Five years earlier, when organized groups of Anglo settlers first began to trickle in over the Sierra Nevada mountains, scholars estimate that fewer than four hundred “foreigners” were living in what was still the Mexican state of Alta California. The newcomers, who in the eyes of the Mexican authorities were illegal immigrants with no valid claims on the land, made their homes in a vast territory already inhabited by about eight thousand Californios, as the state’s Mexican citizens were known, and more than a hundred thousand Indians. They were not content to share it. In June 1846, unaware that President James K. Polk had already declared war on Mexico, a small band of settlers, supported by the dashing Army captain and genocidaire John C. Frémont, took up arms against the Mexican government. On arriving, Bryant promptly organized a company of volunteers and joined Frémont’s troop.