Title:  Tennessee’s Partner

Author:  Bret Harte

Release Date:  November, 2003 [Etext #4674] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 26, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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Western Classics No.  Three

Tennessee’s Partner

“Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply ‘reckless.’”

Tennessee’s Partner By Bret Harte, Including An Introduction By William Dallam Armes.

The Introduction

When Marshall’s discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of government in California were almost the worst possible.  Though the Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically unknown, until other provision was made by congress, they had to continue in force.  But the free and slave states were equal in number; California would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on adjourning.

Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result.  Precisely the opposite happened.  The de facto government was accepted as a necessity, and under its direction “alcaldes” and “ayuntamientos” were elected.  But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own salvation.  The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its genius for law and order asserted itself.  Each camp elected its own officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones,