Christine’s Reviews > The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, and Songs & Reminiscences > Status Update

Shock and horrified to learn 1850’s California law allowed the slavery of California indigenous peoples if a white landowner stated they were vagrants. I don’t recall learning this in school at all. I remember to some extent the distancing of California from unjust laws of the south and the acts of Spanish missionaries. Disappointed to discover the level of sanitation of Californian white immigrants and laws.

I really like that individuals’ recounting of their lives, poems, songs, and myths are all in a larger font, while a broad summary and description (e.g., the elements from said story that apply to just that one tribe, all tribes in California, other insights, etc.) is in a smaller font and in short chunks.
It really gives the feeling of oral traditions and valuing the interviewees’ own words and accounts.