<P> The Maritime history of California includes Native American dugouts, tule canoes, and sewn canoes (Tomols); early European explorers; Colonial Spanish and Mexican California maritime history; Russians and Aleut kayaks in the Maritime Fur Trade . U.S. Naval Activity including: Pacific Squadron, Mexican--American War . California Gold Rush shipping includes paddle steamers, Clippers, sailing ships, passage via Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cape Horn and the growth of the Port of San Francisco . Also included are sections on California naval installations, California shipbuilding, California shipwrecks, and California lighthouses . </P> <P> Tribes in northwest California practiced slavery long before the arrival of Europeans . There were never black slaves owned by Europeans, and many free men of African ancestry joined the California Gold Rush (1848--1855). Some returned east with enough gold to purchase their relatives . The California Constitution of 1849 outlawed any form of slavery in the state, and later the Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted into the Union, undivided, as a free state . Nevertheless, as per the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, a number of Native Americans were formally enslaved in the state, a practice that continued until the mid-1860s, when California changed its laws to conform to the 14th Amendment . </P> <P> The possibility of splitting off Southern California as a territory or a state was rejected by the national government, and the idea was dead by 1861 when patriotic fervor swept California after the attack on Fort Sumter . </P> <P> California's involvement in the American Civil War included sending gold east, recruiting or funding a limited number of combat units, maintaining numerous fortifications and sending troops east, some of whom became famous . Following the split in the Democratic Party in 1860, Republican supporters of Lincoln took control of the state in 1861, minimizing the influence of the large southern population . Their great success was in obtaining a Pacific railroad land grant and authorization to build the Central Pacific as the western half of the transcontinental railroad . </P>

At the time of the louisiana purchase what country owned california