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' ' 1":3‘3‘3'3'.‘ 3‘31" " ""1 "-~' '33' '3. s .33". 1'33: 311.11.111.33. 3 g 1. 3 vi 1 1 33-5 1.! “" '. ‘3‘: "a- 11‘ ‘1 5111011113 31313"" 1113111113 '1 111‘. '31‘1" "3.3 3 " " $33333 1131, 1' '13"‘1"31"""' ' i. '31, .11. 313 ' 31:33": ‘3: ‘11"‘1‘ 1‘11"'11"'.13131111"'$:""“3 1‘31"" . "=1 11. "3.1511 {1 .1111'1331'11 . 51115:} 51.81;. ,M—ssr ~v «m... 6 3'? "a. v.- —.~ M73.“ .9... 9.... “""7 m ’w‘.:- q-v-fl 17.7“; M“ . Wtf .- 4—! - . 5W"-..— .33.... .::~_ ' "‘3‘59 .. 3.”. r. "‘0: “a..." 5'3: . 1 5 - 3;...- ANSTATE UN VERS ITYU Illllllllllllll llll llllllllllllllllllllll 3 1293 00885 99 71 This is to certify that the thesis entitled RACE AND GENDER IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CALIFORNIA presented by KATHLEEN ANNE MAPES has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M . A . degree in HISTORY , f“ /7 .. \'//T 6. WC/ .__,. Major professor Date NOU- 10/ IQCI l 0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunily Institution LIBRARY Michigan State Untverelty PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. DWBUE DATE DUE DATE DUE ll MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution oMcMma-oj RACE AND CLASS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CALIFORNIA By Kathleen Anne Mapes A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of ‘ MASTER OF ART Department of History 1992 ABSTRACT RACE AND GENDER IN NINETEENTH CENTURY CALIFORNIA By Kathleen Anne Mapes In the case of 19th century California, concepts of :masculinity and femininity, as well as race, are essential for understanding Californian-Anglo relations. In fact, the key to understanding these relations, and how the Anglo Americans were able to pursue two seemingly contradictory policies of accommodation and conquest may rest on gender divisions. Anglo American views of the California population, the myths and stereotypes they created to conform to their social order, were not solely determined In! racial identity’ or class differences. When Anglo Americans traversed and settled in California, they did not only see a race of people, or races of people, but rather they saw a society made up of both men and ‘women, and. Anglo Americans often attributed ‘varying moralistic and behavioral attributes to men and women that allowed them in their own minds to separate wives from husbands, daughters from fathers, and sisters from brothers. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1. RACE AND CLASS 1830-1860 2. GENDERED RACE IN EARLY 19TH CENTURY CALIFORNIA 3. THE AMERICANIZATION OF CALIFORNIA 1860-90 4 . CONCLUSION iii INTRODUCTION Images of a guntotting Yanqui traversing over a desolate desert or crossing over the Rocky mountains in hopes of finding his own manhood and therefore rejuvenating American democracy, abound throughout dimestore novels, Hollywood films, televisions shows, and many historical accounts as well. This hardy pioneer, many claimed, was later joined by a self sacrificing women who with a sun bonnet on her head, a bible in one hand and hoe in the other, readily embraced her natural role as tamer and civilizer of the wild West and the Anglo men in it. Together white men and women, so the story was told, battled savages and primitives in hopes of establishing individual homesteads where dreams of American freedom, democracy, agrarianism and prosperity would flourish. A cause of celebration for many has been the erosion of these myths during the last half of the 20th century. In 1950, Henry Nash Smith in his seminal work, Virgin LandzThe American West as Symbol and Mvth argued that Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis was a reflection of the agrarian myth in American history and not a description of reality.1 By the 19705 women's historians rejected the idea that white women's only worthwhile roles in the West had been as civilizers and tamers.2 Even one of the most cherished 1 2 images of the American.West, the.American cowboy, has not been left unscathed. In her work The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, Patricia Limerick proclaimed that the American cowboy was not a bastion of spirited individualism and freedom, but rather a wage earner like many of his brethren in the South and East.3 With so many traditional images of the West tumbling down, many historians have called for and others have celebrated, “getting beyond the Myth of Western history, or in other words, of "producing a history that is beyond myth, beyond the traditional consciousness of white conquerors." Despite the seeming novelty of such declarations, as early as 1944 Carey McWilliams discovered what it would take most historians almost another half century to realize; that the lines between myth and reality in the American West had been only tenuously drawn. Besides donning the garb of lawyer, philanthropist and activist, Carey McWillianB was one of the first founders of Chicano history, and in this capacity he expressed concern that Anglo Americans' historical understanding of the least advantaged and most deprived in California had been based on neither historical reality or fact. In his seminal work North From Mexico: The Spanish Speaking People of the United States McWilliams argued that Anglo Americans apparent unwillingness and inability to realistically conceptualize Mexican Americans as historical actors stemmed from the development of two myths that dated 3 back to the 18803, one that romanticized California before Anglo Conquest, and another that denigrated all living descendants of the original Mexican and Spanish colonizers. The first myth, which McWilliams identified as the 'fantasy heritage myth" celebrated California’s Spanish past as a time when, I'I..ong, long ago the borderlands were settled by Spanish grandees and caballeros, a gentle people accustomed to the luxurious softness of fine clothes, to well trained servants, to all the amenities of civilized European trained servants, to all the amenities of civilized European living."5 The second myth, which McWilliams left unnamed, denigrated and rejected everything Mexican including the decedents of the celebrated Spanish Cavalieros. Because of these two myths, McWilliams claimed, Anglo Americans' understanding of Californians' present as well as their past was ultimately schizoid, and their characterizations often untrue. Even though McWilliams’ work is in many ways without company in its histrorionics, insight, sophistication and above all its heart, a number of scholars have accepted McWilliams' thesis that much of Western history, at least as it pertained to Mexican Americans, had been based on fictionalized myth and not historical reality. For over three decades scholars from various fields have investigated the subject of Mexican-American myths and stereotypes and, not surprisingly, this has become an area of heated debate. The general issues that unite most studies of Mexican-American 4 myths and stereotypes include assessing whether myths and stereotypes were true or untrue and whether the portraits that Anglo Americans 'painted' of Mexican Americans were positive or negative. The most ambitious have even tried to establish a cause for Anglo American views. In 1963 Cecil Robinson argued in his work With the Ears of Strangers: The Mexican in American Literature, that the first Anglo Americans in California did indeed have a negative view of Californians, finding them to be swarthy, indolent, and corrupt. However, Robinson insisted that because Anglo Americans encountered lower-class Californians who were racially mixed and economically deprived before they met the California elite, they mistook only part of the population for the whole.6 Chg in other words, if they had met elite Californians first, then 80mEhOW' Anglo-Californian relations would. have been significantly different. In The Other Californians: Mdicejnd Discrimination Under SpainI Mexico and the United States to 19gg, R. Heizer like Robinson, argued that Anglo Americans had a negative, even hostile view of lower- class Californians, but that they found upper-class Californians to be quite pleasurable and entertaining.7 Thus, both Robinson and Heizer concurred that class considerations were of utmost importance in Anglo Americans minds, and that Anglo Americans only scoffed at those Californians who they mistakenly thought were from the lower classes or those that actually were. In the last decade, 5 scholars including David Weber, Raymond Parades and David Langum have questioned whether any Californians were described positively by Anglo Americans, be they first generation Anglo Americans or those who can later. While concurring with Robinson that Anglo Merican views of Californians were hardly positive, they argued that this was no case of mistaken identity and that elite Californians did not escape the harsh criticisms that their lower class counterparts experienced. According to both Weber and Parades, Anglo Americans' negativity towards all Californians was apparent from the very beginning and continued to be so throughout all of the 19th century due to perceptions of race mixing among the Californians and Anglo American’s pre-existing prejudices against everything and anything Spanish.8 And finally David Langum, the outcast of this scholarly cadre, argued that his colleagues have been far to harsh on their predecessors; the Anglo Americans who first went to California. Reading a variety of sources including accounts left by Anglo Americans, French, Spanish, and Russians, Langum argued that 19th century Anglo Americans charges that the Californians were lazy, unambitious and entirely wanting in progress were not merely myths and stereotypes, but rather a reflection of lived reality.9 Langum’s interpretation aside, the general historical consensus has been that Anglo Americans disdained California men. The flip side of this interpretation has been the 6 frequent assertion that Mexican-American women were highly valued and prized. Even before Robinson published his work, James Lacy argued in 1959 that Anglo American's views of New Mexican women were almost entirely positive. Lacy argued that although Anglo Americans painted a negative portrait of Mexican American. men, their female counterparts escaped negative portraiture because of their manners, gaiety, beauty and appeal to Anglo American men.10 The historical perception that women were spared harsh.criticisnlhas not been discarded. Nearly three decades later, David weber also claimed that Anglo American men 'frequently took pains to except Mexican women from. disparaging remarks....the feminine half has enjoyed a positive image.“11 Weber and Lacy's accounts of Mexican-American.women have not been left unrefuted. Since the founding of women's history, the myths and stereotypes pertaining to Mexican American women have been more fully analyzed and debated. Most women's historians have questioned whether Anglo American views towards Mexican American women were either as positive or as benevolent as previous historians assumed. In her path breaking article, ”Anglo American Attitudes Toward New Mexican WOmen' Beverly Trulio admitted that Anglo American men often seemed captivated by Mexican American women's beauty and sexuality.12 However, Trulio added that Anglo American men also found these women to be morally lax, intellectually inferior, religiously insincere, and hygienically 7 grotesque.13 MOreover, Trulio recognized the interrelated nature of Anglo American views of Mexican American women and men. Trulio documented how Anglo American men, especially soldiers and military personnel, found Mexican American.women appealing, yet “merely the more attractive segment of a quaint and backward people.“ Not surprisingly Trulio found that “Behind accolades to women, hovered tendencies to degrade men in the same breadth."15 One of the most promising works to yet addresses the myths and stereotypes of Mexican American women is Antonia Casteneda's recently published article "The Political Economy of 19th Century Stereotypes of Californians“.16 In this piece Casteneda confronted the idea that Mexican American women in California were viewed exclusively in either a positive or negative manner, and that Anglo Americans' views of California women were merely private and sexual. Though only analyzing three famous sources including, Alfred Robinson's Life in California, Thomas Jefferson Farnham’s Travels in California and Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, Casteneda forcefully and adeptly argues that the images of California women during the 18208, 308 and 403 were both negative and positive depending on which account one chooses to read and what class Anglo Americans were describing. She found that upper- class women, as the more supposed racially pure and civilized segment of California society, were held in higher esteem than lower- class women, who were consistently treated with contempt and 8 disdain. Further demonstrating the inherently political and public views of women, who were judged by both their race and sex, Casteneda implicitly questioned whether the public- private dichotomy actually reflected the California experience.“' Anglo American's views of California ‘women affected their assessment of the entire population, and women's morality became a yardstick by which to judge the morality of the entire population. Though each of these studies has certainly expanded our knowledge of Mexican American myths and stereotypes, (with the exception of Casteneda and Trulio's articles) most historical analyses of myths and stereotypes have been theoretically and conceptually limited” Though often differing in conclusions, most authors have been overwhelmingly subsmmed with the task of ascertaining the veracity as well as the supposed negative or positive content of myths and stereotypes. This concern with the veracity of Anglo American perceptions has inhibited a more thorough investigation into the historical processes 'whereby myths and stereotypes were established, what myths and stereotypes meant to those who were doing the describing as well as the described, as well as how myths and stereotypes affected actual experiences, lived reality and subjective identity. Thus, by failing to identify both contextually and temporally how myths and stereotypes fit within historical processes, historians have perhaps unwittingly ascribed a certain static and transcendent quality to myths and 9 stereotypes. Rather ironically then, myths and stereotypes have been accorded a status that goes against every fiber of the historians being; be they conceptualized as historical falsehoods or as remnants of some historical truism, myths and stereotypes have all too often been accorded a place outside of historical processes. Or, in other words, myths and stereotypes have been frequently treated as concepts above and beyond either time or place. Therefore, when historians have addressed the issue of myths and stereotypes they have frequently treated myths and stereotypes as mere descriptive categories and thus interesting historical footnotes. Others have looked at the negative content of myths and stereotypes and have used negative images and accounts as am expression or reflection of unequal relationships, but not as part of the cause. And finally the very few who have attempted to find the cause of negative views have often looked.in.bygone pasts, thereby ignoring their continual creation and recreation. Only less frequently have historians actually conceptualized 'myths and stereotypes as a component of historical reality; as part of the constuitive power relations between groups of people; and.:most importantly' as part of the historical processes whereby' access. to :resources, ability for self definition and definition of the other, as well as control over wealth and power was decided. The tendency to conceptualize myths and stereotypes as something more than historical falsehood or truism has not 10 coincidentally taken place at the same time that historians have debunked myths and stereotypes. Many historians have recently started to rethink the relationship between myths and stereotypes and historical reality. This is no easy task for historians whose profession has for generations prided itself on distinguishing objective, factual historical reality from subjective, prejudicial mythical unreality. However, the limitations of viewing myths and stereotypes as somehow separate from historical reality, as merely falsehoods to be corrected, has become apparent to an increasing number of historians. Even Henry Nash Smith who so brilliantly exposed the myth in much of Frederick Jackson Turner's work, himself later admitted that he had been to hasty in describing myths as mere historical falsehoods. Historian Richard Del Castillo, who has researched and written extensively on the Chicano family in California, commented after years of painstaking and gruelling research that separating myths and stereotypes from historical reality had become more difficult than anticipated, if not impossible. 'In the case of American history, however, it may be that myths condition how we perceive the world, and as a result how we interpret truth itself.“ 1" Borderlands historian David Weber reflected after two decades of historical scholarship that has been largely dedicated to separating myth from reality, “History contains mythic elements and myth contains historic elements. To suppose otherwise is to place to great a faith in our 11 ability to reconstruct the past through logos, and to little imagination to seek the truths inherent in the myths.19 Thus, it has become all too obvious that historians' traditional tendency to view myths and stereotypes as either imaginary constructs, or falsehoods not to be reckoned with, may ignore power relationships that appears so unreal, yet influence and mediate reality itself. The relationship between. myths and stereotypes and “historical reality" is not a marginal debate, but rather one that cuts to the very heart of historical research, writing and understanding including issues of neterial reality and ideology, as well as representation, subjective identity and actual experiences. Traditionally, historians have focused on describing or finding causes for political events that so visibly marked historical change as well as economdc policies and institutions which have so materially affected peOple's lives and livelihood. All too often in this story there was little room. for iculture, imagery, ideology, rhetoric or identity; the stuff of social history. In fact, many argued that social and cultural historical categories merely reflected and. mirrored. processes of material historical change. Thus, change was rooted in some .material and political tangible, something underlying the outward manifestations of historical reality. Lately, historians have come to a realization that the lines between these categories of historical analyses have been too strictly drawn. The 12 choice is no longer an either or proposition. The theme that ideology both shapes and is shaped by naterial reality has become a consistent and even conventional theme in many historians works including' Ronald. Takaki and. Barbara .3. Fields.20 When studying race and sex in 19th century Europe, Joanna DeGroot argued that neither a purely economic-political nor' a socio-cultural framework.*would. suffice. Instead, DeGroot found that both were not only necessary, but perhaps inescapable» Sher commented, “This cultural approach is offered not as an alternative to material analysis, but rather as an essential component of history of the social whole within which both elements interact.“21 Other historians have addressed not only the relationship between ideology and material reality, but the very meaning of history and knowledge itself. In her article “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis“, Joan Scott proposes new ways for historians to think about how they conceptualize and actually “do“ history. Rejecting merely descriptive or causal historical analyses, Scott calls for historians to look at meaning, power, and experience as expressed in symbols, normative concepts, economic, political and social structures as well as subjective identities.22 To do this involves abandoning searches for “the origin“ or cause of historical change and instead involves searches for the causes and processes of historical change which themselves may be contradictory. Moreover, Scott argues that to develop a fuller understanding 13 of historical processes and meaning, historians must break away from their fascination with ideology and consciousness to consider the importance of rhetoric and discourse.23 In the case of myths and stereotypes, these various works have helped to establish that there is nothing necessarily inherently enduring or transcendent, nor merely fiction about myths and stereotypes, but that they are necessarily contextual and necessarily part of historical reality, be it defined as materialist, culturalist or something else. Thus, accepting that myths and stereotypes are neither true or false in the conventional definition of both terms, the historians' task then becomes how to connect or how to explain and establish the relationship between symbols, imagery, representation or even ideology with actual experiences and social relations. Or, put more simply, how did Anglo American’s perceptions of Californians as well as themselves mediate and inform.everyday social relations and experiences. Perhaps then, the task of the historian is to explain what has artificially been torn apart. Despite the seeming over sensitivity to theoretical issues, this thesis has ultimately been directed, informed.and mediated by the historical sources themselves. Admittedly, this thesis began, much like the studies previously mentioned, as an exploration into the myths and stereotypes that Anglo Mericans conceived about Mexican American women in California from the 18303 through to the 18805. Analyzing over forty 14 diaries, guides, travel journals and popular histories, at first, I made attempts to ferret out information abouthexican American women, the content pertaining to myths and stereotypes. Any paragraph with the word woman and any reference to morality or domestic duties was furiously transcribed. However, this process of gathering “information“ proved nearly impossible and entirely contrived. Unlike current historians, Anglo Americans in the 19th century did not devote merely a paragraph or a single chapter to Mexican American women. Sentences and paragraphs about Mexican American women flowed into sentences and paragraphs about Anglo Americans, Mexican-American men, masculinity, economics, agricultural practices and Spanish institutions. The myths and stereotypes that Anglo Americans developed around the womanhood of Mexican American women, however complimentary or derogatory, were inextricably bound with their views of Mexican-American men, racial identity, land tenure and trade as well as domesticity and motherhood. Trying to cut apart these paragraphs proved to be not only futile, but contextually devastating. .Added to the complex construction of myths and stereotypes was their dynamic and contextual existence; it became not so much a task of finding and isolating myths and stereotypes, but of tracing their historical transforation. This study primarily uses economic, social and cultural changes and only secondarily political events to understand 15 how myths and stereotypes were created, recreated and transformed. Though certainly the Mexican American war of 1846 and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had enormous affects on both Anglo American and Californian populations, economic and social forces that radically transformed California were well underway before either of these historic events. What will be referred to as the first generation of Anglo American immigrants into California went to California beginning in the early 18303 and for over a decade after the Mexican American war. What will be referred to as the second generation of Anglo Americans to California went between the years 1860 and 1890. Even though Anglo Americans who went to California both before and after 1860 had a great deal in common, the California that each entered was a decidedly different place and so to were their perceptions and actual relations with the Californians. The first generation of Anglo Americans that headed West in the first few years included a large number of traders and sailors, and in the decade immediately preceding the Mexican American war an increasing number of farmers and future homesteaders as well. Despite their various occupational differences, the California that this first generation entered was predominately a Spanish/Mexican place, and the myths and stereotypes they created both about themselves and others were in every way mediated by this reality. Though they may have wished themselves all powerful 16 and omnipotent, they were not, and though they may have wished they possessed the majority of California land, for most of this period they did not. However, through their increasing ability to shape the political, economic, social and thus ideological terrain of California, they transformed California in three short decades. When the second generation of Anglo Americans entered California, which included an increasing number of women, the California that they entered had already been radically changed. The second generation celebrated their predecessors achievements, looked forward to their own “pre-destined“ greatness and even romanticized and sometimes lamented the passing of California's Spanish era. Despite the fact that 19th century Anglo Americans were neither a monolithic nor homogenous group, both generations tended to be concerned with and discuss similar issues. Above all else, Anglo Americans seemed preoccupied with proper manhood and womanhood and how these were intertwined with racial, national and class identity. Unlike 20th century Anglo Americans who have assumed that only women have gender and only blacks have race, 19th century Anglo Americans were just as concerned with their own gender and racial identity as they were with others. Not surprisingly, most of the myths and stereotypes that Anglo Americans created both about themselves as well as others reflected an attempt by Anglo Americans to determine the meanings of gender, race, cla33 and nationality. By constructing definitions of these terms which 17 set boundaries for the meaning of representation and identity, Anglo Americans were not merely expressing individual attitudes, they were setting the parameters of power relations in the West; and as Anglo Americans position in the West changed, so did definitions of race, class, gender and nationality. Therefore the myths and stereotypes that Anglo Americans developed both about themselves as well as Mexican Americans were social constructs that not only gave meaning but actually mediated the economic, political and social struggle that characterized California throughout most of the 19th centuryu As part of this struggle, myths and stereotypes helped to define it, determine its processes and also mirror its outcome. Myths and stereotypes are thus, not something for historians merely to “get beyond“. When treated as a simple reflection of lived lives, myths and stereotypes should be treated with the utmost skepticism. Yet, myths and stereotypes may provide an open door into historical arenas otherwise left closed. Though admittedly Anglo American sources were riddled with value judgments, biases and prejudices, they also contained a great deal of information about Anglo and Californian society. Read with a skeptical eye, Anglo Americans may unwittingly provide us with a great deal of information about how they as well as Californians lived and thought.