Upper California was a province of Mexico from the 1820s to the 1840s (sometimes unified with Lower California). Near the end of this period it was overrun with Anglo-American men that lived apart from Spanish-speaking society. Thomas O. Larkin was the U.S. consul and President's secret agent in the capital, Monterey. When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, California became a U.S. territory. It then experienced a Gold Rush and in 1850 it became one of the United States.
Was the settlement by the United States of California considered a "colonization" by historians?