Contact me to schedule a talk for your group
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Talks can be customized for your group's special interests.
In-person talks include book signing.
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"Your talk at the Maritime Museum was over the top and I was happy to get a chance to hear it again on their website. Very enlightening from a global perspective!" ​
Lecture attendee, 2024
January 16, 2025
Lecture for the Sonoma-Petaluma State Parks at Mission San Francisco Solano
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"New Perspectives on California's
Mission History"​
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To celebrate publication of the updated 2nd edition of On a Mission, which readers have described as “far-reaching,” “comprehensive” and “remarkable,” I was privileged to have a capacity audience that included some real history experts and a number of dedicated State Park interpretive rangers. They asked great questions about the missions' little-known global context, connections, and the latest discoveries that help us to understand how early and by what route the First Americans—California's "First Pioneers"—arrived.
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My sincerest thanks to the folks at the Sonoma-Petaluma State Parks!
Be sure to visit historic Sonoma, the Plaza, the Barracks Museum and bookstore, the Vallejo home, the historic local wineries, and especially Mission San Francisco Solano with its wonderful collection of mission watercolors by early 20th-century artist Chris Jorgensen.
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If you have time for a day trip to the last Russian outpost in California, drive to Fort Ross State Historic Park—an hour and a half up the coast from Sonoma. Set on the scenic Sonoma Coast, studded with majestic redwoods on its impossibly steep hillsides—this beautifully restored 19th-century settlement is another absolutely fabulous California State Park.
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October 15, 2024
Zoom Presentation for the Fort Worth Westerners
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"Way out West!
The California Missions—
Context, Connections, and Surprises"
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This Zoom lecture brought California's history to a
Texas and Midwest audience.
The Fort Worth Corral of Westerners International is open to all,
and hosts a program by Zoom on the 3rd Tuesday of each month.
To join the Zoom, or for information about joining this active Corral
of the Westerners International, Click here to visit their website.
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Past talks include:
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum, Old Mission Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, The Sonoma-Petaluma State Parks, Mission San Luis Obispo, Mission Santa Clara, Westerners International Corrals in Santa Barbara, Flagstaff, Tombstone and Fort Worth, Texas; the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History's Science Pub series, and the Hope Ranch Riding & Trails Association
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View my 2024 presentation to the
Santa Barbara Historical Museum
(click here)
You can watch this illustrated lecture on the Santa Barbara Historical Museum's YouTube channel.
Visit SBHistorical.org to learn more about this wonderful museum---and I urge you to visit them soon in Santa Barbara.
The new edition of my book is available now in the Museum's online store.
This program covered surprising—and important—new ways to think about California's missions
The First Californians—when did they arrive and how did they get here? That's a hot topic these days.
Why Spain? Another question we don't ask often enough. It was always about TRADE with the Far East, and the Crown's dual mandate.
Do you know about George Washington's Spanish Saviors?
Valladolid: Debating the morality of conquest and universal human rights—in Spain, in the 1500s.
It's always about the Big Picture.
Recent previews of my next book...
I presented a new talk featuring two great stories from my upcoming "Collision of Cultures" on October 19th, 2023 at the Flagstaff Corral of Westerners and on March 7th, 2024 at the Cochise County Corral of Westerners in Tombstone.
A presentation for the
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum
(click here to view)
To see this talk online, visit the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum's website—click on "Lectures and Events" to see "Past Lectures."
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PRESS RELEASE: The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) presents “Global History and the California Missions: A Sea Story” with author, artist, educator, and native Californian Janet Dowling Sands on Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 7:00. This beautifully illustrated presentation will explain how the missions are inextricably linked to global maritime history and prehistory.
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Ms. Sands will discuss the far-ranging geopolitical context of the California missions and presidios, including some “surprises and sidebars” and the fascinating connection of an Enlightenment-era Spanish viceroy who, after launching the mission project in 1769, turned his attention to the success (or failure) of the American Revolution.
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She will also raise some important questions about how we should regard and study the mission era today, when colonialism itself is often a highly controversial and sensitive topic. Her talk will conclude with a brief illustrated “road trip” to see the missions and surviving asistencias, and she will invite the audience to share their thoughts in a Q & A.
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BELOW: SAMPLE IMAGES FROM PRESENTATIONS
