-
2. Testifying Bodies: Citizenship Debates in Bret Harte's Gabriel Conroy
- University of Washington Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
2 Testifying Bodies Citizenship Debates in Bret Harte's Gabriel Conroy ANDREA TINNEMEYER PUBLISHED IN 18 7 6 , GABRIEL CONROY, BRET Harte's obscure nove}! ofmultiple disguises, hustlers, two-timing women, cannibals, legal and illegal fights over mining rights, and the Indian and Chinese Questions mimics posturings occurring mid·century on a national scale. Harte moved to California in r854 on the heels ofthe Gold Rush and worked for local newspapers such as the San Francisco Golden Era before gaining notoriety for his ownwriting as editorand contributor to The Overfand Monthly. Theyear r854 was pivotal in the Southwest because it marked the California Supreme Court decision of People v. HaU regarding the racial and national identityofChinese immigrants. Itwas also the year ofthe Gads· den Purchase, a predictable consequence of the United States-Mexican War, which had ended a mere six years prior.2 The Gadsden Purchase revisited citizenship issues raised bythe peace treaty between Mexico and the United States and reopened the debate over eligibility requirements. As recently as 1790, the United States had declared that citizenship was exclusively reserved for "free white persons " (Almaguer 24). On the surface, the Treaty ofGuada1upe Hidalgo, which ended the United States-Mexican War, appeared to extend citi31 zenshiptoall fonner Mexican citizens, butbecauseit threatenedto challengethe "whiteonly" composition ofUnited Statescitizenry, ratification stalled over the Indian Question. Harte attempts to answer the multifaceted Indian Question-which alsoappliedto Mexicans (mestizos) and Chinese-through the character ofGrace Conroy, who takes on a mestiza identity to avoid a social fall resulting from an unwed pregnancy and thebarredtestimonyofAh Fe, aChineseimmigrantwho couldexonerate amurder suspect. Hartefurther challenges the racial composition of United States citizens in a fictional account (John Doe alias Gabriel Conroy v. Jane Roe alias Julie Conroy) ofthe murder trial ofGeorge W, Hallthatoccasionedthe California SupremeCourtdecision of1854.Tying these two plotlines together-the racial masquerade of Grace Conroy and the murdertrialofVictor Ramirez-is the politicalaftennathofthe United States-Mexican War. Gabriel Conroy fictionalizes the United States-MexicanWar's repercussions in Californiaanddwells particularlyonthelegal and racial implications of legislation like Article IX that extended United States citizenshipto allfonner Mexicancitizens. Harte'snovel reflectstheWar's tumultuous impacton Native Americans, Chinese, andMexican Americans , who jockeyed for positions of political and social legitimacy through vexed engagements with whiteness and racial otherness. Through the course ofthis essay, I will examine how Harte's novel cri· tiques the United States-Mexican War's impact on United States race relations both by decentering whiteness through legal maneuvers for citizenship rights and by disrupting the family romance, which served as a cradle for national consolidation) Setin anewly fonned miningtown overcrowded withgamblers and charlatans. all making multiple false claims about their familial relationships in order to inherit a silver mine, Harte's Gabriel Conroy provides afictional petri dish for observingthe legacies ofManifest Destiny in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the Foreign Miners' Tax (1850), theGadsden Purchase (1854), and Peoplev. Hall (1854), The novel chronicles the lives offictional survivors ofa catastrophe based on that of the Donner Party, a group ofwould·be settlers who were forced to tum tocannibalisminordertosurviveaharsh winterinthe Sierra Nevada in February, 1847. Harte's characters include: Gabriel Conroy, his sister Grace (a.k.a. Dona Dolores Salvatierra, a.k.a. Mrs. Peter Dumphy), 32 ANDREA TlNNEMEYER [54.234.6.167] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:38 GMT) Philip Ashley (a.k.a. Arthur Poinsett), Peter Dumphy (the cannibal and, not coincidentally, a lawyer), Julie Devarges (a.k.a. Grace Conroy), and Victor Ramirez (Julie's jiltedloverwhose death occasions the novel's sensational court case). Three events transpiring between members ofthe emigrant party significantly impact the subplots ofthe novel: before he dies, renowned scientist Dr. Devarges bequeaths his silver mine claim to Grace Conroy; Grace leaves the party with Philip Ashley, her lover who impregnates and subsequently abandons her; and Devarges's exwife , Julie, impersonates Grace and then marries Grace's brother, Gabriel, in the hopes ofreclaiming the silvermine. The real Grace Conroy assumes a mestiza identity as Dona Dolores Salvatierra, and only returns to reclaim her identity as Grace when her brother is put on trial for thedeathofJulia's ex-lover, Victor Ramirez. Indeed, Ramirez's death (a bizarre suicide-he falls upon his own knife) culminates in alengthy murder trial in which Harte, ineffect. puts United States legislative acts on trial. All in the Family Although both family and national romances in the nineteenth century expanded to include differences in gender, they did not accommodate differences in race. Indeed, for Anglo Americans the family romance was a homogenizing...