Westways


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Beasts of the Field


Book Description

Written by one of America's preeminent labor historians, this book is the definitive account of one of the most spectacular, captivating, complex and strangely neglected stories in Western history--the emergence of migratory farmworkers and the development of California agriculture. Street has systematically worked his way through a mountain of archival materials--more than 500 manuscript collections, scattered in 22 states, including Spain and Mexico--to follow the farmworker story from its beginnings on Spanish missions into the second decade of the twentieth century. The result is a comprehensive tour de force. Scene by scene, the epic narrative clarifies and breathes new life into a controversial and instructive saga long surrounded by myth, conjecture, and scholarly neglect. With its panoramic view spanning 144 years and moving from the US-Mexico border to Oregon, Beasts of the Field reveals diverse patterns of life and labor in the fields that varied among different crops, regions, time periods, and racial and ethic groups. Enormous in scope, packed with surprising twists and turns, and devastating in impact, this compelling, revelatory work of American social history will inform generations to come of the history of California and the nation.




Californio Portraits


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First published in 1981, Harry W. Crosby’s Last of the Californios captured the history of the mountain people of Baja California during a critical moment of transition, when the 1974 completion of the transpeninsular highway increased the Californios’ contact with the outside world and profoundly affected their traditional way of life. This updated and expanded version of that now-classic work incorporates the fruits of further investigation into the Californios’ lives and history, by Crosby and others. The result is the most thorough and extensive account of the people of Baja California from the time of the peninsula’s occupation by the Spaniards in the seventeenth century to the present. Californio Portraits combines history and sociology to provide an in-depth view of a culture that has managed to survive dramatic changes. Having ridden hundreds of miles by mule to visit with various Californio families and gain their confidence, Crosby provides an unparalleled view of their unique lifestyle. Beginning with the story of the first Californios—the eighteenth-century presidio soldiers who accompanied Jesuit missionaries, followed by miners and independent ranchers—Crosby provides personal accounts of their modern-day descendants and the ways they build their homes, prepare their food, find their water, and tan their cowhides. Augmenting his previous work with significant new sources, material, and photographs, he draws a richly textured portrait of a people unlike any other—families cultivating skills from an earlier century, living in semi-isolation for decades and, even after completion of the transpeninsular highway, reachable only by mule and horseback. Combining a revised and updated text with a new foreword, introduction, and updated bibliography, Californio Portraits offers the clearest and most detailed portrait possible of a fascinating, unique, and inaccessible people and culture.




Deadly Dozen


Book Description

TWELVE FORGOTTEN GUNFIGHTERS OF THE OLD WEST. THE COMBINED STORIES OF 'DEADLY DOZEN' OFFER AN INTENSIVE LOOK INTO THE LIVES OF IMPOSING FIGURES WHO IN THEIR OWN WAYS SHAPED THE LEGENDARY OLD WEST.




Zuni Indian Tribe Lands Bill


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Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: G-O


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Includes biographical information on 4,500 individuals associated with the frontier







Rebels in the Rockies


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The Civil War in 1861 found Southerners a minority throughout the West. Early efforts to create military forces were quickly suppressed. Many returned to the South to fight while others remained where they were, forming a potentially disloyal population. Underground movements existed throughout the war in Colorado, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and even Idaho. Repeatedly betrayed and overwhelmed by Union forces and without communications with the South, these groups were ineffective. In southern New Mexico, Southerners, who were the majority, aligned themselves with the Confederacy. Four small companies of irregulars, one Hispanic, fought (effectively) as part of the abortive Confederate invasion force of 1861-2. The most famous of these, the "Brigands," were close in function to a modern special forces unit. In 1862 the Brigands were sent into Colorado to join up with a secret army of 600-1,000 men massing there, but were betrayed. Returning to Texas, the Brigands and the other irregulars were used for special operations in the West throughout the War; they also fought in the Louisiana-Arkansas campaigns of 1863-4.