He taught the Indians blanket-weaving, hat-making,
and other trades, and he even organized them into military companies.
The fort which he built was enclosed on four sides and of imposing
dimensions and convenience. It mounted twelve pieces of artillery,
supported a regular garrison of forty in uniform, and contained within
its walls a blacksmith shop, a distillery, a flour mill, a cannery, and
space for other necessary industries. Outside the walls of the fort
Captain Sutter raised wheat, oats, and barley in quantity, and even
established an excellent fruit and vegetable garden.
Indeed, in every way Captain Sutter's environment and the results of his
enterprises were in significant contrast to the inactivity and
backwardness of his neighbors. He showed what an energetic man could
accomplish with exactly the same human powers and material tools as had
always been available to the Californians. Sutter himself was a rather
short, thick-set man, exquisitely neat, of military bearing, carrying
himself with what is called the true old-fashioned courtesy. He was a
man of great generosity and of high spirit. His defect was an excess of
ambition which in the end o'erleaped itself. There is no doubt that his
first expectation was to found an independent state within the borders
of California.
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