The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California Book

Antonio Mara Osios La Historia de Alta California was the first written history of upper California during the era of Mexican rule, and this is its first complete English translation. A Mexican-Californian, government official, and the landowner of Angel Island and Point Reyes, Osio writes colorfully of life in old Monterey, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and gives a first-hand account of the political intrigues of the 1830s that led to the appointment of Juan Bautista Alvarado as governor. Osio wrote his History in 1851, conveying with immediacy and detail the years of the U.S.-Mexican War of 18461848 and the social upheaval that followed. As he witnesses Californias territorial transition from Mexico to the United States, he recalls with pride the achievements of Mexican California in earlier decades and writes critically of the onset of U.S. influence and imperialism. Unable to endure life as foreigners in their home of twenty-seven years, Osio and his family left Alta California for Mexico in 1852. Osios account predates by a quarter century the better-known reminiscences of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Juan Bautista Alvarado and the memoirs of Californios dictated to Hubert Howe Bancrofts staff in the 1870s. Editors Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz have provided an accurate, complete translation of Osios original manuscript, and their helpful introduction and notes offer further details of Osios life and of society in Alta California. The publication of narratives and chronicles of Californios is long overdue. Beebe and Senkewiczs faithful translation of La Historia de Alta California contributes to the recovery of long-neglected material by Latinos in the U.S. They are pioneers in a growing field and I am certain this will be a watershed work.Rosaura Snchez, University of California, San DiegoRead More