The Father of All

Over the past generation, historians of the Spanish and Mexican borderlands have added abundantly to our knowledge of the institutions, people, and places of the region that once belonged to Spain and Mexico—the American Southwest. Building on the foundational work of Herbert E. Bolton and his students, historians have expanded and deepened an understanding of the role of Spanish/Mexican missions, presidios, pueblos, and the inhabitants of these places in the far northern frontier of Spain, and after independence, the Republic of Mexico. Louise Pubols’s study of José de la Guerra y Noriega, and the impact he and his family had on the politics, culture, and economy of frontier California is a welcomed and important addition to this historiography. The Father of All focuses on one of the most powerful figures in California in the pre-American era, though it is only partly a biography of de la Guerra. Using a well-known person in history to tell a story about the larger society is both a difficult and dangerous task for historians, but Pubols accomplishes it with grace and clarity. The result is an excellent detailed narrative of how Spanish and Mexican California society was organized around a system of patriarchy and kinship ties woven into the social, cultural, and economic fabric of society. Borderland historians are generally familiar with this story as it played out in locales stretching from Texas to California, but Pubols digs deeper than most to reveal the intricacies and nuances of male patriarchy told through the life of de la Guerra, his family, and the Spanish-origin society that took root in California

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Biography · Frontier · Genealogy · Historiography · Independence (probability theory · Kinship · Narrative · Patriarchy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeology and Natural History · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Migration, Health, Geopolitics, Historical Geography