Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815-1848

Translated with introduction and commentary by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz

From the editors of the highly influential Lands of Promise and Despair, here are thirteen women's firsthand accounts from the time California was part of Spain and Mexico.

When in the early 1870s historian Hubert Howe Bancroft sent interviewers out to gather oral histories from the pre-statehood gentry of California, he didn't count on one thing: the women. When the men weren't available, the interviewers collected the stories of the women of the household—almost as an afterthought. These were eventually archived at the University of California, although many were all but forgotten.

Having lived through the gold rush and seen their country change so drastically, these women understood the need to tell the full story of the people and the places that were their California.

Published in collaboration with the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title

Reviews

"Testimonios is a pioneering work of scholarship and critical interpretation by two of the finest Hispanicists active in early California studies. It is also a deeply moving act of liberation in which thirteen women are called forth from the tomb of neglected history so that they might at long last speak to us of their lives and times and the California they helped bring into being."—Kevin Starr, Professor of History, University of Southern California

"A fascinating look at life in Alta California between 1815 and 1845 through the narratives of women....Highly recommended."—Choice

"A treasure many people--scholars, students, and armchair historians--will appreciate." —California History

About the Editors

Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz teach Spanish and history, respectively, at Santa Clara University. Together they are the authors of Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846 and the editors of Guide to Manuscripts Concerning Baja California in the Collections of the Bancroft Library. They translated and edited The History of Alta California by Antonio María Osio, and they are also co-editors of Boletín: The Journal of the California Mission Studies Association.