“ Conversely, and more important for this project, by paying particular attention to the 18 subjectivity, biases and prejudices of Anglo American views of themselves and others, is a way to understand how race relations in California were formed and developed. This does not mean that myths and stereotypes reflected lived reality, but it recognizes the importance of language and identity to peoples actual experiences. Unfortunately and admittedly this study is essentially one sided, investigating and analyzing Anglo sources to develop an understanding of how Anglo American's perceived and conceptualized Californians as well as themselves. This does not deny the existence of alternative views among Mexican Americans. However, due to various constraints, no attempts were :made to ascertain Mexican American perceptions of themselves or how they viewed Anglo Americans. Despite this obvious limitation, Californians are not merely static victims in this historical account that analyzes Anglo Americans' words, for, a great deal of the ambiguity that the first generation of Anglo Americans expressed towards Mexican Americans had as much to dO‘With the economic, political and social strength.of Mexican Americans as it had to do with their own uncertainty. The processes whereby the first generation Anglo Americans instituted a social, political and cultural order in California did not go uncontested, as they themselves begrudgingly admitted. And, the California that the second generation celebrated was not without its own contradictions, something they could not afford to admit. 19 CHAPTER 1 RACE AND CLASS 1830-1860 In 1987 Patricia Limerick published, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West and since, both historians as well as the American public have expressed a concern with what really happened in the West. According to Limerick “Conquest forms the historical bedrock of the whole nation, and the American West is a preeminent case study in conquest and its consequences.“ 25 Though some have been offended by Limerick's use of the term conquest to describe a process that has become an inescapable part of America’s cultural folklore and.even national identity, nonercan.dispute the fact that Anglo Americans triumphed in the West, if by triumph one means gaining economic, political and social control. However, the processes whereby Anglo Americans conquered the West are still up for debate. Not all historians have viewed Anglo American's triumph in the West as a shameful shadow of American history, or necessarily as a process of conquest. Frederick Jackson Turner, whose now infamous as well as famous frontier thesis of 1893 established Western history as a respected historical subject and himself as the most well respected and even revered practitioner, conceptualized Anglo movement westward 20 as a process of rebirth» 'Turner confidently proposed that the American West was both a place and a process; a place where boys became men, immigrants became Americans, and a process whereby American institutions of freedom and equality were refurbished. In his own words Turner stated, “This perennial rebirth, this fluidity’ of .American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character."26 As to the destiny of the primitive society, Turner remained conspicuously mute. Turner’s West was predominately a place about political ideology and manhood and his definition of both were exclusively Anglo. Ray A. Billington, Turner’s dedicated and.loyal protege, characterized the Anglo American’s who traversed West as harbingers of individualisnt with ties to a progressive democratic state and the Californians as backward tradition oriented Catholics whO‘were shackled to a regressive state and tyrannical religious hierarchy. Thus, using the cultural deficiency model of explanation, Billington proclaimed, “In the clash between these two techniques- these two differing “ Nearly two ways of life- the outcome was never in doubt.“ decades later, Leonard Pitt who published an informative and even sophisticated work on Californians, The Decline of the Californios largely concurred with Billington. Ina his own work, Pitt declared, “I see this study as an instance of the world wide defeat of the relatively static, traditionalist 21 societies by societies that were more oriented to technology 28 and progress.“ Not surprisingly then, “the Yankees beat them badly and all but swept them into the dustbin of history.“ ” Despite Pitt '3 and Billington’s confident pronouncements, Anglo Americans' success in California was not ordained or mandated, nor was it a foregone conclusion. Rejecting scholarly works that revolve around ascertaining which population was more politically, economically and technically progressive or with discussions that focus on how the cultural customs of Mexican Americans unwittingly caused their decline, Chicano historians claim the real issues were racism and class. Therefore, instead of viewing the West as a mere clash of cultures, one superior and one inferior, or as an inevitable process, Chicano historians characterize the West as a contest or conquest in which the growth of American capitalism and its attendant racism clearly won out. During the 18303, 18403 and even arguably through the 18503, Anglo Americans and Californians battled for ' control over California. While this battle has been largely analyzed as a process whereby Californians lost their land base and political voice, it was also a battle over racial identity and meaning that was interdependent with political and economic processes. Unfortunately few scholars have actually analyzed the West or California as a battle over racial identity and 22 meaning. Some, including Jack Forbes and Frederick Luebeck have postulated that the majority of residents in California before the advent of Anglo Americans were “mixed bloods“ despite their claims otherwise.30 While this information is perhaps useful, it does very little to explain race relations in California. For, racial identity and meaning was not an issue of biology but rather an issue of power. Other scholars, including Ramon Gutierrez and Thomas Hietala, who have also studied race relations in California, claim that when 19th century Anglo Americans arrived, they not only failed to notice racial and class divisions among the California population, but merely superimposed their own racial ideas about Indians and blacks unto the entire California population. Borderlands historian Ramon.Gutierrez claimed: “Through Americans eyes the residents of the area all looked alike, spoke Spanish and were fanatic Catholics, therefore they were Mexicans. And the deep seated racial prejudice among the .Americans against blacks was easily transferred.to persons of Spanish origins due to their swarthy skin color.“ 3’ Gutierrez further argued that seeing no physical or cultural differences among the California population, Anglo Americans refereed to all as Mexicans. In his work, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America Thomas Hietala argued that Anglo Americans viewed Californians much like they did Indians and blacks, typifying all as cruel, treacherous and savage.32 Certainly 23 Hietala and Gutierrez are correct, many Anglo Americans held Californians in.contempt, yet*whether that contempt was:merely the result of ignorance of stratification within the California population or transference of preconceived racial ideas is questionable, especially in light of recent debates over the very meaning of race itself. According to historian Barbara J. Fields American historians have given race a “transhistorical even metaphysical status that removes it from all possibilities of analysis and understanding.“33 Treated as something based in genes or “blood“, race»as a biological category becomes the historical explanation instead of something which itself requires historical explanation. To rectify this doldrum of ahistorical conceptions of race, Fields calls for reconceputalizing race not as biology, not as a reflection of attitude, and not even as an idea, but rather as an ideology which is continually created, recreated and often contested. Race is not something to be either assumed or discovered, it is something to be explained. Fields has been joined by numerous others including a significant number of Western historians. Historian Richard White recently proposed that in the case of the American West, the concept of race was not a biological fact to be discovered or uncovered, but rather a political and historical creation. “ Peggy Pascoe, largely in agreement with both Fields and White, has also called for a critical revelation of our traditional and ahistorical 24 understanding of race. While optimistic about historians willingness to concede that race is a social construct, Pascoe nevertheless claims that historians have been reticent about abandoning the language and even the premises that underlie biological theories of racial identity and classification. The tension between explicitly accepting race as a social construct, something that needs to be explained, and yet the tendency to reify race as a biological category has not been resolved. In the case of 19th century California, many authors have implicitly or explicitly suggested that the ‘Western. experience 'was largely a replay of Eastern and Southern race relations and thus have treated racial identity and meaning as a black/white dichotomy or a black/white/Indian triad that transcends geographic and temporal boundaries. The allegiance to these racial dichotomies and triads has been accompanied by a tendency to view race as a biological reality. Without denying the connections between racial ideas in the East, the South, the Midwest and the West, historians have tended.to overlook.not only the possibility of other racial categories, but how the accepted racial categories themselves evolved. Or, in other words, these dichotomies and triads may mask more than they reveal. Undeniably, Anglo Americans preconceived racial ideals mediated their relations and perceptions of Californians, and Anglo Americans never questioned their position as the most superior racial group. However, race was not merely an issue 25 of skin color or skin tone, but rather an issue of power, and as such defies simple explanations. Although Anglo Americans went to Californian with racial ideas, their ideas did not always correspond to the reality they encountered; nor were they the only people with notions of racial identity and hierarchy. Just as the land was not empty in the West, neither were Californians without their own racial ideas, reality and classification, and Anglo Americans were not blind or ignorant to this. In fact, as Californians and Anglo Americans confronted one another, each proved intensely racially conscious both about their own identity as well as those around.thenh IMoreovery because Californians and Anglo Americans often had diverging views of racial meaning and categories, and because race was such an important concept in each society for determining and legitimizing access to resources and power, race proved to be one of the most contentious and explosive issues over which Anglo And Californians battled for control over California. Or in the words of Evelyn Higgethbothan “we must recognize race as providing sites of dialogic exchange and contestation, since race as constituted a discourse for both oppression and liberation.“35 Both the time and the energy Anglo Americans exerted to express their own racial ideas, and the will and tenacity with which Californians tried to defend theirs, reveals that race was indeed an area of contested terrain. I this battle had been waged as a purely ideological debate, it 26 would be easy to explain. However, the actual relations and interests of individuals often failed to coincide with each societies’ racial ideas. The racial debate in California took place among individuals and groups of people whose immediate economic, political and social interests did. not always correspond to the dominant racial ideology of their society. Thus, this was a battle fraught with ambiguity and sometimes contradictions, yet it was a battle nonetheless. When Anglo Americans entered California in the 18303, 18403 and 18503 they encountered a racial ideology and a systemiof racial construction.and.classification that differed with their own deeply held racial views. 'Unlike in the United States where one's racial identity was theoretically a simple reflection of skin color and skin tone, in California one’s racial identity was mmlti-faceted. Racial identity was an indicator of one's total “social personality“ which included race, legitimacy of birth, ancestry, occupational, citizenship and religion and social status.36 Thus, on a daily basis, one’s clothing and economic status indicated and determined one's social status and racial identity as much as one’s skin color or blood count.37 Based on these categories, Californians divided themselves into Castillians and Spaniards, the supposedly racial pure and certainly economically powerful; Mexicans who were often considered mixed bloods; and neophytes or Indians who were at the very bottom of this racial hierarchy. 27 Because Californians conception of race was relational, a change in one's economic status would affect and often did affect one's racial identity. In fact, before the 18303 many mestizo frontiersmen were able, through the acquisition of land and social prestige, to ensure that their progeny would also acquire an elevated racial and social standing.38 By the time Anglo Americans arrived this mobility had decreased significantly, and social, economic and racial distinctions were increasingly drawn more rigidly. Some historians have even argued that Anglo Americans presence reinforced this rigidity. Be the case whatever it may, it is undeniable that the California racial system was beset with its own inner tensions. The social mobility that had been possible for previous generations became more difficult by the 18303. Despite this change, Californian racial categorization continued to be an extremely important issue affecting how Californians identified themselves and determined who had rights to economic, political and social poweru Elite Californians who identified themselves as Spaniards and Castillians remained extremely status conscious throughout this entire period and were adamant about maintaining their separate racial identity.39 California, thus, had not been a static, peaceful and pristine garden of Eden before the Mexican American war and Anglo Americans did not introduce racial concepts to an un- racialized society nor a society without racial prejudice. 28 Yet, Anglo American’s presence did undeniably affect power relations in California, including racial conceptions, meaning and definitions. The first Anglo Americans who travelled to California in the 18203, 303 and 403 included a significant number of sailors and traders. Due to their control of capital, greater access to international markets and transportation, Anglo Americans in Californian quickly established economic dominance in trading and commercial ventures. According to historian Ronald Takaki, “interregional specialization of the U.S. economy' became increasingly' complex: as Mexico, and particularly California, became a virtual economy where the U.S. marketed its goods in exchange for raw material.“‘° Despite their economic ascendancy in commercial ventures during the 18303 and 403 and even after victory in the Mexican American war, almost all of Southern California and significant portions of Northern California remained largely Mexican in population, character and ambience. Spanish was still the most often spoken language, Catholicism the most popular religion, and fandangos and festivals based on traditional Mexican and Catholic holidays were frequent. Though some Anglo Americans may have scoffed at these practices, (from their own writings it seems that many more enjoyed these social events) Anglo Americans could not deny much less ignore that they had entered a Spanish/Mexican culture. Because of the relatively small numbers of Anglo 29 immigrants into all of California before the mid 18405 they were, unlike their Texan counterparts, unable to forge separate enclaves in these early years.‘1 Nor were these single male Anglos able to establish Anglo families, households or communities; female immigration remained negligible during this early period. This left most male Anglo immigrants to settle within pre-established missionary and presidio towns along the coasts where Californians had traditionally resided. In these towns Anglo Americans not only established and maintained business relations with Californians, but some actually increased their status and landholding in California by marrying into the California elite. Unlike many of their female counterparts back East, California women had significant property rights. Without comprehensive lists, it is nearly impossible to ascertain the exact number of unions, yet historian Antonia Casteneda has compiled tentative lists that demonstrate the frequency of Anglo-Mexican unions.42 Because of these economic and social ties, a significant number of Anglo Americans were able to become at least nominal members of the California elite. Though these Anglo Americans were by no means multi- culturalists in the 20th century definition of the term, practical exigencies often overrode racial ideology, at least for a brief time, and for some Anglo Americans. Even Anglos who refrained from.intermarrying with elite Californians were often witnesses of the social fabric of Californian society as 30 demonstrated by the numerous references to fandangos, weddings and fiestas in the majority of Anglo accounts. Taking into account these economic and social ties, as well as the words of Anglo American's themselves, it would be naive to propose that Anglo Americans were ignorant of the of the racial and class divisions of the society they lived in. The first generation of Anglo Americans expressed an awareness, perhaps at times unwittingly so and more often knowingly, of California’s racial hierarchy and racial classification. Anglo Americans not only heardterms such as Castillians, Spaniards, Mexican, Indians and half breeds being used, but they frequently discussed and used these categories in their own writings. Henry A. Dana, the son of a prestigious patrician family who sailed along the California Coast in the 18303, remarked how, among the Californian population, the numerous upper-class Californians he met upon the seaboard vehemently claimed to be direct descendants of Spaniards and Castillians, while claiming that lower-class Californians were the unfortunate off spring of Mexicans and Indians. “ Walter Colton who first went to California as the Chaplain aboard the U.S.S. Congress in 1846 and later became an aclade of Monterey California, observed that unlike the American population which was divided only into whites, blacks and Indians, his population in Monterey was much more racially diverse. Foreshadowing the linkage of race and nationality that would greatly affect racial identity in the 31 second half of the 19th century, Colton described Monterey in the following terms “Almost every nation has, in some emigrant, a representative ere- a representative of its peculiar habits, virtues and vices. Here is the reckless Californian, the half-wild Indian, the roving trapper of the West, the lawless Mexican, the liscentous Spaniard, the scolding Englishmen, the absconding French, the luckless Irishmen.“ “ Neither Dana nor Colton, with their references to the class and race composition of Californian were atypical of Anglo Americans in the 18303’, 403 and 503. Most Anglo Americans both recognized and offered varying commentaries on the heterogenous nature of the California population and its hierarchical ordering. In Travels in California, Thomas Jefferson Farnham, a lawyer from Illinois who arrived in California in 1841 by way of the Oregon trail, described with reservation and cynicism how the California population was made up of a mixture of Castillians, Californian Spaniards, Mexicans and half breeds.‘S Though highly skeptical about the validity of the divisions between these groups, it is significant that Farnham nevertheless used California racial terms to describe and differentiate among the Californians throughout his entire memoir, with the effect of reinforcing the very racial distinctions he sought to deny. Unlike Farnham, other Anglo Americans were not always so cynical in either their descriptions or commentary about 32 California’s racial system. With varying degrees of acceptance, and varying degrees of consciousness, Anglo Americans frequently mentioned and discussed California as a racially heterogenous society. For example, one of the first women to travel to California, Sara Gunn, decried that although she had met many Spanish women whom she found pleasant, she had yet to encounter many women of Mexican descent.46 Edwin Bryant, who wrote a rather famous guide for Emigrants to California that was read.by many Americans in the East and Midwest, forewarned future Anglo travellers that in California they would encounter not only Spaniards, but also Castillians, Californian Mexicans, Mexican Mexicans, Hispano Americans and Indians."' Some Anglo Americans, including - Alfred Robinson.who emigrated to California in 1829 and later married into the prestigious and wealthy de la Guerra y Noriega family of Santa Barbara, not only refused to question California’s racial system" but went to great lengths to prove its validity. Though certainly more the exception than the rule, Robinson spent countless pages trying to prove that Castillian and Spaniards were a distinct race from Mexicans and Indians, and that each group differed in class, manners, intelligence and. blood. composition” :Robinson even distinguished among Mexican Mexicans and Californian Mexicans . Obviously favorably prejudiced towards the later, Robinson proclaimed that “No part of Mexico can show so large a share of bright eyes, fine teeth, fair proportions and beautiful 33 complexions.“48 Perhaps even more surprising than Anglo-Americans awareness of the existence of the Californian race system, was their understanding of how this system was constructed. Recognizing that Californians’ racial identity was determined by complexion, dress, manner, economic and social standing as well as blood lineage, Dana stated, “Their complexions are various, depending as well as their dress and manner- upon their rank; or the among of Spanish blood they can lay claim to.“ ‘9 Not one of these categories detenmined one’s racial identity; rather, all did” IDana recognized that in California biology. social and economic status were not separate categories, instead each was indicative of the other, or, in other words, they constructed one another. Thus, expressing an understanding that to be a Spaniard was to demonstrate not only blood lineage but also economic success, Dana noted how this hierarchy was organized, the highest class being the Castillians and Spaniards who both owned property and laid claim to pure Spanish blood. “From this upper class, they go down by regular shades, growing more and more dark and muddy until you come to the Indian.“ ” Anglo Americans were fully aware that the elite of California society, Spaniards and Castillians, held economic power and social prestige, and that this power was based on claims to European.ancestryu Not surprisingly, these were the Californians with whom Anglo Americans often aspired to mmll 1.4 7.! - 34 establish business relations and marry. Yet, contrary to what some historians have claimed, Anglo’s views toward this California elite were not consistently positive, nor did the race and class status of elite Californians shield them from Anglo Americans’ criticisms.“' Instead, Anglo Americans exhibited an unwitting ability to both compliment individual Californians by commenting on the dignity, hospitality and kindness of individual Spaniards and Castillians, and yet undermine Californians’ power as a population by criticizing elite Californians social relations with lower-class Californians; condemning Spanish nationality, tyranny, wastefulness, indolence and frivolity; and even questioning the racial integrity and purity of elite Californians. The ambiguity Anglo Americans felt towards the Californians was most thoroughly expressed towards the elite; those who held vast grants and made adamant claims to Spanish and Castillian heritage. Comments about Spanish and Castillian civility, manners, hospitality, grace, dignity and style abound throughout early Anglo-American journals. Even Henry Dana who almost never offered a “positive“ assessment of even elite Californians, felt he could not deny the generosity he encountered among Californians who shared money, food and clothing with him. Of this population, Dana stated “I would have trusted.my life and.my fortune in the hands of any one of these people. . .their customs, and manner of treating one another, show a simple, primitive generosity, which is truly .—a-..- .I- II 35 delightful.”2 Alfred Robinson, who was himself thoroughly ingratiated into Californian society described his visit to Don Manuels’ rancho near San Diego in the most laudatory fashion” After being cordially met at the door by Manuel, his women and. his servants, Robinson. remdnisced. how' he ‘was received with “true Spanish dignity and politeness“. “At the threshold of his door we were met by Don Manuel, who embraced us cordially and. presented. us to ihis :mother, wife and sisters.“ Robinson lamented how the Manuel rancho was cursed by course muddy walls and damp floors yet remarked, “if their walls were cold and heir floors damp, their hearts were warm and the abundance of their luxurious entertainment.“ 53 Thus, even though the Manuel rancho failed to measure up to middle-class standards of hygiene and modernity, according to Robinson it was a residence full of unbounding love and hospitality and as such was worthy of compliments. Even in the midst of political conflict and turmoil, Anglos commented on the gracious manner of their Spanish and Castillian hostesses. On the eve of the Mexican-American war Walter Colton was delighted, both as aclade of California as well as for his own personal well being, that “Though a quasi- war exists, all amenities and courtesies of life are preserved; your person, life and liberty are as sacred to the hearth of the Californians as they would be at your own fireside.