Thesis about alcatraz

The first European to visit the island mayor may not have been Frigate-Lt. don Juan Manuel de Ayala, who sailed the first ship into San Francisco Bay in August 1775. On August 12 he set out in a small boat from his temporary anchorage at Tiburon for nearby Angel Island, which he named Isla de los Angeles.

In 1847, John Charles Fremont, appointed governor of California by Commodore Stockton, "purchased" Alcatraz Island from Francis Temple, "giving a bond for the purchase money in my official capacity as governor of California." Fremont said he regarded the island "as the best position for Lighthouse and Fortifications in the bay of San Francisco.

On the island stood the first lighthouse on America's Pacific shores, a light that has guided ships in and out of the magnificent bay for almost 125 years. For nearly 75 years, the island served as a military prison for army convicts from both the western states and overseas possessions.

Alcatraz jutted out of the bay, a barren irregularly shaped rock that was devoid of flowing water as well as vegetation. An American army officer described it as being "entirely without resources within itself and the soil is scarcely perceptible being rocky and precipitous on all sides.