This is the world premiere complete publication of Narciso Botellos important Annals of Southern California, a work focusing on the years 1833 - 1847 when California was emerging from its years of isolation and seclusion with dramatic turmoil, social change, political intrigues, and armed conflicts. Botello, living in that dusty pueblo Los Angeles, records a swirl of events and personalitiestragic love, crime, warfare, treachery, invasionall bound together by the characteristic bravado and intricate web of loyalties of the native Californios. This spirited English translation of the original, amplified by detailed notes and insightful commentary, draws the reader deep into the surprising events of the turbulent final years of Mexican California.
Through a fascinating discussion of religion's role in the rhetoric of American civilizing empire, The Imperial Church undertakes an exploration of how Catholic mission histories served as a useful reference for Americans narrating US settler colonialism on the North American continent and seeking to extend military, political, and cultural power around the world. Katherine D. Moran traces historical celebrations of Catholic missionary histories in the upper Midwest, Southern California, and the US colonial Philippines to demonstrate the improbable centrality of the Catholic missions to ostensibly Protestant imperial endeavors. Moran shows that, as the United States built its continental and global dominion and an empire of production and commerce in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Protestant and Catholic Americans began to celebrate Catholic imperial pasts. She demonstrates that American Protestants joined their Catholic compatriots in speaking with admiration about historical Catholic missionaries: the Jesuit Jacques Marquette in the Midwest, the Franciscan JunÃpero Serra in Southern California, and the Spanish friars in the Philippines. Comparing them favorably to the Puritans, Pilgrims, and the American Revolutionary generation, commemorators drew these missionaries into a cross-confessional pantheon of US national and imperial founding fathers. In the process, they cast Catholic missionaries as gentle and effective agents of conquest, uplift, and economic growth, arguing that they could serve as both origins and models for an American civilizing empire. The Imperial Church connects Catholic history and the history of US empire by demonstrating that the religious dimensions of American imperial rhetoric have been as cross-confessional as the imperial nation itself.
Five lively firsthand accounts of real life in the exciting pre-Yankee era of Californias rich history are offered in this bookfour of them world premiere publications, and all of them new and complete translations. This was an era not only of political intrigues and sectional clashes but also of upheaval as new ideas and attitudes came to a conservative Californian society. Piracy, kidnapping, lust, Indian uprisings, and scenes of battle all vie for the readers attention with fascinating passages about everyday life in the missions and presidios, governmental offices, and barracks. Governors are ejected, invaders fought, revolts arise, and plots hatched. While largely centered in Southern California, these accounts also bring us north to the Bay area and south to Baja California and farther. The reader of these memoirs will enjoy an intimate experience of life as it really wasa personal view not to be found in standard textbooks. As before with the authors previous foray into California history, Narciso Botellos Annals 18331847, the original manuscripts are rendered into a spirited English translation, capturing the nuances and vigor of these adventures in a land so familiar yet so exotic.
