-le piloted us, where I found some four or five squaws
similarly bepitched and clothed, and who appeared exceedingly frightened
at our entrance. But Pule-u-le explained that we were friends, and
mentioned the high estimation in which I held them, which so pleased them
that one of the runaways left the wigwam and soon brought me in a large
piece of bread made of acorns, which to my taste was of a much more
excellent flavour than musty hard bread.
Pule-u-le showed us the bows and arrows, and never have I seen more
beautiful specimens of workmanship. The bows were some three feet long,
but very elastic and some of them beautifully carved, and strung with the
intestines of birds. The arrows were about eighteen inches in length,
accurately feathered, and headed with a perfectly clear and transparent
green crystal, of a kind which I had never before seen, notched on the sides,
and sharp as a needle at the point. The arrows, of which each Indian had at
least twenty, were carried in a quiver made of coyote skin.
I asked Pule-u-le if he had ever known of the existence of gold prior to
the entrance of white men into the mines. His reply was that, where he was
born, about forty miles higher up the river, he had, when a boy, picked it
from the rocks in large pieces, and amused himself by throwing them into
the river as he would pebbles. A portion of the tribe go daily to the Yuba
River, and wash out a sufficient amount of gold to purchase a few pounds of
flour, or some sweetmeats, and return to the rancheria at night to share it
with their neighbours; who in their turn go the next day, while the others are
chasing hare and deer over the hills. There were no signs around them of
the slightest attempt to cultivate the soil. Their only furniture consisted of
woven baskets and earthen jars, and Pule-u-le told me that in the spring he
thought they should all leave and go over the “big mountain,” to get from
the sight of the white man.
Highly pleased with our visit, and receiving a very earnest invitation to
“call again,” we left the rancheria and proceeded towards the camp. About
half way from the rancheria a loud braying, followed by a fierce growl,
attracted our attention, and in a few moments a frightened mule, closely
pursued by an enormous grizzly bear, descended the hill-side within forty
yards of where we stood leaning on our rifles. As the bear reached the road,
Higgins, with his usual quickness and intrepidity, fired, and an unearthly
yell from the now infuriated animal told with what effect. The mule in the
interval had crossed the road, and was now scampering away over the
plains, and Bruin, finding himself robbed of his prey, turned upon us. I
levelled my rifle and gave him the contents with hearty good will, but the
wounds he had received only served to exasperate the monster, who now
made towards us with rapid strides. Deeming prudence the better part of
valour, we ran with all convenient speed in the direction of the camp, within
a hundred yards of which my foot became entangled in the underbrush, and
I fell headlong upon the earth. In another instant I should have fallen a
victim to old Bruin’s rage, but a well-directed ball from my companion’s
rifle entered his brain and arrested his career. The whole party now came to
our assistance and soon despatched Mr. Grizzly. Dragging him to camp, we
made a hearty supper from his fat ribs, and, as I had probably been the more
frightened of the two, I claimed as an indemnity his skin, which protected
me afterward from the damp ground many a cold night. He was a
monstrous fellow, measuring nearly four feet in height, and six in length,
and a stroke from his huge paw would, had he caught us, have entirely
dissipated the golden dreams of Higgins and myself.
 CHAPTER III.
Yuba River—A Clean Shirt an Expensive Luxury—Yankee Pedler—The Upper and Lower
Diggings—Foster’s Bar—The Gold-Rocker—Gold-Digging and Gold-Washing—Return
to the Embarcadero—Captain John A. Sutter—Curious Currency—Sutter’s Fort—Sam.
Brannan and Co.—Washing Clothes—Salmon Shooting—Green Springs—Weaver’s
Creek—A Teamster’s Bill.

Next morning early, in better spirits than we had enjoyed for a week
previously, we started for Yuba River. About a mile from the camping-place
we struck into the mountains, the same range at whose base we had been
before travelling, and which are a portion of the Sierra Nevada. The hills
here were steep and rugged, but covered with a magnificent growth of oak
and red-wood. As we reached the summit of a lofty hill, the Yuba River
broke upon our view, winding like a silver thread beneath us, its banks
dotted with white tents, and fringed with trees and shrubbery.
