California Rancho Days and a strange congruence

I should be dusting and vacuuming up giant dog hair dust devils. That is not the congruence.

The congruence is that I'm working on an abridged version of Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson see previous post), preparing to go see the pageant, reading about the author and some literary criticism AND my daughter is doing her fourth grade project on the California Missions.

Dear Reader, I will exempt you from sharing my glee. But there it is: serendipitous marvelous congruence. 

I quell my enthusiasm as my daughter looks at the project with some indifference. I try to soften my squeals of sheer delight. "Please pick Mission San BuenaVentura." I plead. (It's the one near Rancho Camulos - original supposed inspiration for Ramona's upbringing.)

  She shrugs. "Sure."

   "Yes!" I shout. (internally) 

   These are the things that tickle my fancy.

   And.... We just happen to be camping in Carpinteria - near the mission next week end! Another delightful coincidence. Of course we will stop. We must! 

Oh the book! Published in 1957. This is a nostalgic look at the laid back days of the Californios. When Mexico was called New Spain, many of the soldiers and some others who helped the Spaniards explore California were given tracts of land. They wished to stay in California and became the first rancheros. After Mexico declared its independence (1822), the missions were secularized and the rancheros acquired even more land and cattle ushering in "the golden era" of the rancheros. (Ranchos went from being about 20 to being hundreds). The "golden age" would last about 15 years until the industrious Americans moved in and took over both politically and industrially. The gold rush dramatically changed the cultural landscape of fair California. 

The Author tells stories about the prominent ranchos and their founders. The short stories are full of anecdotes and tales describing the carefree and happy lives of the Spanish/Mexican rancheros and their families. (Some of them were anglos who deeply inculterated like my Yankee ancestor Julian Ames who married a Spanish daughter and became catholic.) The living was easy and gaiety and hospitality were the rule of the day. It seems this was made possible by the serfdom of many local native tribes. The author glosses over this and focuses her description on the class that conquered. It seems the hard work was done by the aforementioned. In return they received food, shelter, and clothing.

   

I have no doubt that there may have been incidents of happiness and mutual affection between the races. Helen Hunt Jackson demonizes some white Americans who moved in and further marginalized an already repressed people group. I haven't done enough research myself on this particular era to do anything but speculate about this period from the native perspective. It is pretty well known that their numbers were decimated by the influx of European diseases.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the descriptions of the rancheros - their lavish clothing, way of life, and generous gallantry. I love everything southwestern. I adore mission architecture and adobe structures (my dream house is an adobe on a mesa somewhere). It's a heritage that brought us vaqueros, rodeos, fandangos, riatas - it shaped the cowboy/ranch culture that I grew up in a great deal. These were the predecessors to my own ranching ancestors (the industrious Germans/Scots/Irish who swept into California in the latter part of the 1800s and tamed the more arid interior of California.