“ “ As of the Mexican American male in particular, Colton remained confident that “He will never 36 betray you the right of hospitality. He may fight you on the battlefield, but in his family' you. may dance with his daughters and he will himself make the waltzing string."SS Though brandished in arms, Colton insisted that Californians would.remain socially cordial and even invitingu Even.a dance with the daughter of the enemy remained a plausible possibility. Despite the seemingly endless accolades, not all Anglos were equally impressed with Californian generosity. George McCollum, a native from Lockport, Maine who traveled through California in the 18405, noted like Dana, Robinson and Colton that the civilized Californians were “human and hospitable“ yet, McCollum commented, “maybe excessively so“ . 55 Anglo Emigrant Lansford Hastings a native of Mt. Vernon, Ohio who traversed to California right before the Mexican-American war and played a role in Bear Flag Rebellion, was less gentle in his comments about California hospitality. Hastings expressed not only bewilderment at Mexican-American hospitality but also agitation and outright hostility. Hastings generalized about his encounters with Californians to conclude that “Should.you call at the residence of one of these Mexicans, even of the higher classes residing in the interior; you.would.not only be received very kindly, but you would be annoyed with continual proffers of all the luxuries which they possess.“ ” According to Hastings, this unbounded hospitality which knew no limits, was merely another indicator of all Californians’ 37 wasteful generosity. In comparison to Hasting’s hostility and McCollum’s ambiguity, Dana’s, Robinson’s and Colton’s comments appear laudatory, yet they were not without their negative implications. None denied their courteous reception at the hands of Californians and none denied that Californians were polite, generous and hospitable. Yet, the underlyingtheme of these accolades, was that the Californians were acquiescent, if not perhaps a bit foolish and docile as well. At the very least, Robinson’s statement about warm hearts was condescending and patronizing. Even more important, as Colton’s comments demonstrate, almost any Californian action, be it a dance with a Californian’s daughter or proffers of clothing and food, was interpreted as an invitation to conquest and subordination. Moreover, Californians’ alleged “wasteful generosity“ which so explicitly baffled Hastings, lead him as well as others to conclude that though the Californians were hospitable, they did not deserve the abundance which they possessed. Anglo Americans accepted gifts of housing and board as indices that Californians, with so much abundance, could not only use all they had, but failed to appreciate its value. Walter Colton proclaimed outright that “They attach no value to money except as it administers to their pleasures.“58 Undeniably many elite Californians were certainly gracious and hospitable towards Anglos, but perhaps not for the same reasons Anglos supposed. By the 18303 and early 38 18403, many elite Californians began to question whether their economic future would be better secured through an alliance or incorporation into the ‘United States rather' than. as an isolated and highly regulated frontier of Mexico. Of all the Frontier areas, California had been granted the least rights and responsibilities, making it difficult for Californians to take full advantage of California’s resources. However, when Californians offered hospitality and tried to accommodate to Anglo Americans, it was often viewed by Anglo Americans not only as an indication that Californians wished to establish economic alliances, but as an invitation to conquest and subordination. Any Californian action, be it a simple offer of a.meal, or an invitation to a fandango, was easily interpreted by Anglo Americans as another indicator that Californians actually wished their own subordination within Anglo society. Even more disquieting to Anglo Americans than proffers of generosity, was the similarity in behavior they claimed to have witnessed among elite Californians, the supposedly racially pure, and lower Californians who were clearly racially mixed. Anglo Americans were appalled that different races and classes would attend the same churches, bullfights and even fandangos. Alfred Robinson commented, “It is not unusual to see at public assemblages the most perfect familiarity between the two classes.“ Robinson.was concerned that “This often misleads strangers, who form, in consequence, incorrect opinions. In time, when the country becomes more 39 settled, a necessary' distinction. will prevail among the 59 Like Robinson, A.B. Clark was shocked various classes.“ in the 18505 to see Ladies with “Castillian blood“ and “fair complexions“ occupying the upper seats at a bullfight.“60 And Edwin Bryant, who was often complimentary towards the Californians, could not help noting how, “Gambling is a universal vice in California. All classes and both sexed participate in its excitement to some extent.“61 This social mixing of classes offended Anglo Americans and their understanding of the proper social and cultural divisions between classes. If all Californians gambled, regularly danced.till dawn.and crudely'watched.bullfights then perhaps the morals, character and behavior of these supposedly distinct racial groups and two sexes might be more similar than different” Though few Anglo Americans would.have denied that Spaniards and Castillians were certainly more polite and hospitable- and most importantly more civilized than Mexicans and. half breeds- some claimed, including Hastings that, “Although there is a great variety and dissimilarity among them in reference to their complexions, yet in their beastly habits and an entire want of all moral principle, as well as a perfect destitution of all intelligence, there appears to be a perfect similarity.“ Though not all would have agreed with Hastings, the social behavior of elite Californians was always an issue of concern to most Anglo Americans. If Anglo Americans expressed an ambiguity towards 40 individual elite Californians upon whom their own economic success was often dependent, finding their hospitality both convenient and.annoying and their social relations with “lower classes“ disquieting, it is unquestionable that they held the Spanish and Mexican institutions which had directed Californians lives in total disdain. Anglo Americans who went to California before the Mexican-American war were obviously reacting to many of their own experiences; those who came later were commenting on what they though it had been like. Numerous historians have noted how the legacy of the “Black Legend“ or hispanophobia (anti-Catholic and anti- Spanish) colored Anglo Armerican’s views of Californians making it impossible for them to objectively view California society, or to fairly evaluate, much less accept, its institutions. It would be naive to suppose that Anglo Americans who traversed.to California in the first half of the 19th century were unaffected by the premises underlying the “Black Legend“. Certainly many Anglo Americans went to California with an anti-Spanish mind set that included a belief that Spanish and Mexican Governments were despotic, tyrannical and unjust, and that Catholics were only nominally christian. Yet, it is questionable whether these pre-existing prejudices and biases wholly determined Anglo American views of the California pOpulation, or if the legacy of the “black legend“ can explain why pejorative notions were maintained and recreated to fit within the California context. Anglo 41 Americans’ views of the California population reveal a complexity that defies a simple anti-Spanish explanation. Not all things Spanish were attacked with equal intensity or tenasciousness. Anglo Americans’ selective critique of “things Spanish“ demonstrates that Anglo Americans were primarily concerned with their own future economic and political goals, and not with merely berating everything Spanish or Mexican. Not surprisingly, both the Spanish and Mexican governments were attacked in Anglo-American writings. For decades preceding as well as following Anglo and Mexican hostilities, Anglo Americans described Mexican and Spanish governments as utterly despotic and cruelly unjust, especially in contrast to their own. As early as the 18303, Henry Dana was already intent on demonstrating how the California government was unlike American republicanism or democracy. Claiming that the government of California was an “arbitrary democracy“ bereft of a judiciary, common law, and moral politicians, Dana felt himself unsafe and unprotected in California. Clearly making reference to the U.S. Declaration of Independence Dana further stated, “as to the right of property and the pursuit of happiness is, among the Californian Spaniards construed to authorize both individuals and states to defraud, plunder and murder, if they find it safe and lucrative to do so.“ ‘2 And, “As for justice, they know no law but will and fear.“63 Alfred Robinson, who often expressed affection for many aspects of California 42 society, referred to the Mexican government as a “ndlitary despotism on a petty scale“ which was characterized by “ In concurrence with Dana and “weakness and pusillanity“. Robinson, Thomas Jefferson Farnham found the Mexican government not only to be unjust, but also corrupt and explained. how, “the freemen, or rather the governor' of California and his subalterns were in the habit of corrupting a large portion of the port duties, for sums of nmney and quantities of goods for their own use.“ “ As Farnham’s last comment indicates, of all the Spanish and.Mexican governments’ supposed.deficiencies, none received more attention than. those ‘policies that inhibited. Anglo Americans from trading and usurping the resources of California. Preoccupation with a supposed lack of free trade was a constant theme in many Anglos’ accounts and sometimes even served as an explanation for California’s backwardness and as propaganda for the future possibilities of an Anglocized California. In the 18303, Henry Dana looked forward to the day when California Governors and subalterns would no longer use import duties for their own personal enrichment.“ Walter Colton, also unhappy with California’s import duties, adamantly claimed that they were not only unfair but detrimental to Anglo American trading interests but, “enforced by an irresponsible tyranny, have kept Californian poor, have crushed all her enterprise“ 67 Like Colton, Edwin Bryant also criticized California’s import 43 duties when he asserted that, “even the most ordinary elegance of life, have ever reached the inhabitants and they have been forced to pay prices that would be astonishing to a citizen of the United States.“ “ These critiques, though containing grains of truth and insight, were motivated by self serving interests, and not a benevolent manifest Destiny or an abstract sense of mission. Comments about high import duties were in many cases a reflection of real policies on the part of the Mexican government, what is misleading' is that Anglo Americans’ concern was over the crushed will or spirit of the Californians and not their own thwarted economic aspirations. There were absolutely no comments or plans of delivering democracy to these “backward peoples“, or of encouraging them to trade their own products or utilize their own land. Discussions about the corruption of the Spanish and Mexican governments’ trading policies were not accompanied by references to political democracy or rights of Californians. In fact, almost never were Californians mentioned as political beings with rights and responsibilities. Anglo Americans were not concerned with the freedom and democracy of the Californians, but rather with their own economic aspirations. Frequent comments pertaining to freed trade and unfair import duties were a direct indication of Anglo Americans own economic interests and not with the development of California by Californians. 44 Of all Anglo American critiques of Californians, perhaps none were more threatening nor influential than those that questioned the very basis of Californians’ racial hierarchy. Despite Anglo Americans’ awareness of California’s race system that made distinctions based on a mutually reinforcing construction of race and class, or perhaps more accurately because of this cognizance, many Anglo Americans questioned whether the divisions between elite and lower Californians were even valid. Not all Anglo Americans questioned California’s racial hierarchy with equal vehemence nor did individual Anglo .Americans always bother themselves with consistency. Anglo Americans proved to be sometimes subtle and other times explicit about their reservations about the California race system; perhaps because they were not always so sure of their own critiques. For instance, Henry Dana only initially implicitly noted the racial fluidity in California by recording his impression upon meeting a Mexican in Santa Barbara who “though*wearing a Spanish hat, was nearly as dark as an Indian.“ ” Later Dana also subtlety questioned the racial integrity of California Spaniards and Espanoles by noting the dark complexion of a California women from one of the best families. ” Later Dana dropped all his reservations and explicitly voiced his suspicions. Specifically discussing Californian racial identities, Dana commented “Generally speaking, each persons’ caste is decided by the quality of the blood which shows itself, too plainly to '.n 1'13"" . .'s I 45 be concealed, at first sight.“ Dana continued, “Yet, the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only a quartoon or octoon, is sufficient to raise them from the rank of slaves and entitle them to a suit of clothes- boots hate, cloak, spurs, long knife, and all complete, through course and dirty as may be, for the men. and shoes and stockings for the women, and to call themselves Espanoles and to hold property if they 1 Dana clearly recognized that in California, can get any.“7 race was inclusive of biology, class and culture, which he found particularly offensive and ridiculous. The idea of a racial hierarchy as a ladder that one could climb because of semantics and clothes posed a threat to Anglo Americans’ understanding of both the world they had left as well as the one they had entered. Like Dana, Thomas Jefferson Farnham. also attacked Californians’ nomenclature as well as racial identity. Farnham commented how elite Californians were refereed to as white only out of courtesy and that, “Their complexion is a light clear bronze; not white as they themselves quite erroneously imagine.“72 'Ro Farnham the color of the Californians was, this was not only a debate over degrees of skin pigmentation, but cut to the essence of Californians racial and national identities. In a disgusted tone Farnahm remarked, “Thus much of the Spanish population of the Californians; in every way a poor apology of European extraction.“73 The bronze complexion of elite Californians, those who made claims to 46 Spanish and Castillian heritage, was a sign of race mixing, and according to Farnham invalidated their claims to whiteness and to European ancestry. Some Anglo Americans not only claimed that the Spanish and Castillians were racially mixed, but they congratulated themselves on discovering the cause of this mixture. Hastings noted that though there were distinctions among the California population, racial intermixture was a common phenomenon especially among the “lowest order“ of Californians. Because of intermarriage and close residences, Hastings claimed that, “it has become almost impossible to trace the least distinctions between them, either in reference 7‘ Edwin Bryant went even to intelligence or complexion.“ farther than Hastings in asserting that the California population was racially mixed. After spending nearly 450 pages discussing the differences among the Californians, using a whole myriad of terms including Hispano Arnerican, Spaniard, Castillian, Mexican, and half breed-s, Bryant stated that “The Californians do not differ materially from the Mexicans, from whom they are descended, in other provinces of that country. Physically and intellectually, the men, probably are superior to the same race of the south. . .The intermixture-of blood with the Indian and Negro, has been less, although it is very perceptible.“ 75 Thus, though admitting that the Californians were superior to Mexicans, Bryant still viewed the Californians as a mixed population and wondered whether 47 the differences within this population were enough to warrant distinct racial categorization. And finally, totally rejecting the Californian racial system that drew lines between Spaniards and Mexicans, Audbon not only claimed that Californians were mixed bloods, but that in constitution and behavior they were Indians. Speaking of the Californians Audbon declared “Its inhabitants were just like all other Mexicans I have seen, some a little whiter than others, but all Indians.“ ” Even though Anglo Americans at first appeared to accommodate to California society, as a group Anglo Americans ultimately opted for conquest. However, the lines between these two policies were never clear cut and.may go a long way in explaining why Anglo Americans views of the California population often appear ambivalent and even contradictory. First of all, criticizing Californians economic and political institutions and questioning some of their social mores and behaviors distanced the Californians from Anglo Americans, but it did not provide an adequate justification for why California should be, or had become, part of the United States. Anglo Americans also had a difficult time disenfranchising or limiting the power of Californians through traditional means. The traditional white/non—white and savage/civilization categories 'when. applied to elite Californians simply didn’t work. With the exception of Thomas Farnham.none likened Californians to African Americans, and 48 only a very few made direct references to Indians. As individuals, Anglo Americans often found Californians very civilized, maybe too much so. Californians were proprietors over large landed estates that in many ways resembled the American South. Californians were hospitable, generous and polite. Claims that Californians were merely nomadic Indians or the blacks of the southwest seem ridiculously implausible. Most importantly Californians claimed to be descendants of Spaniards and Castillians and throughout the 18303, 405 and for some even into the 18503 had the social, economic and often political power to back up these claims. Racial identity was not an issue over biology, but rather of power, and it is clear that throughout this early period Californians still had some power by which to make racial distinctions. Anglo Americans own economic, political and social interests and exigencies during this period may have also temporarily mediated both their willingness and ability to directly confront the California racial system” In the 18303 and 403.AngloiAmericans often.became economically and.socially linked to elite Californians for' whom. their success in California was dependent. Many not only established business relations but also intermarried. Elite Californians who offered.a gateway to economic, political and social success in California also posed as a road.block. Ultimately, the avenue of conquest through accommodation was limited. Elite Californians already possessed by far the most valuable land 49 in California due to grants from the Spanish and Mexican governments. Perhaps equally important were the cultural differences. Anglo Americans self consciously limited their mental accommodation to California. Certainly many took advantage of business connections, partook in weddings and festivals and as stated earlier even intermarried, yet most Anglo Americans had not intention of forging a Mexican or Spanish-Anglo culture. Very few Anglo Americans became Mexicanized in California and even fewer considered themselves Californians in either name or identity. The ability of Anglo Americans to usurp land, political sovereignty the social control of California, and to justify their actions, was to assert somehow that the Californians were undeserving of their power and control. Anglo Americans used their knowledge and.awareness.of the'Californians’ racial system to do this. With some exceptions, most Anglo Americans questioned the validity of the Californian racial system; and instead of accepting claims that Spaniards, Castillians, Mexicans and half breeds were distinct groups, Anglos posited instead that the California racial system.was really a racial continuum with each group on the continuum polluting the one beside it. 'no Anglo Americans, the existence of a racial continuumiwas clear proof of race1mixingu IMoreover that one’s clothe’s and one’s landholding, could influence one’s racial identity contrasted with Anglo American’s beliefs that race was based in blood. Therefore, it was not due to ignorance 50 that Anglo Americans rejected Spaniard and Castillian claims to racial purity, but rather through conscious choice. Anglo Americans were redefining racial identity in California and thus redefining power relations as well. Anglo Americans searched furiously for any slight evidence of race mixing to prove that they, themselves, were the only pure racial group in California. CHAPTER 2 GENDERED RACE IN EARLY 19TH CENTURY CALIFORNIA Women’s Western historian Elizabeth Armitage recently referred to Western history as a male-dominated, racist and romantic “hisland'. " Certainly the feats, accomplishments, victories and battles of white men in the West have dominated the field of Western history. Be he Kitt Carson or General Freemont, rest assured, numerous articles and books have been devoted his trials, tribulations and triumphs. Masculinity, thus, has dominated not only the processes whereby the “West was won“ but also how historians have described that victory. However, and rather ironically, most historians have rather passively and unreflectingly accepted masculinity as the fundamental characteristic, and as the motivating force that explains the actions of white men in the West, without examining how masculinity itself was understood by white men; how it was constructed in relation to other concepts such as race and femininity; and finally how masculinity has directly related to men’s social power and social relations. Though ideas about femininity and the American West have been more thoroughly examined, they have been largely limited to themes of white women’s taming and civilizing influence, 51 52 their liberation or non-liberation, and women’s unique perceptions and experiences in the West. The first scholars even to note that white women had a role in the West were often more concerned with demonstrating white women’s essential civilizing and taming nature and how this affected the West, than with their actual experiences.78 By the late 19703 Feminist scholars rejected the idea that women were inherently tamers or civilizers and instead debated women’s actual experiences including perceptions, work roles and familial relations.79 And, in the last decade a few historians including Glenda Riley and Sandra Myres have finally raised the issue of white women’s relations with other groups. Unfortunately, both largely limited their discussion to white women and Native Americans and almost completely ignored the relationships between white women and Mexican American women.80 Fortunately, scholars in the last few years have begun to address the relationship between race, gender and class as factors that affected social relations and power among all groups of men and women. Calls for more sophisticated and relational interpretations of historical forces and social reality have come from numerous fronts including British historians, Western historians, African American historians and Women historians from all the above mentioned fields. The most promising works are those that call for an expanded definition of gender to include masculinity as well as 53 femininity, and an expanded definition of race that recognizes various constructions. One of the most masterly crafted and theoretically sophisticated works yet produced, is a collection of essays found within Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800. According to editors John Tosh and Michael Roper, “What is required is an understanding of the mutations of male dominance over time and their relations to their structures of social power such as class, race, nation and creed.“81 In much the same vein, though stressing race as the starting point, African American women’s historian Evelyn Higgenbothan in her article, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race“ has expressed the need for historians to address how race affects the “construction and representation of other social and power relations, namely gender, class and sexuality."82 And finally, Western historian Peggy Pascoe, without emphasizing gender, race or class demands that Western historians abandon their mono-casual analyses of western history as either a male venture, or as a conflict between racial groups. She instead urges historians to visualize the West as a Cross roads “not only as a literal crossing of peoples paths, but also an analytical crossing of three central axes of inequality- race class, and gender in American history.