We had at last reached the “mines,” although a very different portion of
them than that for which we started. We turned out our tired horses, and
immediately set forth on an exploring expedition. As my clothing was all
dirty and wet, I concluded to indulge in the luxury of a new shirt, and going
down to the river found a shrewd Yankee in a tent surrounded by a party of
naked Indians, and exposing for sale jerked beef at a dollar a pound, flour at
a dollar and a half do., and for a coarse striped shirt which I picked up with
the intention of purchasing, he coolly asked me the moderate price of
sixteen dollars! I looked at my dirty shirt, then at the clean new one I held
in my hand, and finally at my little gold bag, not yet replenished by digging,
and concluded to postpone my purchase until I had struck my pick and
crowbar into the bowels of the earth, and extracted therefrom at least a
sufficiency to purchase a shirt. The diggings on Yuba River had at that time
been discovered only about three months, and were confined entirely to the
“bars,” as they are called, extending nearly a mile each way from where the
road strikes the river, on both its banks. The principal diggings were then
called the “upper” and the “lower diggings,” each about half a mile above
and below the road. We started for the upper diggings to “see the elephant,”
and winding through the hills, for it was impossible to travel all the way on
the river’s bank, struck the principal bar then wrought on the river. This has
since been called Foster’s Bar, after an American who was then keeping a
store there, and who had a claim on a large portion of the bar. Upon
reaching the bar, a curious scene presented itself. About one hundred men,
in miner’s costume, were at work, performing the various portions of the
labour necessary in digging the earth and working a rocking machine. The
apparatus then used upon the Yuba River, and which has always been the
favourite assistant of the gold-digger, was the common rocker or cradle,
constructed in the simplest manner. It consists of nothing more than a
wooden box or hollowed log, two sides and one end of which are closed,
while the other end is left open. At the end which is closed and called the
“mouth” of the machine, a sieve, usually made of a plate of sheet iron, or a
piece of raw hide, perforated with holes about half an inch in diameter, is
rested upon the sides. A number of “bars” or “rifflers,” which are little
pieces of board from one to two inches in height, are nailed to the bottom,
and extend laterally across it. Of these, there are three or four in the
machine, and one at the “tail,” as it is called, i.e. the end where the dirt is
washed out. This, with a pair of rockers like those of a child’s cradle, and a
handle to rock it with, complete the description of the machine, which being
placed with the rockers upon two logs, and the “mouth” elevated at a slight
angle above the tail, is ready for operation. Modified and improved as this
may be, and as in fact it already has been, so long as manual labour is
employed for washing gold, the “cradle” is the best agent to use for that
purpose. The manner of procuring and washing the golden earth was this.
The loose stones and surface earth being removed from any portion of the
bar, a hole from four to six feet square was opened, and the dirt extracted
therefrom was thrown upon a raw hide placed at the side of the machine.
One man shovelled the dirt into the sieve, another dipped up water and
threw it on, and a third rocked the “cradle.” The earth, thrown upon the
sieve, is washed through with the water, while the stones and gravel are
retained and thrown off. The continued motion of the machine, and the
constant stream of water pouring through it, washes the earth over the
various bars or rifflers to the “tail,” where it runs out, while the gold, being
of greater specific gravity, sinks to the bottom, and is prevented from
escaping by the rifflers. When a certain amount of earth has been thus
washed (usually about sixty pans full are called “a washing”), the gold,
mixed with a heavy black sand, which is always found mingled with gold in
California, is taken out and washed in a tin pan, until nearly all the sand is
washed away. It is then put into a cup or pan, and when the day’s labour is
over is dried before the fire, and the sand remaining carefully blown out.
This is a simple explanation of the process of gold-washing in the placers of
California. At present, however, instead of dipping and pouring on water by
hand, it is usually led on by a hose or forced by a pump, thereby giving a
better and more constant stream, and saving the labour of one man. The
excavation is continued until the solid rock is struck, or the water rushing in
renders it impossible to obtain any more earth, when a new place is opened.
