10 Dollars - Elizabeth II The Emperor of California

Johann Sutter, the man commemorated here, holds one of history's more ironic positions: the California Gold Rush that made the United States rich began on his land in January 1848 and promptly destroyed him. Squatters overran his New Helvetia estate, his workers abandoned the fields for the diggings, and his livestock was slaughtered. He died in 1880, still petitioning Congress for compensation that never came.

Cook Islands issued this piece under their "Emperor of California" title — a reference to Sutter's self-styled dominion over the Sacramento Valley before the discovery upended everything he'd built.