“83 These pleas for more sophisticated, multi- cultural, intercultural and intra-gender analyses of history not only make sense theoretically, but also correspond more 54 accurately to a historical past that was always multicultural, and always intercultural despite historians attempts to whitewash the story. In the case of 19th century California, concepts of masculinity and femininity; as well as race, are essential for understanding Anglo-Mexican.American relations. In fact, the key to understanding Californian-Anglo American race relations and how the first generation of Anglo Americans was able to pursue two seemingly contradictory policies of accommodation and conquest may rest on gender divisions. Anglo American views of the California population, the myths and stereotypes they created and.maintained to conform to their social order, were not solely determined. by racial identity or class differences. When Anglo Americans traversed and settled in California, they did not only see a race of people, or races of people, but rather they saw a society made up of both men and 'women, and. Anglo Americans often attributed. varying moralistic and behavioral attributes to men and women that allowed them in their own minds to separate wives from husbands, daughters from fathers, and sisters from brothers. Gender mediated how.Anglo Americans viewed California men and women, what categories they put them in, what behaviors they ascribed to them, what norms and values they judged them by, and finally, what racial status and identity they tried to accord them” Thus, race, though certainly important, was not the only form of classification. Rather, Anglo Americans 55 perception of racial identity was often intertwined with their perception of gender identity and gender roles. More specifically, gender often mediated Anglo Americans perception of racial identity and meaning itself. This dialectical construction of race and gender, whereby Anglo Americans defined the characteristics of proper manhood and womanhood helps to explain the apparent ambiguity of Anglo American views towards the California population when seen as a undifferentiated totality, and may help to explain why historians have come up with so many varying interpretations. The ability of Anglo Americans to assert economic dominance, and the legitimacy and righteousness of these acts in their own minds, was dependent upon developing a rhetoric about the California men that in the words of Dana presented them as “an idle, thriftless people [who] can make nothing for ‘ Following the lead of Dana, Anglo Americans themselves . “8 immigrants and settlers in California throughout the first half of the 19th century characterized California men as an indolent, unenterprising, pleasure seeking, feeble minded and cowardly “race of men“. Because of these negative traits, these un-American characteristics, Anglo Americans claimed not only that the Mexican American war was justified, but that limiting Californians’ access to mines, usurping land and restricting mobility thorough such acts as the Land Commission Act of 1851, the Foreign Miners Tax of 1851 and Anti-vagrancy laws, was in the best interest of California. By criticizing 56 California’s men’s land use, political behavior and economic practices, Anglo Americans emasculated the California male, denied him not only the rhetoric of what it meant to be a man but the reality in terms of economic power and control. ‘Using the jargon of the Post-modernists, in this case it is obvious that subjective identity, meaning or representation directly influenced and mediated actual objective experiences. Thus, the myths and stereotypes, the rhetoric that came to define California males as a gendered race or a “race of men“, were an essential ideological component of Anglo Americans expansionist agenda, politically and economically, as well as Anglo Americans ideas about their own masculinity. It is not insignificant that a standardized and racialized concept of masculine imagery became dominant in the 19th century when Anglo American men first confronted other racial groups in territory other than their own. The imagery of appropriate masculinity and manhood that became prevalent in 19th century America was closely linked.to both the rise of commercial capitalism and neo-colonialism and took the form of the masculine achiever.85 The ideal of the masculine achiever, as historians have recently coined the term, was predominately an economic identity which proclaimed that to succeed in what had increasingly become a dog eat dog world of unlimited capitalism, each.man had to exert ceaseless effort, frugality, industry and above all else, self control. This required constant activity, constant self evaluation, self 57 8" In many ways, this was a very diligence and effort. public and political role. Fulfillment of this very public role was intimately linked to men’s private roles within nuclear families. Though the ideal of the masculine achiever was predominately an economic identity, it was imbued with moral and ethical values and behaviors that functioned to link men’s public and private worlds. As the numerous marriage manuals of the 19th century demonstrate, the leading responsibility of men was to provide for their wives and children, and to dominate in a fair, righteous and judicious manner.87 Obviously failure in either the public or private world was intimately bound. If a man was not able to support his family, how could he then be expected to exert his judicious yet dominant role. Moreover, success within both of these worlds required men to repudiate traditional vices such as drinking, gambling and passions of the flesh, which both destroyed the family and wreaked havoc on commercial economies. Nineteenth century men’s public and private roles were not in conflict nor contradictory, but rather complementary requiring men to be diligent, self controlled and dominating in all aspects of their lives. Both the first and later generation of Anglo-American men who immigrated into California firmly held these masculine ideals as a model for behavior. 83 While not ignoring the fact that many Anglo American men did not live up to these ideals, and without ignoring the risks in mining towns where 58 fortunes were easily made and morals easily lost, Anglo Americans remained confident that as a whole the would be able to conform to masculine ideals in California. Anglo Americans’ confidence in this possibility was based on their perception of California as a land of abundance and themselves as the most morally and righteous men to have yet set foot on that soil. According to John Olmstead, “California is destined to be the most thoroughly self-sustaining state in the Union.“ Olmstead believed that Anglo Americans were capable of making his prophecy a reality. 89 References to California’s abundance, resources and potential were intimately linked to Anglo Americans own vision of their role in California, as the epitome of masculine achievers. Nearly all noted and frequently commented on the vastness and richness of California’s resources which included land, ports, trees, and mines perhaps none more eloquently than Edwin Bryant. According to Bryant, “it cannot be surpassed in fertility, healthfulness of climate and beauty of scenery. It’s capable of producing whatever is necessary to the sustenance of man and many of the luxuries of tropical climates, not taking into account the wealth of the surrounding hills.“90 Others including Dana who came long before the Mexican-American war and George McCollum who came after the discovery of gold also viewed California as the land of unlimited opportunity. As a sailor Dana not only frequently noted the trading possibilities, but also the 59 agricultural and resource abundance of California including the fish in its oceans, the cattle on its lands and the great soil that produced grapes, olives and oranges. Dana dreamt, “In the hands of an enterprising people what a country this might be!“.91 McCollum was adamant that it would be a mistake for Anglos to assume that without the discovery of gold California would have remained a barren wasteland. Instead McCollum argued that long before the discovery of gold, and long before the beginning of the war, Anglo Americans had already started to develop and realize California’s potential and that these two events were really irrelevant to the course of California history, In any case, “it would have been followed by a steady emigration from this country, a filling up of rich valleys with wheat fields, vineyards, herds of cattle and sheep; there would have been our steady steam-boats upon its rivers, our mill- wheels upon its water false; ere now, all this would have commenced and would have invited it. American enterprise to improve its natural facilities. Ere now, the accession of Californian would have been a prominent feature in our career of progress.“ ” In the context of the above statements, it is obvious that Anglo Americans fully believed that they embodied the characteristics, values, ethics and mores necessary to fulfill the promises of California. According to Edwin Bryant the Anglo Saxon race singly exhibited a “go-ahead energy“ that 60 insured “things cannot stand still where they are, whatever may be the circumstances surrounding them.“93 Alfred Robinson, despite his own close ties to elite Californians, proclaimed of California, “It is a grand region for colonization and if peopled by our industrious backwoodsmen who are gradually immigrating from the Western states- it must hold in a very few years, a conspicuous place.“ Thomas Jefferson Farnham was even more confident about the role of Anglo Americans proclaiming that, “The old Anglo-Saxon blood must stride the continent, must command al North shores, must here press the grape and the olive, here eat the orange and the fig, and in their own unaided might, erect the later of civil and religious freedom on the plains of the California. “ 9‘ Anglo Americans proof of their own superiority, their own racialized masculinity, lay not only in their own supposed destined greatness, but also in the supposed deficiencies of Californian males, whom they were never wont to describe, belittle and criticize. Anglo Americans who initially dreamt of California's great future, those how predicted it, and those who finally celebrated American triumph, were never silent when it came to their adversaries. From.the first Anglo American travellers to California including Henry Dana, to Anglos who came after the Mexican-America war including A.B. Clark, George McCollum and Audbon, all claimed that Californian men had too much land, loved labor too little, had.fewwwants and.ambitions, and 61 they sighted numerous examples to prove their assertions. Describing the surroundings of Santa Barbara, Dana remarked how, “Day after day, the sun shone clear and bright upon the wide bay and the red roofs of the houses; everything being as still as death, the people seemed hardly to earn their sunlight. Daylight actually seemed thrown away on them.“95 Alfred Robinson wrote about the 6,000 acre ranch of Don Antonio Maria Luego south of Santa Barbara that housed 12, 000- 14,000 bullocks. Of the Don, Robinson commented “With all his wealth he lives miserably poor, depriving himself of the comforts of life, yet he thinks nothing of squandering thousands upon others."96 Robinson further lamented that though California had thousands of domestic animals, one was hard pressed to find much diary products including butter and milk in the country and claimed to having known a man, who though possessing three to four thousand cows went to the village for milk. The only explanation Robinson offered was that “it is only form sheer indolence that these articles are not more plentiful.”7 Eliza Farnham, wife of Thomas Jefferson, who traveled alone to California with her young children in the early 18503, also claimed that Californians, be they elite or destitute, were found wanting in even the most basic necessities of life. Describing a Spanish rancho Farnham stated “These people were the owners of a great estate here, and another up the coast on which hundreds if not thousands of 62 horned cattle and horses. Not a drop of milk nor an ounce of 8 Asserting that the butter could be had in their house.” reason for this apparent poverty was due to the indolence among California men, Eliza later claimed that even the most mundane talk of milking a cow proved “exciting and perilous business for people how love labor and adventure so little.“99 Thus, underlying nearly every critique of Californian men’s economic profile was the belief that Californians were inherently indolent, and that this indolence was fostered and even encouraged in a land of such overwhelming abundance. Besides being criticized for their supposed indolence, California men were continually berated by Anglo Americans for not fully using California land and for utilizing backward and primitive methods when they did attempt to cultivate the bountiful countryside that lay around them. In 1850 Audbon explicitly expressed his discontent with California land ownership in ethical and moral terms when he decried, “That half the world should starve for want of land, even poor land, and that more than France, England and all the densely populated part of Europe could cultivate here in this beautiful country... is to be lamented.“‘°° Most infuriating to Anglo Americans was that Californians’ failed to use much less develop the resources of California. Alfred Robinson observed in the vicinity of San Diego “The soil presents a barren and uncultivated appearance. . .nothing can be 63 seen of any agricultural importance except at some places some distance from the town.“ Of the supposedly few Californians who did use the land, Robinson claimed to have witnessed an unparalleled “Want in experience and cultivation among the behavior of the rude Californians.“1°1 Frederick Gay, who proved himself to be one of the most acidic critics of California society criticized both Northern and Southern Californian farmers, claiming that their plows were antique, their only manner of refurbishing the soil was to let it lie follow, and that when Californians did exert energy they did so in an inefficient and wasteful way. 102 The issue then, was not that Californians failed to produce anything, but that they failed to produce what they could have. According to Gay, “At the present form the unskillfulness of the culture, and the inattention to procure good seed, neither the quantity nor the quality is equal to what it ought to be.“103 Walter E. Colton was even less empathetic. In a rather lengthy description of California agricultural techniques Colton explained, “The mode of cultivating land in California is eminently primitive. In December or January they take a piece of wood in the shape of a ships knee, and dress it down. “ Colton continued on that “If late in the season, the California rarely prepares the ground by any real attempts. He scatters the seen about the field and then scratches it in with the thing which he class a plough. Should this scratching fail yielding him 60 bushels to the acres, he 64 grumbles “It was not only Californians supposedly primitive form of cultivation of land that so infuriated Colton, but that even with such little effort Californians could expect and often reaped abundant yields. Assertions that Californians *were indolent and thus possessed.far too much land, often turned into arguments that the Californians were indolent because they possessed too much land. Hastings who linked Californian men's supposed indolence with their supposed lack of ambition claimed that, “The aversion to industry, evidently arose from the fact of their being no apparent necessity to labor, or in other words of the unparalleled facilities, which here exist for acquiring a competency, and even a suplifulity, by the easy process of doing’ nothing.“““ According' to iFrederick. Gay, who so ruthlessly attacked Californians agricultural practices as rude, backward and inefficient, “The immense tracks of country possessed by them in proportion to the population, added to the indolent and unenterprising habits of this race, renders the pastoral life the most congenial to their situation and disposition. Few men and little labor are required to take care of herds of Cattle.“ ”5 Because of their indolence, Californians had far more land than they could ever truly cultivate. According to both Hastings and Gay the pastoral economy, though not always the most productive, proved to fit California’s limited aspirations and lack of ambitions. 65 The attention and time Anglo Americans paid to agricultural cultivation is not surprising. Many Anglo Americans came to California from agricultural regions and intended to establish themselves as farmers in the West. However, this was not the agrarian myth which Turner, as well as numerous others before him so successfully mythologized. Rather these were capitalistic farmers who often expressed equal concern with trade, industry and farming. More than anything else, Anglo American comments about trade reveal their hopes and aspirations for California as a trading capital. Noting the geographic advantages as well as the possibilities for Californian once it was thoroughly Anglocized, Edwin Bryant was confident that San Francisco was, “doubtless destined to become one of the largest and most opulent commercial cities in the world and under American authority it will rise with astonishing rapidity.“106 McCollum likened San Francisco’s future to New York and claimed, “It is to be the principle port of Upper California, the maritime emporium of all the West Coast of America, a port of entry of the commerce of Asia and the Islands of the Pacific.“107 Gay also looked forward to California’s future as a trading center. “The resources of California, its magnificent harbors, climate and abundance of naval stores would make it the rendezvous for all steamers engaged in trade, between Europe and the East Indies, as well as those of the United States.“1°8 However, according to Anglo 66 Americans, as long as Californians remained in control of California’s land and ports, this would be an impossibility. Because of the geographical proximity of California to so much of the world, as well as California’s agricultural and resource abundance, Anglo Americans were clearly astounded, even baffled, that Californians failed. to develop their trading capacities or to process their own goods. After witnessing the riches of California products in terms of hide and grapes Dana noted how even grapes on the vine were left unpicked and their hides had to be manufactured elsewhere. “The country abounds in grapes, yet they buy bad wine made in Boston and brought round by us, and at an immense price...Their hides too, which they value at two dollars in money; they give for something which costs seventy five cents in Boston; and buy shoes made of their own hides which have been carried twice around Cape Horn“109 In Dana’s mind, it was not the availability of products, nor the desolation of the land that inhibited trade, only Californians’ own unwillingness to utilize that which they already possessed. The belief that Californians were disinterested in anything resembling trade soon came to be not only accepted by most Anglo Americans but provided a justification for why California should or had become part of the United States. Only they themselves, as masculine achievers, Anglo Americans asserted could fulfill the promises inherent within California. While congratulating Anglo Americans for their 67 supposed industry, frugality and enterprise, Dana noted that because of these characteristics Anglo Americans “soon get nearly all the trade in their hands.“110 Echoing Dana’s sentiments about the unwillingness of Californians to trade that which they possessed, Robinson recounted having met a Yankee originally from New England who in his eyes “had become in manner and appearance, a complete Californian. One peculiarity, however- he retained the spirit of trade.“111 In attempting to explain the root of Californians men’s alleged inability and unwillingness to reap agricultural possibilities, process their own products or to trade in the free market, Anglo Americans were never at a loss for words. It always came down to indolence and lack of ambition, characteristics that negated the ideals of Anglo Americans own idealized manhood. Anglo Americans saw themselves as the representatives of masculinity and manliness. In the eyes of Anglo .Americans, Californians failed. to acquire eve the rudiments of this capitalist profile. They proved to be neither industrious nor ambitious. Californian men were consistently and continually portrayed throughout the 303, 403 and 503 as inactive, unambitious and largely ignorant or ambivalent towards economic success and development. Why else would they have not tilled the land more efficiently, picked the grapes hanging on vines, processed their hides to make shoes and used their ports to make profit? Some Anglo Americans, including Walter E. Colton and Henry Dana, were 68 aware and fully cognizant of the various structural limitations on California.men’s economic ambitions, including a domineering colonial government yet all, including the two just mentioned, chose to interpret California men’s action or inaction as an indicator of their lack of manliness and their unworthiness of California. Thus, it is possible to see how compliments towards Californian men’s generosity, though often genuinely appreciated, were interpreted as merely another indication of the inability of California men to assume the prOper role male role as “masculine achiever“. These were without a doubt .men. who were “civilized“ , yet in an indulgent, indolent and even extravagant manner. Only in a land as abundant in.California could.they do so little and yet live so well. Not only did.Anglo Americans claimielite California males fail to conform to, or measure up to America ideals of the masculine achiever, in the eyes of Anglo Americans they came to represent the exact opposite. .As far back as the Continental Congress in 1774, Americans attempted to regulate the moral behavior of their populace by defining what constituted vice and what entailed virtue. Horse racing, shows, plays, and expensive liscentous entertainment were among the activities defined. as viceful while sobriety economy, frugality and industry were hailed as the virtues of this new Republic. Clearly viceful activities, if pursued, made impossible fulfillment of virtuous characteristics. 69 Despite the decades separating the first generation of Anglo Americans who went to California from those who first defined vice and virtue, as well as the all to obvious transgressions by Anglo Americans themselves, Anglo Americans never felt hypocritical about judging the California male by characteristics that they themselves could not always live up to. Transgressions by Anglo :men 'were often viewed as temporary lapses, those by California men as an indicator of their essential character. If Californians could do anything in the eyes of the Anglo Americans, they could certainly ride horses. As a ranching society horses were a central feature of California society and Anglo Americans never failed to comment on the number of horses, the predominance of horse racing and the centrality of horses to California culture. In fact, many of the myths and stereotypes that Anglo Americans developed about the Californian man, and their views about his morality and ethics, hinged on the importance of the horse to California’s economic and social structure. Ironically, horses provided a basis for both compliments and condemnation, much like Californians women’s beauty. None denied that Californian men were excellent riders, compliments about the skill and expertise of California horse riding can be found in almost any account. However, Anglo Americans found no reason why this should be surprising since according to men like Walter E. Colton and Edwin Bryant, Californians spent almost their 70 entire lifetimes riding horses. Edwin Bryant found that Californians’ expertise with the bridle was only to be expected since, “They [California men] are trained to the use of the horse and the lasso since infancy.““2 Walter E. Colton.proclaimed that, “He literally rides formlhis cradle to his grave.“113 Anglo.Americans’ condemnation of California horse riding and racing was based on the belief that California.men, having been raised in the saddle, used horses for entertainment, personal pleasure and amusement and not for greater profit or capitalistic gain. Days, weeks, months, years and even lifetimes in the saddle, Anglo Americans claimed, detracted from more productive activities. Thus, Californians rode horses like courtly cavaliers and not as good hearty capitalists. An indication of Californians conception of horses as instruments of their own personal enjoyment according to Anglo Americans, was that Californians were both incredibly wasteful and unnecessarily careless and often cruel towards their most cherished positions. Edwin Bryant noted that because of the cheapness of horses “the animal must go as long as he can, and when he cannot travel longer, he is left, and another horse is substituted.““‘ Henry Dana also noted the wastefulness of Californians who would ride a horse, knowing no medium gate, into the ground, and then just grab a horse from the numerous who freely roamed the countryside. “5 Added to the supposedly un-capitalistic attitude towards 71 horses, numerous Anglo Americans commented on the cruelty of Californians towards their endeared possessions. Above all else, Anglo Americans claimed, Californian cruelty was symbolized in the spur. Henry Dana wrote that he frequently witnessed numerous occasions when Californians refused to use stirrups when mounting and instead used spurs to force horses into a full run. These were not, however normal spurs, but rather “cruel spurs having four or five rowels, each an inch “1“ Mrs. D.B. Bates also in length, dull and rusty. reminisced how the spurs of the Californians were “enough to make one cringe when they are seen driven so mercilessly into the reeking sides of the poor beasts.“117 When not riding horses, Anglo Americans claimed that California men occupied their time and whittled away the resources of California by participating in frequent fandangos, gambling, dancing and just plain lazing around. Not omitting any of the major vices, Henry Dana commented that California men were thriftless, proud, extravagant and susceptible to gambling.118 Edwin Bryant, nearly a decade later, unwavingly and unabashedly declared of the California male; “he is ardent in his pursuit of amusement and pleasure, and these consist chiefly in the fandango, the game of monte, horse racing and bull and bear beating. They gamble freely.“119 According to Anglo Americans, Californian men spent more time on.horses and.dancing than they did.developing the great potential.of California’s land, ports and resources. 72 While many of these claims are certainly suspect, by portraying California men as a caricature of the vices which so clearly retarded enterprise, frugality, sobriety and industry in California, Anglo Americans asserted the futility of leaving such a country to a group of men whom, “The dance and the dashing horse are the two which power all other “ 12° How possibly could interests with the Californians. Anglo Americans expect such a “race of men“ to develop such a bountiful country when they supposedly spent their days and nights in the saddle or dancing at fandangos. If measured by their political loyalty or patriotism, Anglo Americans claimed that Californians manhood was, “none of the best“. In addition to charges that California men were unenterprising, indolent and easily given to temporarily bodily pleasures and excitements, was the view that California men were political imbeciles and cowards, having little or no allegiance to any state, be it Mexican or American and little if no sense of duty and honor. Numerous Anglo Americans commented on the supposedly cowardly nature of California men who would “Scamper away like a field of antelope in the face of the slightest force.