Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

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Courtship and Conquest: Alfred Sully’s
Intimate Intrusion at Monterey
By Stephen G. Hyslop
lfred Sully was not born to conquer, but
as a young man seeking distinction
in an era of relentless American expansion,
he found that path laid out for him. The
son of painter Thomas Sully of Philadelphia, one
of the nation’s leading portraitists, he entered
West Point in 1837 at the age of sixteen, hoping
to put his creative talents to constructive use as
a draftsman and engineer. A decade later, however,
during the Mexican War, he took part as an
infantry commander in the shattering American
assault on Veracruz, which fell to forces led by
General Winfield Scott in March 1847 after being
blasted by artillery fire. “Such a place of destruction
I never again wish to witness,” Lieutenant
Sully wrote. He was sorry to say that women and
children were among the victims, but faulted
the populace for not fleeing the city in advance:
“General Scott gave them warnings of his intentions,
but, Mexican-like, they depended too much
on the strength of the place.” 1 A
That was mild
criticism compared with the aspersions cast on
Mexicans by some Americans who invaded their
homeland and wrought destruction without
regret. Sully seemed better suited for the role of
reconstructing a defeated country and reconciling
its people to conquest. Such was the task that
awaited American occupation forces when he
landed in Monterey, California, in April 1849 as
quartermaster.
California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
The society Sully encountered there had a tradition
of accommodating newcomers through
hospitality, courtesy, and courtship. Ever since
Spanish colonial rule ended and barriers to foreign
trade and settlement were lowered, Mexican
residents of Spanish ancestry, known as Californios,
had compensated for their small numbers
and inadequate defenses by incorporating as
friends and kin Americans and other foreigners
who might otherwise have remained alien and
potentially hostile. That policy also brought economic
benefits in the form of partnerships with
merchants and captains who arrived by sea and
traded, mingled, and intermarried with Californios.
Far less obliging to them were the mountain
men and land-hungry pioneers who entered
California overland from the United States and
actively opposed Mexican authorities as war
loomed in early 1846. 2
After American forces occupied their territory
in July 1846, Californios had reason to fear that
their new rulers might behave less like the adaptable
Yankee traders of old than the confrontational
overlanders who had ignited the Bear Flag
Revolt a month earlier and ushered in the conquest.
Those two groups represented contrasting
aspects of the American character and American
expansion, which was inherently contradictory,
for it transformed a republic that was born in