Not exactly. It was "native American" before it was Spanish or other European, and it was actually part of one of the last areas settled by mankind. The Spanish claimed much of the West, but did not settle in most of it.California was originally a Spanish territory, as was the entire SW USA.
White privilege in the US will/has come to an end.
Lament while we rejoice.
http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/California ... lements_in
The Russian River, north, was claimed by Russia. Spanish California was mostly in the coastal middle of the state, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz; but the population, both Native and Spanish, was very small. The Mormon's, after 1846, settled several areas, and held San Diego-San Bernardino and a corridor connecting Saint George and Salt Lake City as part of the State of Deseret. The California gold was found by Mormon John Marshall in 1848, which precipitated population movement into the State and US development. The US and the Mormons fought a war over the matter. It's called the "Utah" war because the US does not wish to recognize Deseret. The Mormons actually settled everything on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, into both Canada and Mexico. The Spanish settlement of Yerba Buena (San Francisco) was taken over by Mormon Bishop Sam Brannon in 1846. The gold made all the difference, and California was made a US state, without ever having been a territory, in 1850. After that, the US kept hacking away at Deseret until they reduced it to Utah. The polygamous Mormons were not allowed to vote, were under occupation for years, and Utah was not allowed to become a state until 1890.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War
There has been no legal basis for White privilege during most of my lifetime, and affirmative action to address the racial inequalities of the past are now thought to have done their job and are being eliminated in some areas. My own family will be half-Asian in the next generation, and that bothers me not in the least. The US will very soon not be a "White" nation.