“121 Even Anglo Americans who demonstrated a cognizance of the often complex and ambiguous loyalties of Californians who had ambivalent views of the Mexican state, nonetheless failed to prove understanding in his assessment of California. men’s political character. Colton who at times noted that Californians had a right to 73 feel uneasy towards Mexico, nonetheless claimed that the Californians would join any revolution and that as soldiers they “would drift about like Arabs, stealing horses on which they ride and the cattle on which they subsist. “”2 As to the political status or state of their society, Colton claimed that Californians had little interest. He felt justified in attributing the following phrase to an elite Californian “Oh, said the Californian, give us the guitar and a fandango, and the devil take the flag.“123 Attacks on California men’s manhood often turned into an obtuse discussion of whether California men were even deserving of the title men. A frequent complaint directed at California men was that when asked questions they would respond with a dumfounded “Quien Sabe“. Failing to see the least bit of agency in what might have been quiet acts of resistance, Anglo Americans interpreted silence as an indicatitmi of Californians“ general apathy' and. laziness. Farnham» who found. responses of quien sabe aggravating, characterized California men as “cowardly apologies of men. “ 12‘ These sorry apologies for men, according to Farnham.“measure their manliness of character, their bravery in arms, their civil and social elevation, by the capacity of their stomachs and their eloquence in boasting.“125 Dana also claimed to have witnessed.men, who without a penny in their pocket would ride around dressed in dashing clothes and spruced up horses as if they were an aristocracy. Perhaps one of the greatest 74 indices of Anglo Americans assessment of California male manhood was Hastings casually comment on having met a “Mexican in man’s clothing“. Anglo Americans’ attacks on Californian men’s economic values, mores, use of land, supposed indolence, addiction to gambling, horse racing, fandangos as ‘well as political character and general manhood were not unrelated. Each of these vices and virtues fit in neatly with Anglo Americans’ conception.of what it meant to be a virtuous, capitalistic and republican citizen of the United States and Californian men failed on every count. At a pioneer meeting in San Francisco in 1854, orator John Gage celebrated California as a republic where, “Virtue and industry form the basis of its morality, shrewdness, wisdom and sagacity the distinguishing features of its mind, simplicity the proof of its social excellence and progress the aim and end of its political aspirations.“ ”6 From the evidence already presented, it is clear that Anglo Americans found Californians to be violators of nearly every deeply held virtues of industry, economy and frugality. Not only the lower classes but also elite Californians- those who held at least a tenuous balance of economic, political and social power- were regular participants in vices that made impossible the 'virtues of representative government and capitalistic economy. To Anglo Americans, Californians exhibited behavior that unless curbed would inhibit capitalist development and retard republican government. 75 Despite Anglo Americans attack on the economic and political profile and behaviors of Californians, elite California men were very seldomly accused of being savages or primitive in terms of affinity to Indians and even less frequently for their similarity to blacks. Anglo Americans did not find Californians’ reprehensible because of a lack of civilized qualities. Rather, Anglo Americans claimed that Californians had been corrupted by a passing mode of civilization, one that was dominated by European luxury and extravagance and which contradicted Anglo American ideals of frugality, industry, self control and hard work. Even men like Thomas Jefferson Farnham, who certainly found little appealing about the Californian population, found that he could not deny that the California man had, “The speaking gait, the bland gestures of complaisant regard, the smile, the ray of the soul, all seemed civilized-truly Castillian.“ However, he also stated among a list of impossibilities that one was “to make men out of male Californians. Sad mistakes It 127 are all these and particularly the last. Though most Anglo Americans did not find the elite Californian male to be either Indian or savage, neither was he American either in substance or name. The possibility that Californian men might someday becomes Americanized in the West, might become masculine achievers and thus “true Americans“, never existed. Anglo American views toward Californian women, the wives, sisters and daughters of California men, were less consistent, 76 more ambiguous and often more complex than their views of the California men. Numerous historians have commented on the frequency with which Anglo American men complimented Californian women, some even arguing that women escaped the hardships attendant with negative portraiture altogether. ”3 However, a more thorough examination of Anglo American attitudes towards California women reveals that their views were not always clear and consistent, and that complements proved not to always be what they first appeared to be. Racial identity and purity were, as previously demonstrated, central themes throughout most Anglo American accounts of the California population. Anglo Americans went to great length in their writings to discredit and invalidate the Californian racial continuum that drew lines between Castillians and Spaniards, Mexicans, Hispano-Americans, half breeds, and Indians. Clearly, when Anglo Americans encountered Californian men they envisioned an inferior “race of men“. According to Thomas Jefferson Farnham, “In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pussilanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of that beautiful “”9 Frederick Gay also claimed that California men country. were an indolent and unenterprising “race of men“.”° While the phrase “race of men“ may appear to be a figure of speech, a mere literary device, it is perhaps more indicative of Anglo Americans’ conception of male Californians’ racial identity. Though obviously cognizant of the racial divisions within 77 California society, when criticizing California men- be they upper or lower class, Anglo Americans rarely made racial distinctions. Conversely, Anglo Americans were much more likely to refer to an upper class California. women as Castillian or Spanish. In fact, Anglo Americans’ assessment of Californian women was often dependent on the very racial divisions they denied were real among California men, demonstrating that gender was an essential factor in Anglo Americans perception of Californians’ racial identity. Even Anglo Americans who were virulent towards the California race system often described upper class California women as truly Castillian and Spanish. Therefore, when Francis Packman, referred to men as Mexican and women as Spanish because “the two sexes were endowed with entirely different characteristics.“ he, as well as other Anglo Americans were using gender as an essential component of racial identity. Because Anglo Americans made clear and definite racial distinctions when discussing California women, their opinions were clearly influenced by both the woman’s class position and her racial identity. Some historians have asserted that the positive portraiture of California women was dependent upon racial stature, and that only upper-class women were complimented.131 However, Anglo Americans proved themselves to be neither totally deprecating towards lower class California women nor consistently complementary towards those from.the upper class. Though.not discussed frequently, or in 78 great detail, Anglo Americans nonetheless did describe their encounters with Californian.women from the lowest classes and from the “lowest“ racial groups. As would be expected, a number of Anglo Americans who had access to lower class Californians homes noted, fairly consistently, the lack of amenities including chimneys, real floors, adequate furniture as well as dilapidated and filthy conditions.132 Added to what they considered to be a wretched mode of existence, Anglo Americans also noted the overcrowded living conditions. Walter E. Colton claimed that “The house of the humblest Californian has often but one apartment; and is without fireplace or floor. Here a family of ten or fifteen tumbles in and sleeps.“133 Despite the lack of amenities and crowded conditions, which clearly ran contrary to American ideals of nuclear families and modernity, Anglo Americans often commented on the generosity and hospitality they received by lower class and “mixed breed“ Californians. Edwin Bryant recounted of having been met at the door of a miserable hovel of a half Californian Mexican, who invited him and his friends for dinner and to spend the night. Bryant noted how this wretched and foul adobe was littered with piles of raw hides and heaps of wheat. As to furniture, Bryant only noticed.two small benches and as to the cleanliness of the place, especially its kitchen, Bryant was clearly not impressed. He commented that its filthiness was terribly revolting. However Bryant goes on to state that 79 because of the industriousness of his hostess, a dinner of two plates of jerked beef, stewed and seasoned with Chile colorado, a plate of tortillas and a bowl of coffee was quickly set before him.“ “Poor as our hostess was, she nevertheless was reluctant to receive any compensation for her hospitality. . .shaking us cordially by the hand she bade us an affectionate adios and we proceeded on our journey.“ ”5 Clearly, Hastings was willing to let the interior of his hostesses home be forgiven due to the cordial manner in which she treated him and his friends. Perhaps even more surprising than Bryant’s rather pleasant experience, was Eliza Farnham perception of lower class California women. Eliza was incredibly critical of California and all of its inhabitants. Yet, Eliza Farnham was pleasantly pleased that even some lower-class women she encountered were hospitable and polite. She found these women to possess a “simple and good hearted nature“, in spite of their filthy manners and kitchens.136 Despite these semi-laudatory accounts, positive comments towards lower class women were usually qualified. Anglo Americans appreciated kindness and charity on the part of their hostesses, but they did not totally overlook dirty kitchens, “primitive“ housing and uncouth manners. Even more importantly, these women were not considered as ideal wives. Though unions did take place on all levels of society, ideally these were not the women with which to build a family or community. Anglo Americans found these lower-class women to 80 be racially mixed, unattractive and thus not the best mothers and wives. Bryant described his hostess as a “dark skinned and rather shrivelled and filthy specimen of the fairer sex.“137 In Bryant’s eyes this woman was tainted by the blood of “heathens'. Moreover, not only were these women deemed unattractive dirty specimens, but many Anglo Americans claimed that they were the oppressed drudges of both upper class men and women as well as their own husbands.138 Lower class women were often portrayed as racially inferior, feeble minded, slave like drones to their husbands and fathers. Certainly this deprecated state, added to their mixed racial constitution, set limits upon their inclusion into Anglo society. Any claim that Anglo men viewed Californian women positively must be qualified by both race and class. Unlike “lower class“ and “racially mixed“ women who were depicted as unattractive, filthy and swarthy, upper class California women were depicted as graceful, intelligent and beautiful; women who had gorgeous brown hair and eyes, red lips and fair skin. Some descriptions may have been lustful in nature. Many Anglo Americans claimed that were upper class women, the elite of California society, were aesthetically pleasing, but that they represented the epitome of natural aristocracy and courtly civility. Historians have interpreted these accounts as an indication of positive perceptions. However, despite seemingly positive accolades, Anglo American views were much more complex than historians have previously 81 supposed, and complements have often proved to be double edged swords. Moreover as with Anglo American views of Californians ’ racial identity, there was no chorus of consensus. Some complemented while others criticized, and many did both. Taken as a whole Anglo American views towards California women can be at best be described as ambiguous, yet in comparison to their views of California men, Anglo Americans certainly believed they had found the better half; just how better remained the essential question. If any sector of the California population was viewed as capable or worthy of accommodation, it was clearly elite California women. Because historians have isolated supposedly positive portrayals of Mexican American women from the dominant imagery of proper womanhood in 19th century as well as from the economic, social and political context, they have been able to assert that lustful comments were indicative of positive portrayals. However, the tenants of proper womanhood in 19th century America were clearly established when Anglo Americans went to California in the first half of the 19th century, and we would be naive to believe that either Anglo American men or women who went West left these images in the South, East or Midwest. In fact, all recent scholarship, points to the maintenance and continuation of ideals of womanhood in the American West.139 The ideal image or prescription of womanhood in American society, included domesticity, piety, 82 submissiveness and virtue. Historian Robert Griswold, using California divorce records and court proceedings, has identified duty, kindness, modesty, affection and industry as the ideal of proper womanhood in California. Women were supposed to adhere to modesty, gentility an decorum not only in the home, but especially when out in public.”0 An unspoken, yet clearly essentially component of proper womanhood also included racial identity, and whenever Anglo Americans posited the possible inclusion of elite California women into Anglo society either by marriage or mere association, it must be made explicit that Anglos were only referring to women of Castillian and Spanish backgrounds who had been untainted by the blood of half breeds, Mexican and Indians. While Anglo Americans generally accepted that elite California women were neither savage in demeanor nor heathen in nature, they differed as to their actual values, mores and behavior. Though certainly more the exception than the rule, a few Anglo Americans claimed that elite California women adhered.to not only the racial component of true womanhood.but the other requirements as well. Without a doubt, many of their contemporaries largely disagreed with them, however, their views deserve thoughtful consideration. It is hardly surprising that the few Anglo Americans who asserted that elite Californian women were industrious, chaste, frugal and domestic as well as aristocratic, were implicitly defending 83 Anglo—Californian unions by stressing California women’s roles as mothers and wives. They were also the most virulent in their attempt to separate the California woman’s identity from that of her male counterparts. Alfred Robinson who was married to Ana Maria de la Guerra y Noriega went to great lengths to prove that Castillian and Spanish women were unlike their male counterparts, who were indolent and corrupt. Of the California women he stated that, “there are few places in the world where, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, can be found more chastity, industrious habits, and correct 141 By deportment, than among the women of this place.“ attributing domesticity and virtuosity to elite California women, Robinson was not only defending his own choice of marriage but sanctioning others as well and throughout his account he typified Californian/Anglo unions as happy and successful. Edwin Bryant, quoting from an 1822 source, claimed that “This beautiful species is no doubt more active and laborious, all their vigilance in duties of the house, the cleanliness of the children and their attention to their husbands, dedicating all their leisure moments to some kind of occupation that may be useful towards their maintenance. Their clothing is always clean and descent, nakedness being entirely unknown in either sex.““2 Like Robinson, Bryant also found that California-Anglo unions were fortunate for both Anglo men and California women. Bryant offered proof of the success of these unions when he wrote how “Mr. Faxon, an 84 Englishmen by birth and has resided in California for about thirty years. He is married to a California lady and has a family of interesting and beautiful children.“ “3 Of an offspring of another Anglo-California union, Bryant noted how the daughter was one among many Hispano-American women whom he characterized as kind and sympathetic in manner and expression. Even more importantly, the offspring of these unions were, in his view, whitened. Of one young Hispano American woman, Bryant commented, “Her complexion is hat of a dark brunette, but lighter and more clear than the skin of most California women. The dark lustrous eye, the long black and glossy hair, the natural ease and grace and vivacity of manners and conversation characteristic of Spanish ladies, were fully displayed by her.“ 1“ Like both Robinson and Bryant, Colton also claimed that California women demonstrated incredible exhibitions of charity and self denial, including caring for those with disease, and offering charity for the needy and pitiful.145 In stressing women’s selfless duties, their domestic capabilities and their submissive roles, Colton, Bryant and Robinson were clearly using the Cult of True Womanhood as the yardstick for judging behavior and values. Despite commendations of Spanish and Castillian women for their motherly and wifely roles, the more common theme was for Anglo Americans to find Californian women appealing based on their racial purity and aristocratic and courtly demeanor. In 85 fact, many of the supposed positive accolades that Anglo Americans heaped on California women had very little to do with the characteristics attendant with proper womanhood. Thus, the compliments that previous historians have used as evidence for positive portrayals went beyond and often defied the values associated with the Cult of True Womanhood. Anglo Americans wrote about California women not as submissive and.domestic beings but rather as vivacious, witty, intelligent and gregarious individuals. Many found Castillian and Spanish women the absolute epitome of intelligence, grace and beauty. Of the Spanish women, Walter Colton claimed, “She possesses a refinement and intelligence that might grace any court in Europe; and with a benevolence that never wearies."146 After passing an evening fandango where he met two young sisters, Bryant commented “They were interesting and graceful young ladies, with regular features, symmetrical figures and their dark eyes flashed with all the intelligence and passion characteristic of Spanish women.“147 Net surprising, Robinson who had almost countless complements to rain on Californian women noted how Dona Soledad Orteta, the widow of former governor Don Luis Arguello, was “lady like in manner“ and always treated him with “the utmost courtesy.““8 Even D.B. Bates- one of the few white women to traverse to California in the 1850's- noted how California ladies were “animated in conversation“ whose “Dark eyes flashed with all the intelligence and passion characteristic of the Spanish 86 female.“149 Moreover, Bates was overwhelming impressed, and even surprised that there were few things more beautiful than the manners and salutations of California women. “They lift the right hand to near the lips gently inclining the head toward.it, and.gracefully fluttering their fingers, send.forth their recognition with an arch, beaming of the eye- that is almost as bewitching as a kiss.“1550 These themes of women as courtly, aristocratic, gentle, kind, vivacious and graceful were repeated throughout almost all Anglo accounts. Despite the fact that many Anglo Americans found Castillian and Spanish. women’s aristocratic and courtly demeanor and ambience appealing, there were definite limits. In fact, many of the behaviors and characteristics that Anglo Americans used to distinguish and separate Californian women from both lower class females and their male relatives, they also used to condemn them. Women’s beauty and graceful manners, whereby they exhibited their public, friendly, and even flirtatious roles could easily slip into immorality and adultery. Taken too far, California women’s love of dress could lead to indulgence, selfishness and neglect of husbands and children. Moreover, and especially among Anglo women, there was the opinion that aristocratic and courtly women lacked the necessary qualities to be good and proper capitalistic wives and mothers including frugality, industry and domesticity. And finally throughout many Anglo accounts there was a pervasive fear, not that the land, but that 87 California women would corrupt Anglo men. Since the beauty of elite California women, and how it affected Anglo American’s perceptions of them, has been the source of much confusion and debate, this issue needs to be ‘more fully explored, .Many historians have based their arguments about the positive view of California women on the phenomena that Anglo men often found California women beautiful, sexy and even exotic. Distinguished borderlands historian David Weber claimed, “Male visitors to the Mexican frontier who usually had not seen.a women for several months, were frequently impressed with the beauty, kindness and flirtatousness of Mexican women. In forming this positive stereotype, American.males allowed their hormones to overcome their ethnocentrism.“151 Undeniably, a significant number of Anglo American men found California women beautiful and flirtatious, yet, whether this translated into a positive stereotype is debatable. Henry Dana who found little to compliment either California women or California men, did write that California women were beautiful. Yet, like many Anglo Americans men, he was neither overtaken nor blinded by California women’s beauty; he proved adept at distinguishing between a woman’s beauty and a woman’s behavior. Dana described elite California women as beautiful, untutored and immoral, “the women have but little education, a good deal of beauty, and their morality, of course, is none of the best.“152 88 Certainly Dana did not allow his hormones to dictate his view of California women’s behavior. General Thomas James also found California women beautiful, yet in terms of intellect and virtue, he claimed they were far below even Indian 3 And, Walter Colton who also found many California women.15 women beautiful and appealing, noted how these attractive women lacked seriousness, sobriety and industryf“ Obviously, Anglo Americans complements about Californians women’s beauty did not translate into a commendation of her characters, values and mores. In fact, the ideal woman of the mid. 19th. century was not supposed. to be overwhelmingly beautiful and certainly not exotic or flirtatious. If she was beautiful and sexy, she might also be lustful and unfaithful. The same Anglos that foundwwomen.attractive often harshly judged. women for being flippant, too friendly, and too consumed with fandangos and having a good time. Women’s clearly defined role in the 19th century was to defend virtue -both her own as well as others- and many Anglo Americans felt California women were doing a poor job of this. Dana who found California women not only beautiful but also immoral, implicitly suggested this was exhibited in their manner of dress. Describing the dress of upper class women Dana remarked how they “wore gowns of various texture- silk, crepe, calicoes— made after the EMropean style, except that they sleeves were short, leaving the arm bare, and that they were loose around the waste, having no corsets. They wore shoes of 89 kid or satin; sashes or belts of bright colors; and almost always a necklace and earnings. Bonnets they had none.“155 A man accustomed to the tight corsets and long sleeves, Dana could not help but be surprised if not shocked by bare arms, loose clothing and no bonnets. California men’s critique of California women were not limited to dress, many commented on actual behavior. Colton and others complained that Sabbath, instead of being devoted to worship, was a day of bullfights, dancing and amusement, in which women took equal part. ‘56 Colton relayed a story in his account of a young women during the Mexican American war who instead of patiently and devotedly waiting for her father and uncle to return from battle, sang and.played the guitar and remained “gay as if her father were only hunting the Gazelle.“1557 Colton also claimed that California women were, all too often, less than moral. In his role as aclade of California, Colton cited numerous examples of California women who left husbands for other men and indelibly shamed their children.158 Not surprisingly Thomas Jefferson Farnham also found the morals of California women lacking. Farnham recounted, with extreme bitterness, the story of a young beautiful Californian woman who mercilessly stole and then broke the heart of an Anglo man. This young Anglo man whom.Farnham.left unnamed, had according to Farnhamtspent nearly twijears wooing and courting the hand of a beautiful California woman. Finally he was promised her hand and marriage. Yet before this marriage could ever take ' 90 place, a young Cavaliero took his place. When the young Anglo man was away for a brief stint, this cavaliero who briefly socialized.with this woman’s father, sharing a diner of fried beans, was given the hand.of the daughter as gratitude for his hospitality.159 When the Anglo returned he found that his beloved was not who he had thought: “she was beautiful, she ‘was kind, alas! too kind. He loved her, she was wayward; but was still the unworthy keeper of his heart; lovely but corroded and defiled.““° Anglo Americans also criticized California women for failing in their roles as mothers and.wives and their supposed inattention to domestic duties. Many claimed that though California women might be beautiful, pleasant to look at, and great entertainers, they lacked the fundamental qualities to be good capitalistic housewives: frugality, economy, industry and selflessness. Dana argued that almost all California women neglected their domestic duties and noted how “Nothing is more common than to see a women living in a house of only two rooms, and the ground for a floor, dressed in a spangled satin shoes, silk gown, high come and gilt, if not gold earnings and necklace.