In his sleep he heard a groan: it was the groan of a man receiving the tomahawk in his brains. All sprung to their feet. The Klamaths were in the camp: the hatchet and the winged arrow were at work. Basil Lajeunesse, a brave and faithful young Frenchman, the follower of Fremont in all his expeditions, was dead: an Iowa was dead: a brave Delaware Indian, one of those who had accompanied Fremont from Missouri, was dying: it was his groan that awoke Carson. Another of the Delawares was a target for arrows, from which no rifle could save him — only avenge him.

 

It was 1846.  Mexico, Great Britain and the United States all eyed the area of Alta California as a prize to be kept or taken.  War was immanent.  In an era and area where communication could take weeks, months, or forever, John Fremont acted on his own initiative and birthed a republic, albeit a short-lived one.  If not for Fremont's bold, independent action, and that of Commodore John Sloat, USN, California likely would have become part of British North America.

 

The war for American independence was marked by many critical events which were beyond human control or remedy. Some of these changed the relations of contending armies in a single night. More than once, a few hours of unexpected rain, wind or fog, were enough to assure lasting results. These determining events, because belonging to the sphere and operation of physical laws, are not beyond the recognition of nature's Master. They testify very clearly at least, the absolute uncertainty of the best human plans, whether for peace or war, and the value of the promptness which seizes every opportunity as it passes, and thus gives shape to material issues which are ripe for solution.

 

“The Man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf.”  So stated George Washington. It is a fact that many who fought for American independence believed that more than human effort secured our freedom.  Was our good fortune blind luck, or something more?

 

The events of the day on which blood was first shed, in the contest between Great Britain and her colonies, served to show that if the Americans were unacquainted with military discipline, they were not destitute of either courage or conduct, but knew well how, and dared, to avail themselves of such advantages as they possessed. A kind of military furor had by this time seized the inhabitants of the colonies. They were willing to risk the consequences of opposing in the field, their juvenile ardor to the matured strength of the parent state, and in this resolution they were encouraged to persist, by recollecting the events of the nineteenth of April. 

 

On April 19, 1775, the bonds of kinship that had, until that time, made Englishmen of the colinists in North America, were forever broken.  A contest was begun that would result in freedom or subjugation for people pushed to such a limit that they would forsake all comfort, and become traitors and outlaws to the nation they had been happily attached to and ardently supported for generations.  "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

 

I have also the honor to inform your Highness that the articles forcibly taken from the house of Mr. Scanlan by your people have not yet been returned, and that they must be returned to Mr. Scanlan without unnecessary delay, for which purpose I shall wait until sunset (Wednesday, 14th inst.), and if it be not reported to us by that time that my demand has been met with, I shall be at liberty to take action as will in future enforce a wholesome respect for the American flag and the and property under its protection.

 

In the years running up to the Great War, the future antagonists sparred with each other over control of trade routes and goods around the globe.  In Samoa, Imperial Germany manuvered to monopolize coconut oil and cocoa bean production, using an ongoing civil war to keep the Samoans fragmented and impotent.  Enter Captain Leary.