We found the gold on the Yuba in exceedingly fine particles, and it has
always been considered of a very superior quality. We inquired of the
washers as to their success, and they, seeing we were “green horns,” and
thinking we might possibly interfere with them, gave us either evasive
answers, or in some cases told us direct lies. We understood from them that
they were making about twenty dollars per day, while I afterwards learned,
from the most positive testimony of two men who were at work there at the
time, that one hundred dollars a man was not below the average estimate of
a day’s labour.
On this visit to Foster’s Bar I made my first essay in gold-digging. I
scraped up with my hand my tin cup full of earth, and washed it in the river.
How eagerly I strained my eyes as the earth was washing out, and the
bottom of the cup was coming in view! and how delighted, when, on
reaching the bottom, I discerned about twenty little golden particles
sparkling in the sun’s rays, and worth probably about fifty cents. I wrapped
them carefully in a piece of paper, and preserved them for a long time,—
but, like much more gold in larger quantities, which it has since been my lot
to possess, it has escaped my grasp, and where it now is Heaven only
knows.
The labour on Yuba River appeared very severe, the excavations being
sometimes made to a depth of twelve feet before the soil containing the
gold, which was a gravelly clay, was reached. We had not brought our tools
with us, intending, if our expedition in the mountains had succeeded, that
one of our party should return for our remaining stock of provisions and
tools. We had no facilities for constructing a machine, and no money to buy
one (two hundred dollars being the price for which a mere hollowed pine
log was offered us), and besides, all the bars upon which men were then
engaged in labour were “claimed,” a claim at that time being considered
good when the claimant had cleared off the top soil from any portion of the
bar. We returned to our camp, and talked over our prospects, in a quandary
what to do. Little did we then dream that, in less than six months, the Yuba
River, then only explored some three miles above where we were, would be
successfully wrought for forty miles above us, and that thousands would
find their fortunes upon it.
We concluded to return to the Embarcadero, and take a new start.
Accordingly, next morning we packed up and set off, leaving at work upon
the river about two hundred men. Having retraced our steps, we arrived at
Sutter’s Fort in safety on the evening of November 30th, just in time to find
the member of our party whom we had left behind, packing all our
remaining provisions and tools into a cart, ready to start for the “dry
diggings” on the following morning.
The history of John A. Sutter, and his remarkable settlement on the
banks of the Sacramento, has been one of interest since California first
began to attract attention. Captain Sutter is by birth a Swiss, and was
formerly an officer in the French army. He emigrated to the United States,
became a naturalized citizen, and resided in Missouri several years. In the
year 1839 he emigrated to the then wilderness of California, where he
obtained a large grant of land, to the extent of about eleven leagues,
bordering on the Sacramento River, and made a settlement directly in the
heart of an Indian country, among tribes of hostile savages. For a long time
he suffered continual attacks and depredations from the Indians, but finally
succeeded, by kind treatment and good offices, in reducing them to
subjection, and persuading them to come into his settlement, which he
called New Helvetia. With their labour he built a large fort of adobes or
sunburnt bricks, brought a party of his Indians under military discipline, and
established a regular garrison. His wheat-fields were very extensive, and his
cattle soon numbered five thousand, the whole labour being performed by
Indians. These he paid with a species of money made of tin, which was
stamped with dots, indicating the number of days’ labour for which each
one was given; and they were returned to him in exchange for cotton cloth,
at a dollar a yard, and trinkets and sweetmeats at corresponding prices. The
discovery of the gold mines of California has, however, added more to
Sutter’s fame than did his bold settlement in the wilderness. This has
introduced him to the world almost as a man of gold, and connected his
name for ever with the most prized metal upon earth. He is quite “a
gentleman of the old school,” his manners being very cordial and
prepossessing.
Sutter’s Fort is a large parallelogram, of adobe walls, five hundred feet
long by one hundred and fifty broad. Port-holes are bored through the walls,
and at its corners are bastions, on which cannon are mounted. But when I
arrived there its hostile appearance was entirely forgotten in the busy scenes
of trade which it exhibited. The interior of the fort, which had been used by
Sutter for granaries and storehouses, was rented to merchants, the whole at
the annual sum of sixty thousand dollars, and was converted into stores,
where every description of goods was to be purchased at gold-mine prices.