“161 Dana was particularly fearful of the influence such self indulgent women would have on the Anglo men who married them. Dana recounted how he had spent one afternoon locking of the store of a local American who had married a pretty California woman. Once finding the shop, Dana was surprised to find not only that the sign above it was 91 “in Spanish“ but that no one was tending the store. Finally, after the American was found, he apologized for his tardiness as well as for his inability to offer any food or drink, explaining that since he~and.his*wife had a fandango the prior evening all food and drink was gone.“162 Dana feared that even if this “laziness“ which he referred to as “California fever“ failed to attack the first generation of Americans, it often corrupted the second, who he lamented were always raised as Spaniards and not as Americans.163 Thomas Jefferson Farnham also complained in the 18403 that California women, especially elite California women, made poor wives and mothers, and that the existence of anything resembling a home in California or the entire Spanish world ‘ Farnham specifically claimed was nearly an impossibility.16 that the process of selecting a suitable wife in California was a mdghty difficult task. He knew of one woman who was courted by several suitors at once, and yet “She has nothing to recommend her as a sober, industrious, frugal housekeeper. She knows how to dance, to play on the guitar, and that is all. She would do well to dress flowers in the balcony of a millionaire, but as the wife of a Californian, her children would go without a stocking and her husband without a shirt.“165 George McCollum, largely in agreement with Farnham, warned fellow American travelers that if they desired a woman of useful labor, they would do best to bring one of their own. 92 If Anglo American men, even those who found California women appealing, did not totally commend California women, than what did the few Anglo American women in this first generation think? Lately many feminist and women’s historians have raised the hypothesis that white women, particularly white women on the frontier and in the West, were able to transcend, or at least minimize racial differences and inequalities to become “intercultural ambassadors“. In this role, women were supposedly above to overcome racial barriers and somehow establish links and relations that transcended racial ideologies and hostilities. Among the most interesting of this genre include Sarah Deutsch’s No Separate Rpfuge:Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest: 1880-1940, and Glenda Riley’s Women and Indians on.the FrontierI 1825-1925. Despite the possibilities for women’s different roles in the‘West from men, these studies have perhaps been to quick too replace racial tension and conflict with domestic peace and harmony. Moreover, the existence of some overarching sisterhood that transcended class and racial barriers, has been thoroughly criticized. Studies that stress women’s pan-gender identity over their class and racial interests, often risk minimizing both the power of white women and how they benefitted from processes of exploitation.and.racismh These same studies tend to underestimate the very public, political and economic nature of many interracial female relations. 93 Of Sara Gunn, Mrs. D.B. Bates and Eliza Farnham, three women who went to California before 1860, none considered or aspired to the role of inter-cultural ambassador. From their accounts, it is clear that all three established somewhat friendly relations with California women, yet the possibility that these relations formed the basis of a united sisterhood is certainly questionable. Sarah Gunn herself admitted that language barriers inhibited close personal relations. Instead of establishing a trans-racial sisterhood, Anglo American women demonstrated an ambiguity, both complementing and criticizing California women, that in many ways mirrors accounts left by Anglo men. Sara Gunn was particularly impressed with California women and their dress. “She wears her hair, like all the Spanish women I have seen, combed, low down and rolled under; I cannot imagine how they do it. Her dress was purple silk with a wide sating stripe, and she had a worked lace crepe with white sating strings and purple sating flowers and leaves around the crown-and had white gloves.“166 D.B. Bates claimed to have found elite Californian women elegant, animated, witty and forever entertaining.167 However, both Eliza Farnham and D.B. Bates voiced concerns that the moral stature of California in terms of its population was in danger. In accordance with their self proclaimed roles as moral redeemers both lamented the paucity of women that might be accorded the title lady in Californian or women or who 94 could lay claim to essential female virtues.168 D.B Both felt confident that Anglo men would succeed in California and that expansion was both morally just and right, and each expressed a concern that without virtuous moral women, the ability of Anglo American.men to succeed in their quests might be compromised. ThoughCalifornia women might be pleasurable, they questioned whether she would be able to stand as the moral force necessary to establish California as a domestic as well as commercial and agricultural state. The role of the Yankee woman and her destiny in California was never in doubt. In the words of Eliza Farnham, “among them all, the Yankee woman stand preeminent, so far as regards principle, industry and economy, as a general thing are sought after for companions for life by the opposite sex as than those who can claim. preeminence more personal attractions, and are destitute of the more sterling attributes, so essential to prosperity and happiness through '169 the varied phases of real life. Therefore, though California women might be pleasant and entertaining play things, they could not compete with Yankee women as wives and mothers. Eliza Farnham, like many Anglo men, was also skeptical about the ability of California women to be good.middle class housewives after her experiences with California women. Supposedly witnessing a want of industry, cleanliness and modesty, Farnham claimed to have seen things that would have 9S shocked any Yankee housewife. Finding herself alone in California without her husband, Farnham remained reticent about accepting invitations from Californians for room and board claiming that “the Spanish houses being entirely out of the question.“”° Yet, after numerous invitations, Eliza acquiesced to Californian hospitality, and found herself at the Castros’ ranch near San Juan which she claimed lacked even the most basic necessities. “The Yankee housewife thinks, now, I ought have been with comfortable, for the kitchen in her land is a bright, cheerful place to enter from the chillness of a dark night. But this was not a Yankee Kitchen. The apartment lighted only by the door in the day time, and at this hour by the fitful blaze of the wood furnace, built upon a sort of brick range.“171 Eliza was appalled that for domestic help the Dona of this ranch used an Indian girl “who with dirty apron and filthy hands and hair was occupied making tortillas.”72 When dinner was finally served there were not enough plates to go around, and after dinner Farnham was horrified to see the Indian girl wiping the dinner plates clean with the filthy handkerchief she had removed from her head.173 Not only was Eliza appalled at dinner, but when it came time for sleep, she was put in a room with six other people that was already occupied by a odd assortment of wheat and barely barrels, old boxes, chairs and sides of leather. 'R: add to this distress, Eliza noted that even though the sheets were “snowy white“ she doubted their freshness.”‘ 96 Though extremely judgmental in her assessment of the California woman, especially in her capacity as wife, mother and housekeeper, Farnham nonetheless claimed that women were not solely at fault. Eliza cited how because of a lack of “enlightened Christianity“ among the Californians “respect“ for women was not of the highest quality. Eliza complained that men rarely walked side by side with their wives and refused to consult them about domestic matters for which women were singly held responsible. Eliza proclaimed “ in short [he] assigns her the position of humanly treated slave. As a consequence, the females are extremely ignorant, and lacking the freedom of equality.“ Because of this Eliza found that “In their domestic affairs, they drudge through the little labor they think it worth the while to bestow upon home comfort; wash the linen at the nearest stream; sew and do ornamental work upon their own wardrobes (they love colors); dress prodigally for church and the fandango; visit whole families and receive visits; but seem destitute of emulation and as nearly as humanly can be without rivalry.“175 Despite Farnham’s seeming sensitivity toward Californians women’s circumstances, she saw little possibility for their betterment or assimilation into Anglo society?” Farnham instead expressed a fear that because of California women’s degraded state, they would corrupt Anglo men. Farnham noted how many Anglo men who came to California “have adopted the habits and entered fully into native life seeking nothing F‘— 97 superior to the old rancho style“ -which she characterizes as adobe houses, infested with fleas, dark, dirty years strewn with carcasses of bullocks heads,horns and hides.177 Thus, only the Yankee woman, with her righteous, moral, industriousness, and frugal character-working side far side with her Anglo husband-- could insure that California would live up to its great potential. In the 18303 and 405 and even into the 503, Anglo Americans went to California for a multitude of reasons, mostly economic in nature. Though they certainly believed themselves to be racially superior to the then current inhabitants of California, they lacked the economic, political, social and economic power and prestige to merely ignore elite Californians. Moreover, Anglo Americans often found themselves isolated from other Anglo Americans, socially and residentially, and their economic success was often dependent upon their ability to accommodate or to cooperate with elite Californians with whom.they conducted business and intermarried. However, Anglo Americans never lost sight of their ultimate goal, and that was to not only accommodate to California, but to conquer it for their own “superior race". In the process, Anglo Americans developed a rhetoric, and even an ideology, that in retrospect has appeared contradictory, confusing and often ambiguous to later historians. Contrary to many historian’s assumptions, Anglo Americans were not unaware of how Californians divided their population 98 by race and class. In fact, Anglo Americans used these divisions to their advantage, yet they also questioned these divisions when it was in their best interest. Therefore, while they found elite Californians hospitable, generous and accommodating, they claimed that the men, “as a race of men“ were wholly unfit to run California. In comparison to themselves, California men were indolent, unenterprising, viceful and ultimately effeminate. The women, as a race of women, were certainly more acceptable and some even postulated that they might be whitened. Yet, even more questioned whether she too was not corrupted by the liscentous and corrupt courtly life that these elite had lived. By 1860, the trail had been paved for white men and women to become the elite of California, not in conjunction with others, but by themselves. And the California population, which had always been characterized by internal stratification along race and class lines, came to be viewed and treated by Anglo Americans not only as a “homogenized.Mexican race“ but as Mexicans who would soon disappear. CHAPTER 3 THE AMERICANIZATION OF CALIFORNIA 1860-9O Unfortunately, most historians who have analyzed the myths and stereotypes that Anglo Americans created about Californians have overlooked.thetdecades of the 18603, 703 and 805 during which elite Californians lost their already tenuous balance of economic power, political voice and perhaps even to a limited degree their self determination as well. When addressing myths and stereotypes most historians have simply examined the writings of the first Anglo Americans including Dana, Farnham and Robinson and then have skipped to the late 18803 or have ignored the rest of the 19th century altogether. Though this might make for a more unified historical analysis, this approach ignores the fact that there were significant changes in. howr Anglo .Americans perceived themselves and Californians that were interdependent with the more frequently discussed political and economic processes. Though the United States won the Mexican American war in 1848, the processes whereby California was transformed, or perhaps more accurately Americanized, took place most thoroughly in the 18603, 705, and 803. Americanization in California was a process that Anglo 99 100 Americans directed at themselves and it was a process that included gaining and solidifying political, economic and social control. It was not a matter of turning those who lacked American characteristics and profiles into Americans, but of making themselves the quintessential Americans. For the Californians Americanization.proved not to be benevolent. Even though the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised that Californians who wished to remain in California would become U.S. citizens and be accorded the same legal, political and economic rights that Anglo Americans enjoyed, both the lackluster interest of Anglo Americans in respecting Californian’s rights and the ambiguity of the treaty itself offered little protection to californians. The increased numbers of Anglo Americans and their growing economic and political strength during the late 19th century proved to be devastating for almost all Californians; and most particularly for elite Californians, many of whom who had been able to maintain some semblance of economic, social and political power throughout the 18303, 403 and 505. It was during these decades that elite Californians in Southern as well as Northern California lost their last tenuous balance of landed economic power. Large Spanish ranchos quickly became a mere vestige of the past, and Spanish names, as Anglo Americans themselves aptly noted, stopped appearing in legislative roll calls. Yet just as important as the economic and political disenfranchisement of elite Californians, and completely 101 interdependent, was the total negation of California’s racial system, Not only were the overwhelming majority of Californians denied the possibility of becoming Americans, but previously recognized, albeit often criticized and.questioned racial, class and even gender differences within the Californian population were virtually ignored. Anglo American views of the California population, which during the first generation had been at least partially mediated by gender, class and racial divisions within the California population, became increasingly dominated by one category, race. Furthermore, as racial identity became polarized, Anglo Americans proclaimed that the racial continuum that had so baffled the previous generation existed no longer. According to second generation Anglo Americans, all people in California were either Anglo or Mexican and to be Mexican was to be a “mixed blood“, there was no liminal or in between category. Of the Spanish and Castillian women who had for decades occupied a liminal stage, Anglo Americans argued they existed no longer; They were part of a historical past but not of the present. They had simply disappeared. Of the Californians still within California, Anglo Americans left no doubt as to their destiny; they too would become part of the dustbin of history, first and foremost an inescapable causality of racial hierarchy, and only secondly due to Anglo American’s actions. Thus as Anglo Saxons, Anglo Americans argued they represented the force of progress and the future, while Californians as 102 Spanish and Castillians represented a romanticized and irretrievable past, and.as mixed blooded.Mexicans represented a degraded present. Part of the Americanization of California was a reconceptualization of the very term Californian. Up until the 18603, Anglo Americans in California referred to themselves as Anglo Americans and individuals of Castillian, Spanish, Mexican and even Indian descent as Californians. When Dana and Robinson as well as the others used the term Californian they were clearly using it to describe the other and not themselves. However, by the 18603 the nomenclature as well as the racial identity of each population started to change. As part of the general process of Americanization that included a coaptation of lands, ports and even political sovereignty, Anglo Americans also took the name California to refer to themselves. Those who had been referred to as Californians by the first generation were increasingly refereed to as old Californians, Native Californians and even more frequently as Mexicans and greasers. This change in name, definition and subjective identity is significant for a number of reasons. It signified Anglo Americans confidence in their own position in California, their view of California as more Anglo than Mexican or Spanish, and finally their marginalization of those of Mexican descent. Therefore, Americanization in California was a process whereby Anglo Americans usurped land, streets, buildings, ports, and the 103 term. Californian as an identity. .Anglo Americans were interested in anglocized California as a place, but not California as a people. Americanization of California, if judged by population statistics, occurred at an rapid rate in the 18603 and 703. Due to massive immigration of Anglo Americans, many traditional Mexican towns which had managed to maintain a predominantly California population throughout the first half of the 19th century, were by the 18605 and 18703 “Anglocized“ in both population demographics and economic control. As early as 1860 Anglo Americans constituted a clear majority in many traditionally “Mexican“ towns such as San Bernadino and San Diego.178 Even in Los Angeles the absolute numbers of Anglo Americans and Californians reached near equal proportions leading Titus Fey Cronise to celebrate by 1868 that “Old adobe houses with flat roofs, covered in asphaltun, or brea surrounded by broad verandas, or high walls are gradually being supplanted by stores and residences more a 179 suited to American ideals of domestic and commerce. By 1880 it was clear that Anglo Americans were the dominate majority in all of California and particularly its urban areas. In San Diego Californians were only a tenth of the total population and in Los Angeles only 25 percent.180 Looking out over Los Angeles in 1883, John Codman proclaimed “It is already so changed that there are few traces of the Mexican element which formed its to a population thirty years 104 ago. In a score it has grown from.a slow pueblo of adobes to a thriving city of business streets and costly dwellings.“181 Among Anglo Americans this Americanization of California was almost unaminously viewed as a cause for celebration. As Anglo Americans became the numerical majority throughout California they also became the most predominate ranchers, farmers, as well as skilled and professional laborers. Without addressing all the absolute numbers, and statistics (which has been done elsewhere) perhaps the most significant trend is that as Anglo Americans’ land ownership and occupational status rose, the Californians’ declined.182 In San Diego nearly a third of all Californians were classified as farmers and ranchers during the 1860 census. By 1880 this percentage had.been reduced to less than two percent for Californians living in San Diego. In Santa Barbara the number of Californians described as farmers and ranchers was reduced by over fifty percent during these same years. Be it defined as an internal colony, or as a segmented labor market, clearly by the mid to late 19th century, Anglo Americans as a group occupied the highest rungs on both the occupation and land ownership ladder, while Californias continued to fall to the bottom. At the same time that California cities were taking on a decidedly American character, and as Anglo Americans became the dominant land owners, cattle ranchers and skilled workmen, Anglo Americans wasted no time in proclaiming themselves 105 heroes in a triumphant, however brief history and began celebrating their own remarkable achievements. Using both technological and commercial imagery as an indice of California’s new character Edward Vischer, who lived in California for over twenty years, reminisced, “But yonder, seaward, the sailing craft, bending under a stiffing breeze, and smoke of the steamer in the distant horizon, in significant contrast, betoken the infusion of new elements, the air'and.activity’of;progress which, gradually obliterating the monuments of the past, and its pleasing associations, “”3 Despite initiate the era of Californians great future. the overly romantic and even melodramatic tone of Vischer’s assessment, he was not alone in either his views or perceptions of California’s remarkable transformation. Proof of the righteousness and morality of Anglo Americans’ acquisition of California as well as evidence of growing progress and prosperity’ was everywhere, Anglo Americans claimed, and none more so than in a comparison of the achievements of Anglo Americans to Californians. Cronise provided statistics to prove that, “less than 500,000 of the Anglo Saxon race, possessing less than 700 miles of the pacific Coast line, within 20 years have created a greater commerce than did all the' natives of Spanish origins ' 184 possessing 5,000 miles of that coast in 300 years. Mary Cone, who may have even read Cronise’s account of California expressed a strikingly similar note when she wrote that I 106 despite Anglo Americans initial greed for gold in Californian, “they have done more in the short quarter of a century during which they have been in possession to develop resources and uncover the hidden riches of the county than the Spaniards did in the three centuries during which they rules it.“185 Other Anglo Americans including Luther Schaeffer and Mallie Stafford were less cordial towards the past proprietors of California. According to Schaeffer Luther, “it was no wonder that the indolent and inefficient native stock stood back looking at unutterable surprise of the scene embarked before him.“186 Mallie Stafford was even less kind. Even while noting that the California past was not without its own luxurious characteristics, Mallie Stafford proclaimed, “Unskilled and ignorant and unambitious, they dreamed away an idle and listless existence- unenviable indeed, save for its luxurious content.“187 It was thus the Anglo Saxon race, and not the Spanish race, which exhibited the necessary qualities to transformland.developiCalifornia, to fulfill the promise of California. While this second generation of Anglo Americans were celebrating their brief yet triumphant past in California, they did not fail to note the glorious future that still lay ahead. Though a great deal of scholarly attention has been dedicated to the perception of the West and California in particular as an agricultural utopia or a Yeoman’s paradise, this generation of Anglo Americans proved not so sentimental 107 in either their perceptions or expectations of California. Like the first generation of Anglo Americans who went to California both before and after the discovery of gold, this second generations’ economic vision of California was also multi-faceted. Similar in both description and optimism Anglo Americans in the 18603, 705 and 803 commented on the unbelievable resources of California, in terms of agriculture, ports, minerals, and even manufacturing possibilities. This was not a gold diggers state, Anglo Americans proclaimed, but rather a state where all economic dreams and ventures could be pursued especially when the opportunities elsewhere in the United states appeared to be receding. According to Codman “when the balance of trade against our country became so large and continual, thereby causing primordial revisions and distress, then gold began to glisten in the streams of California; when the forests became denuded of wood, then came the discovery go coal and the working of mines...and when the fertility of our great wheat fields, moving continually West, began to decline, California comes to the rescue with golden harvest.“188 Harvey Rice, himself concerned. about the dwindling resources of the United States was confident about California’s future when he stated that Anglo Americans would “retain the power and controlling influence; monopolize the best lands, and take the lead in all lucrative enterprises. They will plan, invent and conduct the commerce of the country.“189 108 Though many in the East, and undeniably some in the West, may have viewed California as an internal acquisition--as a way to keep the U.S. self sufficient-~a significant number of Anglo Americans viewed California in different terms. Despite the multiplicity of Anglo American economic views of California, it is undeniable that of all economic ventures, trade was viewed by many with the most reverence and awe. Land might provide a safety valve for the United States, but they believed it was trade that‘would.establish.California and the United States as a world power. California was to become the center, the heartbeat and the embodiment of the United States as a commercial and capitalist nation. Anglo Americans were thus not only establishing individual homesteads- as a recreation of some glorious agricultural paradise— but they were creating a commercial empire that would make California the trading post of the entire world. By 1868 Cronise prophesied of California “It is seen to be the nucleus of a great empire on the pacific, already adjoined by states and territories of remarkable characteristics and by laying a train of causes that will someday shift the currents of commercial and monetary exchange.“ ”0 Only three years later Harvey Rice also touted the potential of California as a commercial empire, yet not one of mere dominance, rather a “commercial city“ that would.eventually create honest and fair competition. Cronise declared of San Francisco in particular that it was “destined to become the great central city of the 109 commercial world. It is here that Europe, Asia and America will meet, shake hands and be good friends. Here will concentrate their wealth, exchange commodities, gamble in stock, an test the comparative sharpness of their wits.