<P> The Russian - American Company established Fort Ross in 1812 as its southernmost colony in North America, intended to provide Russian posts farther north with agricultural goods . When this need was filled by a deal between the RAC and the Hudson's Bay Company for produce from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River and other installations, the fort's intent was derailed, although it remained in Russian hands until 1841, and for the duration had a small population of Russians and other nationalities from the Russian Empire . </P> <P> In this period, American and British traders began entering California in search of beaver . Using the Siskiyou Trail, Old Spanish Trail, and later, the California Trail, these trading parties arrived in California, often without the knowledge or approval of the Mexican authorities, and laid the foundation for the arrival of later Gold Rush era Forty - Niners, farmers and ranchers . </P> <P> In 1840, the American adventurer, writer and lawyer Richard Henry Dana, Jr., wrote of his experiences aboard ship off California in the 1830s in Two Years Before the Mast . </P> <P> The leader of a French scientific expedition to California, Eugène Duflot de Mofras, wrote in 1840, "...it is evident that California will belong to whatever nation chooses to send there a man - of - war and two hundred men ." In 1841, General Vallejo wrote Governor Alvarado that "...there is no doubt that France is intriguing to become mistress of California", but a series of troubled French governments did not uphold French interests in the area . During disagreements with Mexicans, the German - Swiss francophile John Sutter threatened to raise the French flag over California and place himself and his settlement, New Helvetia, under French protection . </P>

In the early eighteenth century which group controlled california and texas