Abstract
Terry Jordan pointed out that the concept of preadaptation would explain the nature of European colonization of North America. He also referred to the German colonization of Anaheim, explaining that its failure was due to the fact that Germans were not preadapted to the envirnoment of southern California. This study intends to scrutinize the process of German colonization of Anaheim on the basis of available documents and to see whether the dgree of preadaptation explains the failure of the colonization project. Detailed analyses suggest that the characteristics of German colonists and local geographic factors brought about the failure of colonization.
