Book Notes

(from the California HISTORIAN)

Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846
Edited by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz
Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, and Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA, 2001, 506 pages, $21.95

Reviewed by Ruth E. Sutter
Independent Scholar, San Francisco

Lands of Promise and Despair is a new collection of primary sources. The editors chose ones that convey an “insider’s view” instead of the more frequently published travelers’ accounts of early California. Several are in new English translations by Rose Marie Beebe.
The individual readings together constitute a well-written narrative of the periods of Spanish exploration, colonization and settlement and Mexican governance.

The excerpts from explorers’ reports in Part I show native peoples mostly in relation to Spanish plans for them. The Spaniards made plans for their settlement on native lands from the first years of the conquest. Based on traditions in Spanish history, the conquistadores laid out towns (pueblos), built forts near them (presidios) and assigned lands and natives (encomiendas) to the individuals who participated in the conquest. The clergymen who accompanied the armies established churches and congregated native peoples near them in “missions.” Beebe and Senkewicz show what happened to these institutions as the areas of settlement expanded and, later, governance changed from Spanish to Mexican.

Readers can sample changes in the pueblos, for example. Pueblos were not towns in today’s American usage of the word. They were jurisdictions. Some households and public buildings were in close proximity but fields and pastures were included in them. In Alta California, Felipe de Neve, an army officer who was appointed governor of the Californias (Baja and Alta) in 1775 wrote detailed regulations for organizing and governing pueblos. He later wrote about their economic functions. In 1809 Joaquín de Arrillaga and José María Estudillo wrote about pueblo conflicts. In 1827 the citizens of San Diego petitioned for local self-government independent of military authority.

Other topics include relations between natives and invaders, relations between clergy and soldiers and civilian settlers, changing ecologies and crime and punishment. The book has drawings, two color portfolios, maps that provide informative illustrations, a chronology, a list of governors and a glossary.