Talk:Interim government of California

Name

This period corresponds to the U.S. military occupation of California, which is a commonly used term (histiographically) to refer to this period. I think we should move it to U.S. military occupation of California (or some variation thereof), as "California interim government, 1846-1850" is not an established term (and also less descriptive); I also can't find any historical sources referring to the period or government as the "California interim government", but plenty of reputable resources referring to the period as the "military occupation of California" (either prefixed by "U.S." or "American"). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@WCCasey: What do you think? Cristiano Tomás (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The article is almost entirely based on Military governments in California, 1846-1850 by Grivas, so why not call it something similar? The current article is very focused on the government and governors; referring to it as the "military occupation of California" implies something broader (maybe not a bad thing if you want to expand it). An even broader title would be the "American annexation of California, 1846-1850". There's a good source for the broader topic that I will add as further reading. Glendoremus (talk) 22:28, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your input @Glendoremus:! The military government is the military occupation, but I see your point. I would support expanding the article, but I think it covers pretty much all the key areas of this transition period. Perhaps the article could benefit from a little restructuring. I wouldn't support "American annexation of California", as California was annexed in 1846 (& confirmed in '48 with Guadalupe-Hidalgo); so it wouldn't make sense to use the term to cover the period of 46-50 (and I don't think it's a good term for a multi-year interim period). I am definitely open to other title ideas, but I still contend that "U.S. (or American) military occupation of California" is the best title as it is the most-used historiographical terminology to describe this period across sources (I will add examples of sources and references here later). Cheers, Cristiano Tomás (talk) 22:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I also think not including dating in the title would be ideal, as there is a variety of sources that define the period as 1846-49, others that say 1846-1850; some start the dating at 1846 (beginning of the Conquest of California) and others at 1848 (starting from Guadalupe-Hidalgo). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 04:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Examples of usage:

• "Three years in California (1850) contains Colton's memoirs of that period, including descriptions of the U.S. military occupation of California, social life, customs..." ("Three years in California (1846-1849)" at Library of Congress)
• "It is proper to state that the military occupation of California is the main object in view" - William L. Marcy U.S. Secretary of War (in Alta California: Embracing Notices of the Climate, Soil, and Agricultural Products (1847))
• "Vallejo and his wife began acquisition of this site during the American military occupation of California (1846—1850)." (National Register of Historic Places, Supplement 1974")
• "...before the U.S. military occupation of California, the Bear Flag Revolt, an insurrection against the Mexican Government led by disgruntled Anglo-Americans..." ("California Legal History: The Legal System under the United States Military Government, 1846-1849" (Myra Saunders, 1996))
• "Mare Island was founded during the military occupation of California following the ceding of the land from Mexico in 1848..." (Micah Burger Thesis (2012) at UC Berkeley)
• "The military governor of California, Richard Barnes Mason, United States Army, attempted to get miners in California to pay the quinto. The gold rush, which followed closely on the heels of military victory, had brought the military occupation of California..." (Cutter, Donald "The Legacy of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo", 1978, New Mexico Historical Review Vol 53 #4)
• "Upon the military occupation of California during the Mexican War, the United States military commander had proclaimed..." (UNITED STATES v. O'DONNELL et al. (1938) - accessed through Cornell Law School)
• "the old courthouse... had been built by members of the Mormon Battalion during the military occupation of California" (The History of San Diego by Richard Pourade - Volume IV: The Glory Years at San Diego History Center)
• "According to Halleck, the United States forces in military occupation of California introduced the custom of transferring real estate by deeds..." ("Law of Belligerent Occupation," J.A.G.S. Text No. 11")

These are just a few examples, but I think there is plenty of support for "U.S. military occupation of California" per WP:common name, given the proliferation of its usage across sources and source types. As one last example, on Google Scholar there are several pages of results of references to "military occupation of California", compared to no results for "California interim government", so I think this would be a rather uncontroversial move, if everyone else is in agreement. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 04:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm okay with changing the title but I think the dates should be included. The article as it stands opens with the statement that the period extends from 1846 to 1850. Those are the dates stated by Grivas, the primary source for this article. Other sources use the same dates. Glendoremus (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

