John C. Frémont

Major-General John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 – July 13, 1890) was a United States Army officer, explorer, and politician. He was a United States senator from California and was the first Republican nominee for president of the U.S. in 1856 and founder of the California Republican Party upon being nominated. Frémont lost the election to Democrat James Buchanan.

A native of Georgia, he attended the College of Charleston for two years until he was expelled after irregular attendance. In the 1840s, Frémont led five expeditions into the western states, for which he was called The Pathfinder. During this time, he directed several massacres of the indigenous peoples in California as part of the California genocide. During the Mexican–American War, he was a major in the United States Army and took control of a portion of California north of San Francisco from the short-lived California Republic in 1846. Frémont was court-martialed and convicted of mutiny and insubordination after a conflict over who was the rightful military governor of California. His sentence was commuted, and he was reinstated by President James K. Polk, but Frémont resigned from the Army. Afterwards, he settled in California at Monterey while buying cheap land in the Sierra foothills. Gold was found on his Mariposa ranch, and Frémont became a wealthy man during the California Gold Rush. He became one of the first two U.S. senators elected from the new state of California in 1850.