“191 Hopes and aspirations for California as a commercial empire should hardly be surprising; the first Anglo Americans who entered Californian came for trading and commercial reasons. Even those that followed with dreams of farming usually did not intend to become subsistence producers. Thus California was not merely viewed as an agricultural utopia and Anglo Americans did not conceive of themselves as recreating an agricultural state that looked to the past. They were creating a commercial empire that looked towards the future. It was in this world of agricultural abundance, various minerals and excellent ports that Anglo Americans felt they could fulfill their aspirations as masculine achievers. However, this was not a masculine achiever limited to families, or' to the 'United states, but an increasingly racialized masculine achiever of the world, one that could direct and control the forces of commercial capitalism. Second generation Anglo American’s confidence in the future of California rested with not only what had been accomplished and what could be done in California, but with who ‘would be in. California. Along' with promises that California would become the agricultural utOpia of the world and the trading port of all counties, Anglo Americans 110 increasingly prophesied that soon California would be a racially homogenous state. The first generation of Anglo Americans to California also looked forward to Californias’ future, but the possibility that California might some day be racially homogenous hardly ever arose. Only Thomas Jefferson Farnham, largely presaging his descendants, even hinted that California might some day be all white. Even the most virulently anti-Californian did not predict a California without Californians. In contrast, as early as 1866 Franklin Tuthill, promised future Anglo Americans that, “Cosmopolitan beyond all other lands, there is reason to believe that after the first generation, the people will seem homogenous.“192 Only two years later, Cronise, not insignificantly using feminine and domestic imagery as both a reason for and cause of racial homogeneity, reassured his readers that “though asperities as remain here [will] be toned down by the lapse of time, the concentration of a more stable population the mining districts, the homogenous that will come with a native infusion, but it is worth the while to try and subdue them earlier and to cultivate even more assiduously than we dot e quest domestic traits that make the beauty and sweetness of home.“193 More than just promises, Anglo Americans’ growing belief that California would soon be racially homogenous, meaning California would soon be predominately Anglo Saxon, was based on a belief or faith in forces and powers beyond their own control. Marshall Wilder celebrated, “California is 111 a wonder! Wonder alike for the wilderness, grandness of her scenery, for her mines, for her fertility of her soils and for the salubrity of her climate... a country overflowing with bounties of providence, where God and nature seem.to have set their seal as the garden of the world...why such resources of a country were not developed earlier seems to our infinite minds a mystery. But the :marvelous workings of God’s Providence are :now' clearly seen.“194 Seeing no contradiction between God as a force in history and the scientific tenants of scientific racism» Anglo .Americans claimed that due to forces they themselves could neither direct nor control, California. would soon. become ‘white. Cronise who so adamantly promised that the complexion in California would soon.be homogenous later added that “a higher power than earthly governments had destined that sight [California] to be occupied by a different race.“195 Further arguing that the previous disappearance of Indians cannot be blamed on whites, Cronise added, “That mysterious law of nature, which has caused the destruction of so many races. . .no human power can avert.“”6 That Anglo Americans claimed certain races would die out in the face of superior races is hardly surprising in the context of the 19th century. However, what is surprising is Anglo American's perception of which race would be, for lack of a better term, the first to go. According to a strict interpretation of the laws of scientific racism and 112 evolutionism certainly the most degraded and dilapidated populations would. be the least fit to survive. Anglo Americans rarely claimed that this was the case. Instead they argued almost unaminously, for reasons they sometimes articulated and other times refused to admit, that the elite of California, its most powerful, its most wealthy, its cultural elite, were fast fading into the sunset, or into the morning dew. The contradictions between what they perceived to be reality and the dictates of scientific racism failed to cause an ideological debate or rupture. Rather, most Anglo Americans usually casually commented on the passing of the California elite. The purported disappearance of elite Californians was inextricably bound with the changing land tenure in California. During the 18603 and 18703 elite Californians lost their lands in disproportionate numbers. Anglo Americans at the time were not unaware of these transformations, and some even recognized their own role in the changing landscape of California. However, either as active participants or mere witnesses of land loss, all claimed that it represented the passing of an irretrievable past. This was a past of large ranchos and land holdings, a past clearly antithetical to Anglo Americans own conception of progress and prosperity. Franklin Tuthill wrote in 1866 that elite Californians “lost their influence in public affairs and annoyed by squatters and defrauded of their land grew poorer and poorer till noting of 113 the shadow of their old possessions remained.“197 Others placed more blame on the Californians themselves, but the result was always the same; Californians lost land and Anglo Americans gained land. Mary Cone noted how few of the original owner of San Diego ranchos remained for “in the majority of cases the original owners are poor men now, their lands passed into other hands.“198 That these hands were Anglo was cause for celebration for Mary cone who rejoiced that the old Mexican Ranchos which had been purchased by American farmers, “will soon make it produce something more valuable than hides and tallows.“199 According to Harvey Rice, the passing of California land was due to no fault but their own. “After the war, they attempted to adopt American habits, and to live in American style; the result was, they became extravagant and soon so encumbered their estates that they were obliged to sell them at nominal prices. The Americans were the purchasers, and obtained the lands, in many instances, as low as ten cents an acre.“2°° Claims that elite Californians were loosing their lands were usually accompanied by assertions that the Californians themselves as a people were also becoming a mere vestige or memory of the past. Anglo Americans argued that elite Californians who had always made claims to racial superiority vis. a vis. other Californians, and who for decades had the economic and political power and prestige to maintain these divisions, were literally disappearing. Few, like Harvey Rice 114 asserted that many rich.Mexicans unsatisfied.with the affects of annexation simply chose to leave California and return to Mexico. More commonly, Anglo Americans simply asserted that elite Californians, both.as individuals and.their way of life, ‘were simply disappearing before their very eyes. .According to Franklin Tuthill, “As to the other classes of population, the native Californian early retired into obscurity.“201 Walter Fisher, a British traveller in the United States, warned his fellow country men that if they expected to find even a semblance of aristocracy in the former Spanish Empire they ‘were mistaken, There was no aristocracy to be found, they had simply faded away.202 This theme of the vanishing California elite, and the concern with creating a homogenous population in California, not only gained momentumtthroughout the 18805 but became fused and even inseparable from racialist notions of inferior and superior races. Like Anglo Americans in the 18705, Bishop also felt that “weaker types“ would.die out “And.make room.for the stronger“.203 Included in his list of weaker types were the elite Californians who had dominated California’s economic, political and social life for decades. Bishop‘wrote that when this idle race was faced with the industriousness and. progressiveness of Anglo .Americans, they had. proved themselves not adaptable.““ Thus, Bishop argued that both the Spanish life, as it existed before Anglo arrival, no longer remained.205 Codman, like Bishop was also confident 115$, ._ . 115 that the meeting of races, such as occurred in California, would undoubtedly lead every time to the extermination of the inferior by the superior. Though only sentences earlier noting the influence of barrioization on Californians, Codman nevertheless asserted not only that elite Californians were disappearing but also lower class as well. “The disappearance of the “greasers“ is a more curious study than of the Indian. They were and they are not, nobody has murdered them; they have died of no epidemic; they have not emigrated; and there has been no impediment to their birth. What has become of them no—one knows, they have only faded out of sight.“206 Anglo American women in the 18803 largely concurred.with their male counterparts that elite as well as degraded Californians were quickly slipping into the pages of history. Already reminiscing about a Spanish past which Mrs. Lee characterized as a hospitable and idle lifestyle of bull fights and fandangos. Mrs. Smith proclaimed that, “There are but few of either class now, and those with scarcely a home for their herds, having sold their great ranches and fettered away their subsistence.“ “7 Typifying' Anglo» American conquest as a “march of Empire“ Mallie Stafford noted how, “Before its restless strides, the native Californians and his belongings vanished in the dew of yester mourn and lo.“208 Of trails of Oxen and festive fandangos, Mallie Stafford claimed, “They have passed into history along with the Digger .209 Indian, the Spanish Vaquero and the old adobe building. 116 At the same time that Anglo Americans turned to God and providence as the explanatory force of history, many also started to romanticize and even lament, in a superficial manner, the passing of California society. In many works, themes of both romanticization and condemnation were woven into the very fabric of Anglo Americans accounts. After noting that the Californians had caused their own decline, Harvey Rice reminisced when.passing an.old Spanish rancho: “It is a queer looking sort of a mansion; yet in the olden time, it possessed the charma.of a royal palace in the estimation of the populace. It was in palatial residence of this character, that the richer classes of Mexicans and Spaniards too their ease and lived in comparative luxury, until the war with Mexico occurred when they were annexed to the United States.“210 In a fairly romantic and even lamentable tone, Edward Vischer noted his perceptions of being witness to a party returning from a merrienda de Almegas, “The pater- families, a well mounted rancho, precedes the oxen team and Mexican wooden wheel cart, containing the women and children and the dusty troupe with a band of loose horses in the rear completes a primitive scene of patriarchal simplicity of an era fast passing away.“211 Anglo American travellers and immigrants were not the only people who romanticized California’s Spanish past. In the late 18803 an increasing number of professional men including lawyers, bankers and large landholders took it upon 117 themselves to write histories of California. That a rash of historical accounts appeared at this juncture should hardly be surprising, Anglo Americans had for nearly two decades been already “historicizing' their accounts. Moreover, with Anglo American success in conquering California so unquestionably accomplished, it seemed an opportune time to reflect upon, justify and even mourn events that now seemed irreversible. Two of the most influential and interesting popular histories published in the late 18805 include Hubert Howe Bancroft’s History of Califognia and William Heath Davis’ Sixty Yeags in Californyg. Like many of his fellow Anglo Americans Bancroft admitted the role of Anglo Americans in usurping’ California land though such illegal manners as squatting, land fraud and unfair land commissions. Bancroft commented that when Anglo Americans first arrived in California there was a tendency to view all Mexican land as American land upon which they set forth wrestling from the Californians though a whole array of illegal and unethical measures.212 Bancroft even admitted that the America government did but little to protect the Californians or to abide by the letter of the law as stated in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Bancroft even went so far as to condemn racial violence towards both Mexican Americans and Chinese.213 However, despite Bancroft’s seeming sensitive to the plight of Californians, he never fundamentally questioned either the right of Anglo Americans to usurp ' 9 - want-ET“ IL" 118 California or the cause of racial hostility in California. It was the lowly Irish who, according to Bancroft, “must bear the blame“ for racial violence. “To question a right guaranteed by the constitution and treaty to publish the innocent, to prosecute the unoffending, cruelly to entertain the weak, and disrespectfully to treat the poor, is no part of Anglo American character.““‘ This was a character Bancroft described as ever dominant and superior to all others in the world.215 William Heath Davis, like Bancroft, also chastised the U.S. government for failing to protect Californians’s property, civil and social rights and even cited Californians’ treatment at the hands of the U.S. government as one reason for their current state. Davis specifically faulted squatters, unfair practices of the land commission and courts as well as shifty lawyers for failure to abide by the rules set forth in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.216 Yet, much like Bancroft, there are not only' definite limits, but possibly some contradictions in Heaths’ editorials on California’s past. Instead of calling for any reparation or re-adjudication of past injustices, Davis calls for continued Anglo America immigrant, embraces the affects of manifest destiny, and celebrates the fruits of American capitalismiand democracy. Citing that new immigrants were industrious, hardworking and sober, Davis was impressed that “From every direction...the signs of progress under the change and that of 119 “2” Though American Arnerican systems became apparent. conquest may have had some deleterious affects on the Californians, in Davis’ mind, and many of those in his generation, they did not constitute a contradiction to the ideals upon which California was founded. The glorious end seemed to justify the means. Having indicted the means, yet glorified and justified the ends of Anglo encroachment, both Bancroft and Davis looked back, rather patronizingly and romantically to the days before Anglo America conquest. According to Bancroft, “there was strong affection and never a happier family then when a ranchero, dwelling in his pastoral simplicity saw his sons and his sons’ bringing to the paternal roof of their wives and seating them at the ever lengthening table.“218 Davis even more romantically reminisced about Californians past . “Before the change of government, they were in full and happy possession of their ranchos, under the titles emanating from the Spanish and Mexican governments; and considered themselves secure in their properties. They were a wealthy people, probably more so than the people of any other Spanish country.“219 Of the California women, Bancroft was nothing but compliments. They were beautiful, courtly, intelligent, kind and possessed a natural dignity unparalleled anywhere else in the world.220 Even California men came under Davis’ romantic bemoaning. “The men was good husbands generally, the women good wives, both faithful to their domestic 120 relations.“221 However, as Beverly Trulio so adeptly pointed out, behind accolades to women, often hid denigrations of men. Davis claimed to “have found the women as a class much brighter, quicker in their perceptions and generally smarter than the men.“222 Moreover, in a bit of self serving history Davis not only argued that California men failed to resist Anglo encroachment but that elite Californians “could not fail to perceive the American superiority in intelligence, education, and business ability.“223 If the Spaniards and Castillians were mere shadows of an aristocratic, idle and quaint past, not without its own charms, it was clear that the current inhabitants of California represented a degraded and dilapidated present. William Heath Davis who spent countless pages proclaiming the charms and virtuosity of the Spanish days, felt very differently toward the current inhabitants of California, the descendants of those dashing cavaliers. As to the business honesty and.integrity of early Californias Davis lamented: “As much cannot be said of some of their descendants who have become demoralized and are not like their ancestors in this regard.“224 Later Davis proclaimed, “The Californias of the present day are a good deal degraded, as compared with their fathers, the old stock.“225 Without denying the role of the U.S. government in this demoralization, Davis felt that the current position of Californians was inescapable and irreversible. Some Anglo Americans even tried to argue that 121 the current generation of Californians were not only demoralized and degraded, but that they were totally unrelated to the Spaniards and Castillians who had formerly formed the elite of California society. Most simply argued that whatever the ties between the former elite Californians and the degraded present, the distance was unreproachable; current Californians had little if not any of the racial integrity, dignity or manners of their forefathers. In reality, the remaining population included not an insignificant number of people had themselves been or were descendants of the California elite, and even greater who had for decades been part of the lower classes, and an increasingly significant number were recent immigrants from Mexico.”6 However, in the eyes of Anglo Americans they were an undifferentiated homogenized group of dirty, swarthy and degraded Mexicans, often in both national as well as racial identity. While the first generation of Anglo American rarely embraced the California racial system, they did at least pay minimal homage to its nomenclature and power structure. They could not ignore the fact that a significant number of elite Californians who claimed.Castillian and Spanish heritage held economic, social and political power. Practical expediency often over rode abstract ideological dictates and .Anglo Americans often formed close ties with elite Californians. The second generation of Anglo Americans did neither of the above; Spanish and Castillian were used most often as FIRIJL my «a. - 122 historical terms to explain people who had lived in the past, not people who lived in the present. Though some might make claims to Castillian or Spanish backgrounds, Anglos argued they were racially mixed and sighted their degraded existence as proof. Thus, it was not when Anglo Americans first met Californians that they saw an “undifferentiated“ race of Mexicans but only after they made them so, only after they denied them the economic, political and social differences that had been the basis of the Californians racial system. By the 18603 and throughout the 18703 and 803 Anglo Americans postulated that racial divisions in California were rather simple and clear cut, there were “them“ and “us“. Since the only Californians who had claims to Spanish and Castillian racial purity had since disappeared, (either literally or rhetorically or both) Anglo Americans argued that the rest were essentially a mixed population. Franklin Tuthill viewed the Californian population as made up of whites who were a racially pure group, and the old Californians who were a “mixed race“ due to miscegenation among Indians and Spaniards. ”7 Mary Cone also divided the California population into two categories. Of these two classes Mary Cone claimed that the superior class was made up of all Anglo Americans no matter where from or how long they had been in California. The second class, whom Cone clearly identified as degraded, included all the Spanish, their descents and mixed bloods, whom by this time were indistinguishable. Thus, even 123 though.still using former terminology, Mary Cone saw little or no difference between these groups, despite their varying degrees of racial purity. Clearly, none were white. And finally, Harvey Rice also classified the California population into two groups. The first major group was composed exclusively of Anglos. The second category which included Indians, Pacific Islanders, Chinese and Mexican Rice argued “belong to an Asiatic Climate and are constitutionally alike in color, stature and leading characteristics.“ ”3 Anglo American’s overall relations with this supposedly degraded and.mixed race varied greatly from.the relations the first generation of Anglo Americans had with the California population, No longer were Anglo Americans contending with a social, political and economic elite, whom they argued simply existed no longer. In contrast to the first generation of Anglo Americans who often had intimate and close economic and socii ties with at least elite Californians, this generation of Anglo Americans were intent on insuring that the economic and social distance between themselves and the Californians would be significant. Barrioization and a segmented labor market based on race insured that contact between Anglo Americans and Californians would be mmatly limited to the public sphere where each populations’ status was clearly delineated. This is not to deny that Anglo Americans and Californians ever had social relations. However, according to historian David weber, this new “pioneering generation“ of In 124 Anglo Americans who came in the second half of the 19th century did not blend into California societyuz29 Unlike the first generation of Anglo Americans who by participating in and often witnessing Californian fandangos and weddings and who gladly took advantage of hospitality from both poor and rich Californians, the second generation of Anglo Americans most frequently commented on Californians from afar. Unlike the first generation of Anglo Americans who often unwittingly acted as a window into the California culture, this generation stood back at the fencepost, unwilling and perhaps unable to enter the world of those whose lives they had so absolutely disrupted yet could only partially understand. In contrast, Eliza Farnham who described her actual experiences with Californians, albeit in a prejudiced and subjective manner, Anglo American in the 18605, 703 and 803 only described Californians from a distance. Though the rather dim view that can be gleaned from late 19th century Anglo American accounts might be partially explained by the brief tenure of some Anglo visitors who only came for a couple years at best, their accounts do not differ substantially from those who spent their entire lifetimes in California. Though longevity certainly must have affected experiences and relations, what is perhaps more important is that be they casual visitors or longstanding citizens, Anglo Americans had little reason to want to or to try to integrate into the Mexican/Spanish realm of California society. 125 Sue Sanders, a native of Illinois who traveled extensively through California in the early 18803, only mentions Californians when she sees them in musical bands?30 Like Sue Sanders, Mrs. Lee’s brief description of Californians was limited to a causal observation of Californian ranch hands who worked on Anglo farms.231 Though she had travelled from Boston to California via the railroads, and even travelled extensively throughout Mexico of which she made many comments, Mrs. Lee, for reasons that we can never know, was little compelled to discuss or even cement on the Mexican Americans in California. The most detailed and descriptive accounts of Californians come from those Anglo Americans who for whatever reason had at least a minimal view or access to California barrios. Helen Raitt, a native of Iowa, wrote to her family in Iowa of the wretched conditions within Sonoratown, a Los Angles barrio. Raitt was appalled and even frightened by the sight of adobe homes “swarming with dusty children and reeking of odors. . .The old Californians are a lawless, swarthy set of fellows dashing though the streets on horseback, their long black straight hair flinging in the wind, and the covers of their stirrups almost touching the ground.“32 William Henry Bishop found Sonoratown equally appalling. “The dirty little adobe shops contain samples of dingy little stocks of good in their sheltered loop—hole windows. A few swarthy, lantern jawed old-timers having about the corners, and gossip in the patios, 126 and women with black shawls over their heads pass by. Much of this quarter is in a ruinous condition. “233 It is not surprising that Raitt and Bishop found Sonoratown dilapidated. Clearly the condition of Sonoratownwwas a simple reflection of the economic downturn of Californians. However, Raitt not only commented on the economic depravity of Californias but even likened them to savages in behavior and customs when she passed.near Pasadena. “As we wound up our way along the sand bank, our slow progress gave us ample time to scrutinize the dismal- looking Mexican huts, scattered along the roadside. A few poles and plenty of rushes on cane breaks are all that is necessary to make a house for the darkened Mexican or noble red man. Windows are a necessary luxury, and doors a mere matter of tastes. From the eves of these hovels were suspended pieces of fresh meat and bunches of red peppers that looked like bleeding hearts of wounded innocents and we wondered if we were not among the scene of another mountain massacre.“234 From the above descriptions it is clear that neither Bishop nor Raitt actually socialized with Californians. They did not enter the homes or perhaps more accurately the hovels of Californians, but only watched from a distance with both horror and condemnation the sight of degradation, dilapidation, and even primitive and savage conditions which merely reinforced their views that California were clearly a degraded race. Actual contact with Californians was not a prerequisite [tut 127 for considering oneself an accurate and objective social commentator of California society; The rather minimal social contact Anglo Americans had with Californians did not stop the majority formi providing evaluations of the Californians characters, values, and behaviors. However, lacking their own personal accounts and experiences, Anglo Americans increasingly relied on earlier descriptions by such men as Dana and Robinson however, without appreciating or replicating the complexity and ambiguity of views within early accounts. Anglo Americans often focused on negative statements and characterizations, which they then repeated without much thought. Mary Cone, who spent two years in California, cited frequently from Dana’s account to show how the Californians had always been degraded. In Mary’s own words she credited “Dana represents the Spaniards and their Mexican descendants as shiftless almost beyond description. There was no working class among them.