The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California by Antonio María Osio (review)

514BOOK REVIEWS of religious faiths. More than a reference volume on Indiana and midwestern religion , Hoosier Faiths is in a class by itself as a work intended for the general reader but also useful to scholars. Joseph M.White Indianapolis, Indiana The History ofAlta California:A Memoir ofMexican California. By Antonio Maria Osio. Translated, edited, and annotated by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz. (Madison:The University ofWisconsin Press. 1996. Pp. Xu, 388. $45.00 hardcover, $19.95 paperback.) This work is a solid contribution to the continuing effort to understand Mexican California and the experience of the Hispanic californio population as it struggled through the transition from Spanish to Mexican to U.S. rule in less than three decades.While this period in California history often has been treated from the governmental and ecclesiastical perspectives, the memoirs used to narrate the experiences ofthe general californio population previously have dated from a full quarter of a century after the U.S. conquest, and even longer after many of the events related. Antonio Maria Osio came from Baja California and was a resident ofAlta California from 1825 until 1852. In 1851, he composed this history, which covers the years from 1815 through the U.S. conquest.The story begins with a letter from Osio to FatherJosé María Suárez del Real, a Franciscan then serving at Mission Santa Clara, agreeing to the friar's suggestion that he compose a history of Alta California. It ends with Osio's narrative of the events leading to the end of hostilities between the U.S. and Mexico and the beginning ofU.S. sovereignty, as well as brief, poignant references to the discovery of gold and the incipient expropriation of californio landowners, himself included, as the speculators and lawyers descended on the new American state. Osio held land grants at Point Reyes, in present day Marin County, and on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.Although he made every effort to retain adequate legal representation and secured substantial testimony regarding the validity of his title to these lands, he lost them in the flurry of legal manipulation which erupted with the arrival of U.S. rule. No doubt the pain of this perceived injustice attended his resettlement in Mexico and augmented his sense that the californios, ever aware of their Hispanic heritage, would always be viewed as aliens in their own land. Antonio Maria Osio's story ofMexican California is a treat in itself. It has been rendered even more valuable by the meticulous scholarship and linguistic skills of Professors Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, both of Santa Clara University.The translation is rendered in an enjoyable style which evokes the oral tradition behind much of Osio's information, as well as his own epistolary format. It also integrates Spanish -words and phrases in a natural flow which highlights the personal and cultural tone of the story. Professors Beebe and book reviews515 Senkewicz have included many other helpful dimensions to this volume.There is an introduction which provides the reader with a briefbiography ofAntonio Maria Osio and the context in which he came to write his memoir. The introduction also includes a history of the Osio manuscript itself, which is a wonderful exercise in historiography and would serve as a useful case study for beginning historians. Sixty-three pages of notes, placed after Osio's history, add depth and specificity to the primary source account and provide the reader with background for Osio's narration. There are abundant illustrations, photographs , maps, a diagram ofthe Osio family tree, a fine bibliography, and a helpful index.Two other especially thoughtful inclusions are twenty-seven pages of biographical sketches which identify and introduce the various persons noted in Osio's story, and a glossary of Spanish words which remain in Spanish in the translated English text. Professors Beebe and Senkewicz have provided a great service in bringing Antonio Maria Osio's memoir to life with such rich supporting scholarship and literary style. Michael Charles Neri St. Patrick's Seminary Menlo Park, California Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America. By Richard T. Hughes. (Grand Rapids, Michigan:William B. Eerdmans...