New Helvetia
New Helvetia (Spanish: Nueva Helvetia), meaning "New Switzerland", was a 19th-century Mexican-era Alta California settlement and rancho, centered in present-day Sacramento, California.
The Swiss pioneer John Sutter (1803–1880) arrived in Alta California with other Euro-American settlers in August 1839. He established an agricultural and trading colony, with the stockade Sutter's Fort, and named it "Nueva Helvetia." It was located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and American River. In English the name means "New Switzerland", after Sutter's home country. The design was influenced by Fort Vancouver, the principal trading station of the Columbia Department, operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, which Sutter visited in 1838 before entering Alta California.
The site of "Nueva Helvetia" is just a few miles east of where his son, John Sutter, Jr., established Sacramento, and is on the eastern edge of present-day downtown Sacramento.
Rancho New Helvetia, in Spanish Rancho Nueva Helvetia, was a 48,839-acre (197.64 km2) Mexican land grant issued in 1841 by Governor Juan Alvarado to John Sutter. It encompassed lands in present-day Sacramento County, Sutter County, and Yuba County, California.
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