"Military occupation of California" would only apply to the period from the beginning of the 1846 invasion to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. At that point, the "military occupation" ended, as California became part of the United States - with a military governor. Then things changed again in November 1849, when California elected a civilian government - ten months before statehood. I chose the word "interim" for the article title because it covers all three of those phases. WCCasey (talk) 20:09, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I've given several examples above that show that the terminology of "military occupation of California" is applied by a sizable lot of reputable sources, many of which define the period as extending into 1849 (when the last military government ended its term) or until 1850 (when California was officially admitted to the union), but I have yet to find one source that defines it as ending in 1848. I don't understand how one can say that military rule would end in 1848 if California had a military governor until December 10 of 1849 (21 days before 1850), so I disagree and many sources would as well. But this minor dating discrepancy would be resolved by having an article title without dating, as even amongst ourselves there is disagreement. Not to mention the practice of dating is only used in article titles when disambiguation is needed. Considering there has never been another period of "interim government" or "military government" in Californian history, dating it in the title is moot.

In regards to the usage of the term "interim", I totally understand why it was chosen (and it makes a lot of sense!), but it has little to no real usage in California historiography. The sources are overwhelming in their description of this period as being military-run. I believe a compromise here could be to rename the article to Military government of California or Military governments of California, but I still believe that dating should not be included, as we don't disagree on precise dating and it would go against the differing definitions across all sources (and while I understand this dating is used by Grivas, the primary source of this article, that doesn't mean we should ignore a plethora of reputable and hefty sources like California Legal History: The Legal System under the United States Military Government, 1846-1849 for instance). But any title with the word "government", including the current one, would limit the article's scope to purely governmental history. I think there is potential to widen the scope of the article to describe the transitional period of California between regimes, which is why I still believe Military occupation of California to be the best (it describes a period of Californian history rather than a specific period of government in California). Cristiano Tomás (talk) 02:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

But the last of the three governments (Nov-49 to Sep-50) was not "military-run", and I do not agree that sources describe it as such. It was an elected civilian government, and that same elected civilian government continued after statehood. WCCasey (talk) 03:13, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I rewrote the first section of the article to clarify the three phases of the interim government. WCCasey (talk) 06:13, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@WCCasey:, I saw your intro edits and they look great! I have to say, you've made a good argument on using "interim" and considering you've taken the lead on writing this article, I think it's fair enough to leave that at that. I do think that your revised article lead supports the idea of using the plural "governments" instead of "government" considering we're talking about a mix of civil and military governments back to back. I also still strongly suggest that we remove the dating from the title. Forgetting the differences on dating that we've already discussed, it is general precedent across Wikipedia not to include disambiguating language in a title unless absolutely necessary, as concision is a core principle of Wikipedia:Article titles. Thus John Smith (Cambridge, 1766) and John Smith (New York politician, born 1752) only because there are so many other John Smiths, or more aptly: Provisional Government of Ireland (1922) because there have been multiple periods of non contiguous provisional governments in Ireland, but Provisional Government of Hawaii because isn't another period to disambiguate the title from in Hawaiian history. Thus Interim governments of California would be the most ideal title, as it also follows the word formula used by comparative articles. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 03:29, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm ok with that title change - the dates are noted in the first sentence. I used the singular "government" because there was government continuously over the entire time span, without any period of anarchy, although the form of government changed. If there's a consensus that the plural "governments" is better, I won't object. WCCasey (talk) 23:09, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

@Glendoremus:, care to give input on the use of the singular "government" or plural "governments"? Cristiano Tomás (talk) 20:13, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

An title alternative to "government" that may be closer to the intended definition is "governance". WCCasey (talk) 03:56, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I definitely think "government" is far better than "governance". I'm going to move the article to the singular interim government of California without dates and we can move it to "governments" pending input from other editors or future discussion. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)