Introduction
Annexation and Entrance to the Union
Following the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, the Union would move quickly to admit its greatest prize, California. On September 9th of 1850, the territory was admitted as a free state, and with it came the new problems and possibilities. Not only was California physically large, it was geographically separated from much of the rest of the country, which in the era before trains made travel—and in turn control—significantly more difficult. As a result, White settlers in the territory, arriving both before and during the Gold Rush of 1849, engaged in violent settler-colonial practices to secure what they understood as a land promised to them by Manifest Destiny. One of the primary ways by which White settlers would seek to exert control over non-White populations was by segregating state schools by race.