Quote:
Originally Posted by ilbegone
I have to add to a concept in the previous post concerning the racist UCLA university professor's book for students:
In a province with little to no money, wealth was determined by land ownership and cattle, and commerce was conducted largely by bartering cow hides and tallow to Yankee traders for goods.
The very few post Mexican liberation Californio soldiers (the original Spanish colonizing soldiery and their descendants) were unpaid by the Mexican government, wore threadbare clothing, and existed on the charity of the missions. Criminals impressed as "soldiers" from Mexico proper and sent to California as "security" for Mexican governors were unpaid as well but lived by robbing the local population - until the "natives" forced them to return to Mexico.
Out of a population of perhaps 4000 (quite a few related) just prior to the 1846 Mexican American war, maybe 300 were literate and a very few were extremely educated - such as the aforementioned Antonio Maria Osio.
Mexico didn't treat the somewhat comparable but much more hostile and violent ("Indian trouble") Texas frontier much better than bastard stepchild California, nor Rio Grande Valley New Mexico ("Indian trouble" too) either.
New Spain and Mexico didn't have the steam to sufficiently populate and economically stimulate the northern frontier and California. Generally, few came north unless forced or mislead as to the conditions (such as starving Canary Islander immigrants to Texas during the Spanish period). California was originally colonized by soldiers and priests, with land grants primarily given to retired soldiers and their descendants as well as to the missions. Life would be rough for convicts and societal outcasts exiled to California due to very little economic opportunity.
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This is exactly what California was back then. Mexicans didn't want to live here, so far from Mexico City and the land grants Mexico handed out like candy went to anyone who would come this far south, which was very, very few. Mexico couldn't protect the land because Mexicans didn't want to be here. But I'll add that even after the USA bought the land from the Mexican Government, those that produced those land grants kept their land. The USA only claimed the Mexican Government land that was paid for, all privately owned land was retained by those that could produce a Mexican land grant, which wasn't all that many because they wouldn't come here.