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The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California
Antonio María Osio’s 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 1846–1848 and the social upheaval that followed. As he witnesses California’s 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.
Osio’s 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 Bancroft’s staff in the 1870s. Editors Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz have provided an accurate, complete translation of Osio’s original manuscript, and their helpful introduction and notes offer further details of Osio’s life and of society in Alta California.
Osio wrote his History in 1851, conveying with immediacy and detail the years of the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846–1848 and the social upheaval that followed. As he witnesses California’s 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.
Osio’s 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 Bancroft’s staff in the 1870s. Editors Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz have provided an accurate, complete translation of Osio’s original manuscript, and their helpful introduction and notes offer further details of Osio’s life and of society in Alta California.
- GenresHistory
388 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1996
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March 10, 2010
It took me two hundred years to read this, but not because I didn't like it. I'm slow; and I was reading it in the evenings while I put my daughter to bed, and sometimes she was supportive of my project and other times she kicked me in the ribs and insisted I read the latest issue of babybug; and it is a confusing book.
It's confusing because it covers a tumultuous period in California history, the twenty-five years before the Mexican-American war, when it was a territory of Mexico, a period was marked by seemingly ceaseless revolts and rebellions. It is confusing because the author, Osio, seems to assume his audience knows something of the events and people he is writing about-- he is just giving his version-- but for the amateur, it's an overwhelming cast of characters. And, it is confusing because when he writes about events in which he played a part, he does not say "I" but, for instance, calls himself "the sindico" or "Sepulveda's friend."
I haven't come close to absorbing everything I read in this book, but I'm glad I read it, and I'm glad I have it. Unlike other accounts of Alta California, it was written very soon after the events described, and it was written out of Osio's own inspiration and feelings, not as a result of leading interviews (the major work on this period, Bancroft's History of California, was apparently compiled from interviews that preferred the words of American fur-trappers over those of the Mexican ranchers). Also, the scholarly apparatus (that's right: scholarly apparatus) is excellent. The notes are detailed and approachable. They fill in everything I missed in the text, and they're very good at explaining context.
It's confusing because it covers a tumultuous period in California history, the twenty-five years before the Mexican-American war, when it was a territory of Mexico, a period was marked by seemingly ceaseless revolts and rebellions. It is confusing because the author, Osio, seems to assume his audience knows something of the events and people he is writing about-- he is just giving his version-- but for the amateur, it's an overwhelming cast of characters. And, it is confusing because when he writes about events in which he played a part, he does not say "I" but, for instance, calls himself "the sindico" or "Sepulveda's friend."
I haven't come close to absorbing everything I read in this book, but I'm glad I read it, and I'm glad I have it. Unlike other accounts of Alta California, it was written very soon after the events described, and it was written out of Osio's own inspiration and feelings, not as a result of leading interviews (the major work on this period, Bancroft's History of California, was apparently compiled from interviews that preferred the words of American fur-trappers over those of the Mexican ranchers). Also, the scholarly apparatus (that's right: scholarly apparatus) is excellent. The notes are detailed and approachable. They fill in everything I missed in the text, and they're very good at explaining context.
Displaying 1 of 1 review