Flour was selling at $60 per barrel, pork at $150 per barrel, sugar at 25
cents per pound, and clothing at the most enormous and unreasonable rates.
The principal trading establishment at this time was that of Samuel Brannan
& Co. Mr. Brannan informed me, that since the discovery of the mines, over
seventy-five thousand dollars in gold dust had been received by them.
Sutter’s Fort is in latitude 35° 33´ 45´´ N., and longitude 121° 40´ 05´´ W.
With all our worldly gear packed in an ox-wagon, we left Sutter’s Fort
on the morning of the 1st of December, and travelling about seven miles on
the road, encamped in a beautiful grove of evergreen oak, to give the cattle
an opportunity to lay in a sufficient supply of grass and acorns, preparatory
to a long march. As we were to remain here during the day, we improved
the opportunity by taking our dirty clothing, of which by that time we had
accumulated a considerable quantity, down to the banks of the American
Fork, distant about one mile from camp, for the purpose of washing. While
we were employed in this laborious but useful occupation, Higgins called
my attention to the salmon which were working up the river over a little
rapid opposite us. Some sport suggested itself; and more anxious for this
than labour, we dropped our half-washed shirts, and started back to camp
for our rifles, which we soon procured, and brought down to the river. In
making their way over the bar, the backs of the salmon were exposed some
two inches above water; and the instant one appeared, a well-directed rifle-
ball perforated his spine. The result was, that before dark Higgins and
myself carried into camp thirty-five splendid salmon, procured by this novel
mode of sport. We luxuriated on them, and gave what we could not eat for
supper and breakfast to some lazy Indians, who had been employed the
whole day in spearing some half dozen each. There is every probability that
the salmon fishery will yet prove a highly lucrative business in California.
 Next morning we packed up and made a fresh start. That night we
encamped at the “Green Springs,” about twenty-five miles distant from
Sutter’s Fort. These springs are directly upon the road, and bubble up from
a muddy black loam, while around them is the greenest verdure,—the
surrounding plain being dotted with beautiful groves and magnificent
flowers. Their waters are delicious.
As the ox-team was a slow traveller, and quarters were to be looked for
in our new winter home, on the next morning Higgins and myself were
appointed a deputation to mount two horses we had brought with us and
proceed post-haste to the “dry diggings.” We started at 10 A.M., and
travelled through some beautiful valleys and over lofty hills. As we reached
the summit of a high ridge, we paused by common consent to gaze upon the
landscape and breathe the delicious air. The broad and fertile valleys of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin lay stretched at our feet like a highly coloured
map. The noble rivers which lend their names to these rich valleys were
plainly visible, winding like silver threads through dark lines of timber
fringing their banks; now plunging amid dense forests, and now coming in
view sparkling and bright as the riches they contain; the intermediate plains,
here parched and browned with the sun’s fierce rays; there brilliant with all
the hues of the rainbow, and dotted with the autumnal flowers and open
groves of evergreen oak. Herds of elk, black-tailed deer, and antelope
browsed near the mountain sides, on the summit of which the eagle builds
his eyry. The surrounding atmosphere, fragrant with delightful odours, was
so pure and transparent as to render objects visible at a great distance, and
so elastic and bracing as to create a perceptible effect on our feelings. Far in
the distance the massive peak of Shaste reared its snow-capped head, from
amid a dense forest, fourteen thousand feet into the sky. We arrived at what
was then called Weaver’s Creek, about dusk. About a dozen log houses,
rudely thrown together and plastered with mud, constituted the little town
which was to be our winter home, and where we were to be initiated into
the mysteries, pleasures, and sufferings of a gold-digger’s life. A pretty
little stream, coursing through lofty oak and pine-covered hills, and on
whose left bank the settlement had been made, was the river that had borne
down the riches which we hoped to appropriate to our private uses. It was a
beautiful afternoon when we reached it. The sun was just declining, and,
resting upon the crest of the distant Sierra Nevada, seemed to cover it with a
golden snow. The miners were returning to their log huts with their