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Article Excerpt
At times, the historian of Mexican California, as would the scholar of any other historical subject, must play the philosopher and contemplate the riddles that comprise humanity's existence. What seems accurate often is not, the historian discovers; and what is not accurate sometimes is. To compound matters, what is and what is not accurate, or what only seems to be accurate, depends on circumstance. Where dwells the historian--and how income, education, race, and sex shape his or her faculties--can determine the reach and limits of perception. All the more, the historian's sensibilities may reflect the time and era in which he or she resides; the past--the thing contemplated by the historian--becomes a site of contemporary yearning and angst rather than an accounting of what occurred years before. (1)
Such is the case with Mexican California. Indeed, the ranchero--the proprietor of landed estates in the nineteenth century--embodies why the pursuit of accuracy presents challenges. For some time, the ranchero has figured prominently in many histories about Mexican California. But the question arises whether the ranchero deserves so much attention. The evidence shows otherwise and suggests that war, with the soldier at arms, may offer a better way to interpret life in Mexican California.
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WAR IN MEXICAN CALIFORNIA
Before girding for the fight, as would suit any person going to war, we must first address the ranchero's shortcomings. Many scholars argue that the rancheros dominated the economic and political life of Mexican California. The ranchero was "the 'big man' [who controlled] family, labor and land," declares one scholar, summarizing at one stroke what other historians have long argued. (2) The ranchero's herds provided food. Indians and non-Indians found employment on the ranchero's property. At appropriate times, the ranchero staged fiestas to show his generosity and share the land's bounty with workers and neighbors. (3) Scholars apparently have good reason to say that matters unfolded as they did. The Mexican Californians who helped produce the recuerdos--the oral histories compiled in the late nineteenth century by the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft and his staff--speak often of the ranchero's influence. And scholars, who remain true to the sources, draw their conclusions accordingly.
Some rancheros certainly had great influence, but was it always thus? Did they all command as much power as scholars say? The example of Los Angeles, the most populous settlement in Mexican California, suggests not. If by "ranchero" we mean the individual who held title to his property, there were few such people to begin with. According to the Mexican census of 1844, sixteen people in the Los Angeles area meet our definition of ranchero. The number is significant, but hardly the figure one would imagine. Moreover, the men who did own landed estates, or at least toiled on a rancho, often failed to impress the citizenry of Los Angeles come Election Day. Of the sixty-two men who served in municipal government between 1821 and 1848, the year that Mexico formally ceded California to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, fifteen men--nearly one-fourth of the total number of men who sat in office--had some connection to the cattle business. Of these, only five owned ranchos. (4) The other ten men worked in ranching but did not have title to the property; they worked for the proprietors, or apparently leased a portion of the estate for their own purposes. Four of the fifteen sat as alcalde, the chief magistrate and mayor. Another four served as sindicos, a position that required the occupant to press charges against delinquent residents or collect fees. The largest number, seven, were regidores, aldermen of sorts who represented a particular district.
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Farmers, on the other hand, seemingly earned more respect from compatriots. Of the sixty-two men who held municipal office in Los Angeles, twenty-nine claimed farming as their principal occupation. Another twelve tilled the land and supplemented their incomes by working as merchants or craftsmen. Even the five rancheros who won elections recognized the farmer's appeal. Four preferred to call themselves labradores proprietarios, or farmers. The remaining man preferred the title campista, an individual who used his property to grow crops and raise livestock. (5)
When the inhabitants of Los Angeles wished to speak of serious matters they referred to farming. Farming could include raising cattle, but if so the speakers would have referred directly to ranchos or livestock. But by mentioning crops, or cultivation, the speakers knew what images appealed to listeners. After word came that smallpox threatened Los Angeles in 1844, two citizens warned the municipal council that an epidemic "would decimate the population of laborers who work in agriculture--the only industry in the country." (6) Another inhabitant added that the scourge was a "destructive power ... that ... preys upon agriculture." (7) Californios in the northern parts of the province also used agrarian imagery. After the death of Governor Jose Maria Figueroa in 1835, his secretary, Juan Bautista Alvarado, described the governor as "one who planted the olive branch of peace and cultivated it in all manner of virtues which are progressively unfolding in the loyal breasts of these inhabitants; he to whom our agriculture owes its security and our commerce its protection." (8)
Nonetheless, when Bancroft's interlocutors praised the rancheros, they did not intend to mislead. Instead, as the observers, and performers, of history, they allowed sentiment to shape their recollections. The literary critic Genaro Padilla argues that the individuals who cooperated with Bancroft used the recuerdos to express their grief. They produced their testimonies in the late nineteenth century, when the Anglo Americans challenged, and in some cases undermined, the political and economic positions of the Spanish-speaking populace. To compensate for their loss, says Padilla, the Mexican Californians suffused the past with "a glow of the ideal and idyllic." (9) Thus, the ranchero embodied the stability coveted by a besieged and defeated people. As Padilla implies, by describing and even praising the ranchero, the Mexican Californians suggested that the harmony of bygone days had disappeared under Anglo American rule. They invoked the ranchero's image to lament their predicament and denounce their tormentors.
