Sutter's Fort

Nisenan and Miwok people built this fort and ran it, and they were not free to leave. Sutter paid in goods redeemable only at his own store, used corporal punishment, and kept a Native militia to retrieve workers who fled. He passed Native children to his trading partners. Benjamin Madley's history records an account of hundreds held here in what it called complete slavery, fed from troughs. State Parks began retelling the site on those terms in 2021. No plaque marks the landmark itself; the bronze inside the walls commemorates a tree.

What the plaque says

This Tree Came from Kandern, Baden, Germany, the birth place of General John A. Sutter. The Native Sons and Native Daughters of the Golden West planted it on July 19, 1939, and dedicated it September 9, 1948, on the occasion of the celebration of Admission Day and the centenary of the founding of the modern city of Sacramento.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sacramento — 2.0 mi
  The Gold Rush river port that became the state capital, and jacked itself ten feet into the air to stop drowning.

More markers nearby

• Coloma Road-Sutter's Fort — steps away
• State Indian Museum — steps away
• New Helvetia Cemetery — 0.3 mi
• Chevra Kaddisha (Home of Peace Cemetery) — 0.4 mi