Intimate Frontiers

by Hurtado, Albert L.

• ISBN13: 9780826319548
• ISBN10: 0826319548
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr

Summary

This book reveals how powerful undercurrents of sex, gender, and culture helped shape the history of the American frontier from the 1760s to the 1850s. Looking at California under three flags -- those of Spain, Mexico, and the United States -- Hurtado resurrects daily life in the missions, at mining camps, on overland trails and sea journeys, and in San Francisco. In these settings Hurtado explores courtship, marriage, reproduction, and family life as a way to understand how men and women -- whether Native American, Anglo American, Hispanic, Chinese, or of mixed blood -- fit into or reshaped the roles and identities set by their race and gender.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
List of Tables	xi
Foreword	xiii
Preface	xvii
Introduction: The Intimate Challenges of a Multicultural Frontier	xxi
Sexuality in California's Franciscan Missions: Cultural Perceptions and Historical Realities	1	(20)
Customs of the Country; Mixed Marriage in Mexican California	21	(24)
Crossing the Borders: Sex, Gender, and the Journey to California	45	(30)
His Own Will and Pleasure: Miners, Morals, and the Crisis of the Marriage Market	75	(40)
Amelia's Body: The Limits of Female Agency in Frontier California	115	(14)
Intimate Frontiers	129	(14)
Notes	143	(24)
Index	167