If the ranchero's status is open to question, perhaps it would work best to select an image, and by association the methodology, that would displace the assumptions that have long governed the interpretation of Mexican California. As a consequence, the idea of war--an activity that stands opposed in every way to the bucolic, pleasant images of rancheros at their labors--may promise a better way to evaluate how the inhabitants of Mexican California conducted their lives. Of course, as noted above, farming might qualify as a category of analysis. Perhaps so, but cultivation remained the livelihood of a small--though significant--group of men. Indians and women, not to mention non-Indians, comprised a landless majority more numerous than farmers. If any from this group did hoe or plant seed, they toiled in a farmer's employ. Love and marriage would appeal to many in Mexican California, as would be following the strictures of Roman Catholicism. But passion and affairs of the heart would excite the populace in different ways. Not all would fall in love, and if love did conquer, in time, as some in any age know all too well, love's flame would dim. (And passion, too, no matter how earnest, does not always translate into love.) As for religious obligation, reverence may be heartfelt for some, but for others it would be feigned, or spurned altogether.
Only war, with its threat of destruction and slaughter, could command the people's attention as nothing else would. Men and women, Indians and non-Indians, the young and old answered the call to arms or at least heeded the warnings that an enemy was on the march. In contrast, other activities like raising cattle, while important and certainly drawing upon the energies of many, rarely matched the attention the populace devoted to war. The Mexican Californians spoke about war in their writings. They warned of the consequences if an enemy emerged triumphant. They prepared for battle, primed their weapons, and waited for the onslaught. But if war seemed a certainty, there is some question about who, or what, was the enemy, and why some foes deserved death and some did not.
In the intersections of what we know and do not know about war, we bridge gaps or supply the missing detail, ever mindful that what seems to be often is not. For as in battle, surprises await. If all we have is a record of battles fought, or not fought, but lack explanation about the reasons why, we seek the rationale for the combatants' wish to wage war as they did. Their thinking may not always accord with ours, a modern people accustomed to the exigencies of nuclear conflict or the war on terror. War in Mexican California must be addressed on its own terms, with the participants' peculiarities figuring in any evaluation of strategy and tactics. As we will see, the political ideals of the era, just as much as the orders to shoulder arms, determined when and at whom the combatants aimed their weapons. By understanding war in the appropriate context, we can appreciate how the inhabitants of Mexican California saw themselves and their world.
THE CALIFORNIO APPROACH TO WAR
Off to battle we go! Between 1821 and 1846, the years that Mexico ruled the province of California, the Californios, the Spanish-speaking inhabitants, tried at least twelve times (see page 10) to dislodge a governor, defy a governor, or ensure that their favorite sat in the governor's chair. One would think that these encounters devastated the province. They did not. On some occasions, when the governor resided in town (he often lived in Monterey or Los Angeles), the Californios refrained from forming ranks and rebelled in other ways. In 1835, for example, some vaqueros, or cowboys, in Los Angeles seized the town hall to challenge Governor Jose Maria Figueroa but rode off after listing their demands. Eight years later, disgruntled Los Angeles residents planned to capture "the person" of Governor Pio Pico. The conspirators, though, bungled the plot and landed in jail for their troubles. (10) (They apparently gained their release in short order.)
In other episodes, the Californios at least prepared for war. When the time for battle approached, Californio men responded to a bell calling on members of the militia to assemble in the plaza where they heard fiery proclamations from officers or listened to town notables read appeals from loved ones. (11) In one instance, the women of Los Angeles, worried about the resolve of their fathers, brothers, and sweethearts, composed a declaration that urged the men to return victorious. (12) If triumph proved elusive, the women wrote, the men should die a heroic death. Presumably heartened by these calls to act bravely, the troops went off to battle. On at least four occasions, they and their rivals camped within sight of each other. They waited for the command to fight, waited, waited some more--and did nothing. If the sources can be believed, the commanders of each side rode out to parley and settled matters without shedding blood. (13)
If the command did come to fight--which happened at least four times--the opposing sides let loose with a fusillade but frequently missed and killed no one. (14) The contests, if that is the word, varied in tactics and intensity, but they often followed a general pattern. Each force, sometimes numbering as few as fifty regulars and volunteers but other times featuring...
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