Index | John McDougall

Peter Burnett

1st Governor, Independent Democrat
(1849-1851)

- Portait of Governor
- Short Biography
- Administration
- Personal information
- This Time in California

 

Biography*
Peter Burnett was born in 1807 in Tennessee. He held various jobs over the years, including storekeeper, lawyer, farmer and judge. As a lawyer, he acted as defense counsel for Joseph Smith and other Mormons when they were under indictment. Burnett requested a change of venue and while transporting the prisoners they were able to escape. As a legislator in Oregon, Burnett proposed that all free Negroes be forced to leave the state. Any who failed to leave were to be arrested and flogged every six months until they did leave. Burnett was elected governor of California in 1849 -- before California had even become a state. After his first annual address received criticism from the legislature, he abruptly resigned from office. Burnett, who wrote a book about his passionate conversion to Catholicism, is honored with a memorial in the church at Mission Santa Clara.

Administration under Governor Peter Burnett

- Inaugural Address - December 20, 1849

The Life of Governor Peter Burnett

Born
November 15, 1807
Nashville, Tenessee

Died
May 17, 1895
San Francisco, California

Family
First Lady: Harriet Rogers

This Time in California, The Nation, The World
1849 1850 1851
Calif Gold seekers flock to the mines

Monterey convention to draft a constitution and seek statehood

San Jose first capital

 

California admitted as the 31st state

Yosemite discovered

State population - 92,597

 

San Francisco Vigilance Committee formed

Universities of Santa Clara (Jesuit) and Pacific (Protestant) established

U.S. Land Commission created to adjudicate land claims

California Homestead Act passed

 

U.S.A   U.S. President Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

 

 
World   Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species... published

 

 

* All Biographies excerpted fromThe Governors of California and their Portraits (see credits)
Governors of California is a service from the California State Library to the People of California