“ Unwittingly so, in this brief statement, Cone has encapsulated the changed racial identity of the California population, from Spaniards to Mexicans. Citing directly from Dana, Cone commented, “They seemed to be a people upon whom a curse had fallen and stripped them of everything but their pride, their manners and their voices.“ Further citing directly from Dana Cone claimed, “It was no strange thing to see a Spaniard with the manners of a Lord, dressed with fine broad clothe and velvet, with a nimble horse completely covered with trappings, upon which he sat with the 128 air of a king, when he had not in esse and scarcely in posse a cent with which to bless of himself.“235 Much like Mary Cone’s view of California men, the perception among the majority of Anglo Americans was that Californians were indolent, adventure seeking, gambling, horse riding cowards. Harvey Rice, after claiming that rich Californians simply left California after the Mexican American war, commented on those who were left behind: “Those who remained, still retain their former customs and habits. Their principle occupation seems to be idling, gambling, racing, cock fighting and drinking.“236 Walter Fisher, the British visitor who warned his fellow country men as to the non— existence of an aristocracy in California also found the Californians to be hard riders and tireless sportsmen, with nothing but a “childlike mental culture.“237 Anglo Americans felt confident in proclaiming that not only had the Californians been unfit to run California, but as to their current position, they were entirely without complaints. Codman wrote of California ranch hands. “The wants of those people are few. . . he avoids, as much as possible, the contact of what we deem civilization. He cares not for books, for society, or even for fruits or bread, his body being insufficiently nourished as his mind. . .With this food, little clothing, a good saddle and a good horse, his existence is complete and all his wants satisfied.“238 Bishop, though admitting some of the difficulties Californians experienced, .-_ ‘U‘ '4", ' TL!» n 129 nonetheless stated that, “The people who have gone thorough so much to the wall, wear no pathetic aspect in their adversity. They are for the most part engaged in course labor, are improvident and apparently contented.“239 When describing California women, Anglo Americans even more selectively chose negative accounts from previous writers, and totally ignored the ambiguity that underlay many earlier Anglo Accounts. Mary Cone, not insignificantly, did not cite from Robinson’s work which was surely as popular as Dana’s. Her only brief description of California women was taken out of Dana’s account where he asserted that California women were more concerned.with silk dresses and gaudy jewelry than they were with their domestic, wifely and motherly duties.“° Moreover, totally rejecting earlier Anglo American hypotheses that as a group, California women were at least the :more intelligent and superior segment of the California population, Anglo Americans argued that they too were merely members of a mixed and degraded race. In total contrast to earlier accounts which typified California women as vivacious and intelligent, at least the more superior and intelligent of the population, Codman claimed that California women as a whole suffered from “mental inertness.“2“1 Furthermore, instead of describing California women as the most hospitable, gentle, courtly and kind, some Anglo Americans opted for the profile of California women as hot Latina Spitfires, or merely discussed California women as if 130 they were not distinguishable in manners, morals and behaviors from their male counterparts. If anything they was worse. In fact, the only uniqueness Anglo Americans accorded California women distinct from their male counterparts, was that they were the cunning, emotional, sexual; something to be feared. Clearly the seed of this image was present in earlier Anglo American accounts, however unlike the first generation of Anglo Americans who argued that California women were sexy and yet hospitable, self centered yet intelligent, “un-motherly and ‘wifely“ yet vivacious, the second generation Anglo Americans focused on clearly seditious and.whore—like images. Of Anglo Americans’ perception of California women, what is perhaps most significant is that California women were rarely addressed specifically. In fact, finding specific comments about specific California women or California women in general is no easy task. By the 18603, 703 and 803 the California woman’s previously unique gendered racial identity and gender roles, whereby Anglo Americans hypothesized that she was at least the better half of the2California generation and perhaps even possible of being “whitenedfi, became submerged under the overwhelming weight of racial identity. California women were less frequently, and almost never, viewed as separate from their fathers, husbands and brothers. All had been clearly degraded. She only existed as the Latina spitfire or not at all. _- 2 n..- urn CONCLUSION Cultural or social identities are never static entities which exist outside of, or above time and place, but are necessarily historical and thus necessarily contextual and temporal in nature. Moreover, identity is not a private issue of self conceptualization or realization, but rather part and parcel of larger economic, political and social structures which they help to institute, serve and often reinforce. Thus, identities are part of what historians like to think of as social relations or part of power relations. When the first generation of Anglo Americans stepped.unto the shores of California, or came across the land, they did not, as so many previous authors have assumed, see an undifferentiated group of Mexicans. Rather, they entered a highly racialized and stratified culture, one where elite Californias prided themselves not only on their economic profile, but also their racialized identity as descendants of Spaniards and Castillians. However much Anglo Americans may have wanted to, they could not ignore these divisions. Anglo Americans themselves admittedly found elite Californians civilized, especially in comparison to the rest of the Californians. Looking at their own economic, political and social interests 131 132 in a land in which they were, using David Weber’s title, “foreigners in a native land“, not an insignificant amount of accommodation occurred. Yet, this was always accommodation with very definite boundaries; boundaries only a very few Anglo Americans were either willing or wanted to transcend. The vast majority of Anglo Americans, while noting differences within the California population, attacked the California social structure which they claimed allowed and even encouraged social mixing across racial and class lines; they questioned an institutionalized political structure that seemed to harbor despotism; and they continually belittled the economic and political values, mores and habits among men that supposedly violated the ethic of capitalism and well as American republicanism. However of all the California “crimes“ the most serious were those that pointed to race mixing among the Californians. Whether based on actuality or not, Anglo Americans increasingly argued throughout this period that elite Californians were merely the best of a mixed population. Even elite women were not spared the harsh pen of Anglo Americans. While undeniably some argued that they had characteristics that placed them high above their male counterparts, and some even argued that they were racially superior to male relatives, for most they failed to conform to the Cult of True Womanhood. Anglo Americans described elite women as more commendable for a life of lazy courtly civility, than for a life on the frontier where capitalistic ethics were 133 necessary in women as well as men. Thus, in comparison to their own male relatives they were certainly the better half, yet when judged against the Anglo American women, Anglo Americans of both sexes agreed, they could hardly compare. In contrast to the often contentious and certainly ambiguous Anglo American views towards the California population in the 18303, 403 and 503, or at least the sense of contest that marked the process whereby Anglo Americans attempted to institute their social order, by the 18603, 705 and 803 a consensual and highly caricatured assessment of the California population emerged. Anglo Americans less frequently described their personal experiences and relations with Californians, rather they began to describe both themselves and others in relatively abstract and impersonal terms. What had once appeared to be a contest between two groups with diverging values, practices and racial ideologies vying for economic and political control, became to Anglo Americans in the 18605, 703 and 803 a foregone conclusion directed by impersonal and uncontrollable forces. And, Anglo Americans’ views and relations with the California population. which had been affected or at least mediated by the gender divisions and racial and class stratifications within the California population, became dominated by one category, race. Having proclaimed that elite Californians simply no longer existed, had become part of the historical past instead of the present, Anglo Americans became unwilling to concede any 134 differences among the Californians. Most important however, having denied elite Californians their material, economic and social base, Anglo Americans also denied them their elite racial identity as well. According to Anglo Americans there were those who were white and those who were not. Anglo Americans ability to redefine racial categories in California and processes of racial classification was intertwined with their creation of a new political, economic and social order that was based on a polarized racial system and not a racial continuum. Although the Anglo Americans did not view Californians as blacks and Indians in the 18305, 403 and even 505, by the 18603 onward there was a growing tendency to both conceptualize and treat Californians as a whole like, the blacks and Indians of the Southwest. ENDNOTES 1. Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as, SMl gnd Mth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950) . 2. John MacFaragher, Women and Mpn on the Ovprland Trail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979); Julie Roy Jeffrey, Egpntipr Women: Thg Trans-Mississippi Westl 1840-1880 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1979); Sandra Myres, Westering Wompn ang the Fgontier Egperience, 1800-1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982) . 3. Patricia Limerick, The Legagy of Conggest: The Unbroken past; of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton and Company. , 1987) . 4. ~---, Charles E. Rankin, Clyde A. Milner II, Trailp: Towarg Ngw Wegprn Histog (Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1991) , p.6. 5. Carey McWilliams, North From Mpxico: The Spanish Speaking People of the United States (New York: Harper and Row, 1949) . p. 35 6. Cecil Robinson, With The Earp pf Strangers: The Mexican in American Literature (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1963). . 7. R. Heizer, The cher galiforniangz Prpjudice and Discrimination Under Spain, Mexigo and the United States to 1229 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). 8. David Weber, Myth and the Histog of the Hispanic Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983); Raymond Paredes, “The Mexican Image in American Travel Literature 1831-1869 in New Mexico Hi§torigal Review (January 1977) . 9. David Langum, “Californios and the Image of Indolence“ The Western Historical Quarterly (April 1978). 10 . James Lacy, “New Mexican Women in Early American Writings“ in New Mexico Historical Review (Number 1, January 1959) . pp. 48-51. 11. Weber, D. Myth and the Histog of the Hispanic Southwest, 13S p. 155. 12. Beverly Trulio, “Anglo American Attitudes Toward New Mexican Women“ Journal of the American West (Vol. 12 (2) 1973) p. 229. 13. Trulio, pp. 230-235. 14. Trulio, p. 239. 15. Trulio, p. 237. 16. Antonia Casteneda, “The Political Economy of 19th Century Stereotypes of Californians“ in Between Borders ed. Adelaida Del Castillo (California: Florcianto Press, 1990). 17. Casteneda. p. 215. 18. Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979) . p. 2. 19. David Weber, fith and the Histogy of the Hispanic Southwest, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988) . p. ix. 20 . Ronald Takaki, Iron gages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Centugy America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979); Barbara J. Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America“ in the New Left Review (No. 181, May/June 1990) . pp. 95-119. 21. Joanna DeGroot, “Sex and Race: The Construction of Language and Image in the Nineteenth Century“ in Sexuality and Subordination: Interdisciplinag Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century ed. by Susan Mendus and Jane Rendall (London: Routledge Press, 1989). Chapter Three. 22. Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of Histog (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. pp. 35-41. 23. Scott, Gender and the Politics of Histogy, p. 4 24. James Axtell, The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) . p.xix. 25. Patricia Limerick, The Legag of Congpest: The Unbroken ngt pf the American West (New York: Norton and Co. Publishing, 1987). p. 27. 136 137 26. Frederick Jackson Turner, Frontier in American Histogy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920). p. 28. 27 . Ray Allen Billington, The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1860 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959). pp. 49-57. 28. Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios: A Sogial Hiptog of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890 (Berkeley: Univeristy of California Press, 1970). p. vii. 29. Pitt, p. viii. 30. J. Forbes, “Hispano-Mexican Pioneers of the San Francisco Bay Region: An Analysis of Racial Origins“ in Aztlan 14 (no. 1 1983). pp. 175-189. 31. Gutierrez, R., “Unraveling America’s Hispanic Past: Internal Stratification and Class Boundaries“ Aztlan 17 (No. 1 1986). p. 88. 32. Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca: Cornell Univeristy Press, 1985). p. 153. 33. Fields, p. 144. 34. Richard White, “Race Relations in the American West“ in American Quarterly 38 (No. 3, 1986) p. 397. 35. Evelyn Brooks Higginbothan, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race“ Signs: Journal pf Women in Culture and Society (Chicago: The Univeristy of Chicago Press 17 (No. 2, 1992). 36. Gutierrez, R., “Unraveling America’s Hispanic Past: Internal Stratification and Class Boundaries“, p. 40. 37. David. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwesg Under Mexico, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983). p. 210 38. Weber, p. 208. 39. Ramon Gutierrez, “Unraveling America’s Hispanic Past: Internal Stratification and Class Boundaries“ p. 39. 40. Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture ip Nineteenth gentupy America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.) PP. 160- 161. 41. David Weber, '_r_h_e Mexican Fronpier 1821-1846: The American Souphwpsp Under Mpxr_g, p. 183. 138 42 Antonia Casteneda, “The Political Economy of 19th Century Stereotypes of Californias“ in Between Borders ed. Adelaide Del Castillo, (California: Florcianto Press, 1990). p. 233. 43. Richard.Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life a; Sea (Cambridge: Ward Ritchie Press, 1964). p. 84. 44. Walter E. Colton, The California Daipy: Three Years in California (Oakland: Biobooks California Centennial Edition, 1948). 45. Thomas Jefferson Farnham, Travels in California and Scenes in the Pacific Ocean (New York: Saxton and Miles, 1844). pp. 142-143. 46. Lewis Carstairs Gunn, Record of a California Family: Journals and Letters (Chicago: Newberry Library Collection). p. 94. (£7. Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1848). p. 217. 48. Alfred Robinson, Life in California (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1848). p. 72. 49. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 50. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 51. Heizer, R., The Other' Californians: Ppeiudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico and the United States to 1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). 52. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 150. 53. Robinson, Life in California, pp. 16-17. 54. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 3. 55. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 3. 56. William McCollum, California As I Saw It. . .Its New Cities gnd Villages; Its Rapid Accession of Population; Its soil and glimate and Prodpction (Buffalo: George H. Derby and Co., 1850). p. 55. 57. Lansford Hastings, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and galifornia (Cincinnati: George Conclin Co., 1845). p. 128. 58. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 121. " .-——— 31.-arr..." -.’ :- 139 59. Robinson, Life in California, pp. 73. 60. A. B. Clark, Travelp in California and Mexico (Boston: Hasty Boston and Wright Printers, 1852). p. 49. 61. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 317. 62. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 60. 63. Dana, p. 116. 64. Robinson, Life in California, pp. 14, 142. 65. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 60. 66. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 60. 67. Colton, Thp California Diagy, p. 6 68. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 270. 69. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, pp. 64-65. 70. Dana, Two Years Beforp thg Mast, p. 71. 71. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 72. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 142. 73. Farnham, Travels in California, pp. 147-148. 74. Hastings, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, p. 113. 75. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 446. 76. John Woodhouse Audbon, Illustrated.Notes of an Eypedition through Mexico and California (New York: Published by J.S. Audbon, 1852). p. 42. 77. Susan Armitage, The WOmen’s West, (Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). p. 9. 78. Dee Brown, Thp Gentle Tamers: WOmen of the Old Wild West (New York: Putnam/s sons, 1958). 79. Faragher, WOmen.and.Men pn the Overland Trail: Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West: 1840- 1880; Sandra Myres, Westering Women and the Frontie; Experiences: 1800-1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982). 140 80. Glenda Riley, Women and Indians on the Frontier (Albuquerque: Univeristy of New Mexico Press. 1986). 81. John Roper, John Tosh eds. Manful Assertionp: Masculinities in Britain Since 1800 (London and New York: Routledge Press, 1991). p. 7). 82. Higginbothan, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race“, p. 252. 83. Peggy Pascoe, “Race, Gender and intercultural Relations: the Case of Interracial Marriage“ Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studie§ 12 (No. 1, 1991). p. 82. 84. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 82. 85. Anthony E. Rotundo, “Learning about Manhood: Gender Ideals and the Middle-Class Family in Nineteenth-Century America“ in Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America (Manchester: Manchester Univeristy Press, 1987). pp. 35-49. 86. Anthony E. Rotundo, “Learning About Manhood“ pp. 36-37; R. GriBamldy and Divorce in California, 1850-1890; Victorian Illusions and Evegyday Realities (Albany: State University of New York Press). pp. 90-119. 87. Michael Gordon, “The Ideal Husband as Depicted in Nineteenth-Century Marriage Manual“ in The American Man ed. by Elizabeth Pleck and Joseph H. Pleck (New Jersey; Prentice Hall iInc., 1980). pp. 145-156. 88. Griswold, Family and Divorce in California, 1850-1890, pp. 90-119. 89. John Olmstead, A Trip to California, p. 28. 90. Bryant, What I Sawgin California, p. 324. 91. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 172. 92. McCollum, California As I Saw It, p. 30. 93. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 427. 94. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 162. 95. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 191. 96. Robinson, Life in California, p. 204. 97. Robinson, Life in galifornia, p. 220. 141 98. Eliza Farnham, California in Doors and Out or How We Farm, Mine, and LIve Generally in the Golden State (New York: Dix, Edwards and Co., 1856). p. 130-131. 99. Eliza Farnham, California in Doors and Out, pp. 130-131. 100. Audbon, Illuptraped Notes of an Eypedition through Mexico and California, p. 44. 101. Robinson, Life in California, pp. 131. 102. Frederick Gay, Sketches in.California in The Magazine of Histopy with Notes and Queries, Extra Number 110 (Chicago: Newberry Library, 1984). p. 75. 103. Gay, Sketches in California, p. 80. 104. Hastings, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, p. 132. 105. Gay, Sketches in California, p. 83. 106. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 172. 107. McCollum, California as I Saw It..., p. 30. 108. Gay, Sketches in California, p. 82. 109. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 82. 110. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 81. 111. Robinson, Life in California, p. 32. 112. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 447. 113. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 57. 114. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 32. 115. Dana, Two Ypars Before the Mast, pp. 88-122. 116. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 89. 117. Mrs. D.B. Bates, Incidents on Land and Water for Four Ygars on the Pagifig Coast (Boston: E.O. Libby and Co., 1858).p. 118. 118. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 119. Bryant, Wha; I Saw in Qalifornia, p. 447-448. - -: wrunfl 142 120. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 4-5. 121. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 387. 122. Colton, The Califprnia Diagy, p. 103. 123. Colton, The California Diapy, p. 103. 124. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 65. 125. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 109. 126. Edward Kewen, and.John Cage, Oration and Poem before the lPécsageerpSOCBiety (San Francisco: O’Mearea and Painter Printers, 127. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 101. 128. Lacy, James, “New Mexican Women in Early American Writings“ New Mexican Historical Review 34 (1959) p. 41-52. Weber, David “Scarcer than Apes“ Myth gnd the Histogy of the Hispanic Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988). 129. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 101. 130. Gay, Sketches in California, p. 83. 131. Casteneda, “The Political Economy of 19th Century Stereotypes of Californians“ pp. 216-220. 132. Lansford Hastings, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and galifognia, p. 124.; Eliza Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 128. 133. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 66. 134. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 310. 135. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 314. 136. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 126. 137. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 310. 138. Hastings, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and_§alifornia, p. 125. 139. John MacFaragher, J ., Women and Men on the Overland Trail; Julie Roy and Jeffrey Roy, Frontier Women: The Trans- Mississippi West 1840-1880. 143 140. Robert Griswold, Family and Divorce in California, 1850- 1890: Victorian Illusionp and Eveggday Realities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982). pp. 39-91. 141. Robinson, Lifp in California, pp. 73. 142. Bryant, What I Saw ip Californig, p. 284. 143. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 422-423. 144. Bryant, What I Saw in Cglifornia, p. 307. 145. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 189. 146. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 132. 147. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 329. 148. Robinson, Life in Qalifornia, p. 59. 149. Bates, gncigents on Land and Water, p. 135. 150. Bates, Incidents on Land and Water, p. 136. 151. David Weber, “Scarcer than Apes“ in Myth and the History of the Hispanic Southwesp, p. 185. 152. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 153. Thomas James, Three Yearg Among_the Mexicans and Indians, (Chicago: Rio Grand Press, 1846 and 1962). p. 145. 154. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 13. 155. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 85. 156. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 12. 157. Colton, The California Diagy, p. 50. 158. Colton, The California Diagy, pp. 103-113. 159. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 23. 160. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 24. 161. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 84. 162. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, p. 133. 163. Dana, Two Years Before php Mas , p. 172. 144 164. Farnham, Travels in California, pp. 161-162. 165. Farnham, Travels in California, p. 13. 166. Bates, Incidentsyon Land and Water, p. 152. 167. Gunn, Record of A Qalifprnia Family, p. 135. 168. Bates, Incidents on Lang ang Water, p. 120; Farnham, California In Doors and Qut, p. 26. 169. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 136. 170. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 48. 171. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 125. 172. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 125. 173. Farnham, Californis In Doprs and Out, p. 130. 174. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 129. 175. Farnham, California In Doprs and Out, p. 184. 176. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 131. 177. Farnham, California In Doors and Out, p. 181. 178. Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society. pp. 116-117. 179. Titus Fey Cronise, The Nature Wealth of California (San Francisco: H.H. Bancroft and Company, 1868). p. 105. 180. Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society. pp. 116-117. 181. 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