Part I. Please answer the essay questions below in 3 paragraphs each.
1. Explain how the lives of Native Americans in California changed under the dominance of peoples of European descent from the initial arrival of the Spanish through to the early 1850s. What impacts did arriving peoples of European descent have on native cultural, economic, and political practices? How did Native Californians respond to the presence of various peoples of European descent and the new societies they sought to create in California? (I’m using the phrase “peoples of European descent” here to cover more than just the original Spanish colonizers)
2. Describe how the arrival of growing numbers of Anglo-Americans affected California society in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. You may consider how growing Anglo-American dominance changed society, the environment, the economy, and the lives of various racial/ethnic groups, among other possible changes.
Part II. Please complete these two short answer questions in 1-2 paragraphs each.
1. In Chapter 5 of Intimate Frontiers, what are the circumstances of Amelia Kuschinsky’s death? How does her death square with what Hurtado has to say in this chapter about the riskiness of life for women in mid-19th century California?
2. In Chapter 6 of Intimate Frontiers, what do the changes Hurtado traces in the tone of Bret Harte’s writing over time tell us about how white Americans wished to remember the early years of California’s American period?
Important Terms
California missions
gente de razón/ gente sin razón
Chumash Uprising of 1824
Jedidiah Smith
Mexican Land Grants
Sutter’s Fort
Manifest Destiny
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Case of Archie (Archy) Lee
Foreign Miners’ Tax, 1850
Foreign Miners’ Tax, 1852
hydraulic mining
doctrine of prior appropriation
Bureau of Land Commissioners
Battle of Mussel Slough
Denis Kearney
Article XIX
Chinese Exclusion Act
Modoc War
Pacific Railroad Act
The Central Pacific
Southern Pacific Political Bureau
“Shame of California”