Some of the original inhabitants of California are the Kumeyaay of San Diego County & Baja, the Muwekma Indian were the original inhabitants of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area,  the Miwok Indians from the Yosemite Miwok Indians, and last the Chumash Tribe who lived around California's Central Coast.  They practiced compound religions, hunted with arrowheads made of flint.  They lived largely on the abundant acorn supply and the coastal people ate fish and shellfish. California has many different local climates. Native houses varied accordingly,  indigenous Californians often lived in small communities of about 150 people whom the Spanish called rancherías. Within the boundaries of present-day California there were once 22 different linguistic families with 135 regional dialects. At the time of European discovery there may have been 100,000 to 150,000 native inhabitants in California, but diseases brought by the Europeans reduce the population seriously. 
      Then the Spanish sent an expedition to keep the Russians away.  The goal of the Spanish was to force the natives into becoming Christians and sent them to be subjects of the king most of the natives ended up at missions working as farmers, unwillingly.  The order doing this was called the Franciscans, a religious order, soon they had so many missions that they made a chain from San Diego to San Francisco bay.  The while the Spanish were there they could not keep the others away, the British, French, and United States ships traded with the Spanish coastal settlements in violation of Spanish regulations.  Then in 1833, when California was part of Mexico, the natives were released from the control of the missions.  Then came the US settlement, most U.S. citizens who went to California before 1840 were sailors, fur trappers, and adventurers.   Some of the trappers were James Ohio Pattie, and Jedediah Smith in the 1840’s.  In 1841 and in the next five years about 800 settlers traveled to California over the western portion of the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, and the California Trail.  The Mexican government expelled California. Scarcely more than a week before the signing of the treaty, on January 24, 1848, a carpenter found flakes of yellow metal, E.I. gold.  That discovery started the biggest gold rush in United States history, hence the motto: "Eureka! I have found it!" and the name the Golden State.  In 1849 people, known as 49’ers came from all over to get gold and become rich. California's population now rose to more than 90,000 by the end of 1849 and to 220,000 by 1852, the year in which gold production was at its peak.  Then it ended as suddenly as it began, just like the independence and creation of the state. 
       Thanks to the Gold Rush, the Californian government needed cash.  The US Congress had failed to organize California as a territory because of a impasse over whether slavery would be permitted in the new states, luckily California decided to act on its own.  . In September 1849 a convention met at Monterey and created a state constitution, including a section prohibiting slavery.  The constitution was approved on November 13, and on December 15 the first legislature met at San Jose to create an unofficial state government. The Compromise Measures of 1850 admitted California as a free, or non-slave, state. On September 9, 1850, California became the 31st state in the Union. Peter H. Burnett, a Democrat, was its first governor. The state capital was moved successively from San Jose to Monterey, Vallejo, and Benicia. In 1854 it was located permanently at Sacramento.