Editing Sutter's Fort (section)

===Agricultural colony===
Once the fort was built, Sutter established an agricultural colony with labor structures similar to [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|Southern plantations]] and [[Feudalism|European feudalism]].<ref name="Palo Alto" /> The colony relied on [[ranch|ranching]] and growing [[wheat]] crops. European colonists oversaw Native Californian and Native Hawaiian workers, who were often gravely mistreated. Sutter employed a [[caste system]] to ensure that the minority European settlers maintained control over the colony. Although some of the laborers worked voluntarily, many were subjected to brutal conditions that resembled [[European enslavement of Indigenous Americans|enslavement]] or [[serfdom]].<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal|last=Hurtado|first=Albert|title=California Indians and the Workaday West: Labor, Assimilation, and Survival|journal=California History|date=Spring 1990|volume=69|issue=1|page=5|doi=10.2307/25177303|jstor=25177303}}</ref>