Digging deep: Sources for "On A Mission"

The study of History, Art, and Science can give us the broad perspective we need for understanding who we are, where we came from, and the places where we live and travel. While writing On A Mission, I spent several years reading, interviewing, and researching. The deeper I looked into the history of California's missions, the more eye-popping connections and back stories I found. Here are some of the many invaluable books, primary sources and scientific papers that helped me put together the "big picture" of the missions.

From the Bibliography for On a Mission including new favorites:

· Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of California, Volume I, 1542-1800. Santa Barbara: Wallace Hebberd, 1963 (first published 1886).

· Beebe, Rose Marie and Senkewicz, Robert M. Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California 1535-1846. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. (Originally published Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2001) A fantastic compilation of orignal sources, with their notes.

· Brown, Alan K., Translator and Editor. With Anza to California 1775-1776: The Journal of Pedro Font, O.F.M. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011.

· Bryant, Edmund. What I Saw in California. Non-copyrighted, available online. A first-hand account of California at the end of the Mexican era as the Americans swept in.

· Burton-Carvajal, Julianne and Perry, Richard. Fray Junipero Serra & Company Before California: The Sierra Gorda de Queretero Missions. Santa Barbara: La Campana, the Journal of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, Vol. 39, No. 1, Winter 2013.

· Chapman, Charles E. History of California: The Spanish Period. New York: MacMillan, 1949 (first published 1921).

· Chavez, Thomas . Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 2002.

· Colton, Walter. The Land of Gold or: Three Years in California (1846-1849)

· Costansó, Miguel. The Discovery of San Francisco Bay, The Portola Expedition 1769-1770.

Lafayette, CA: Great West Books, 1992.

· Dana, Richard Henry, Two Years Before the Mast. First published in 1840.

· Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York, Norton & Co., 2005

· Erlandson, Jon M.; Jones, Terry L.; Porcasi, Judith F. and Torben, Rick C.

“One if by Land, Two If by Sea : Who Were the First Californians?” In California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity, Edited by Terry L. Jones and Kathryn A. Klar, Pages 53-62. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007.

· Fitch, A. H. Junipero Serra: The Man and His Work Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1914.

· Gamble, Lynn H. The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade and Feasting Among Complex Hunter-Gatherers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

· Gebhard, Patricia - George Washington Smith Architect of the Spanish Colonial Revival Gibbs Smith, Layton, Utah 2005

· Geiger, Maynard, O.F.M., Ph.D. The Indians of Mission Santa Barbara. Second Edition revised by John R. Johnson, Ph.D. Santa Barbara: Franciscan Press, Old Mission Santa Barbara, 2010.

· Golla, Victor. California Indian Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

· Haas, Lisbeth. Saints and Citizens: Indigenous Histories of Colonial Missions and Mexican California. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2014.

· Hackel, Steven W. Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005

· Helvarg, David. The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea. New World Library, Novato, Ca. 2016

· James, George Wharton. Francisco Palou’s Life and Apostolic Labors of the Venerable Father Junípero Serra. Kindle Edition, Amazon Digital Services.

· Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar, Editors. California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Published in Cooperation with the Society for California Archaeology. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press-A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007.

· Kimbro, Edna E., with Julia G. Costello and Terry Ball The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation. Getty Publications, 2009

· Lummis, Charles S. A Tramp Across the Continent (Introduction by Robert E. Fleming). Reproduced in 1982 by University of Nebraska Press.

· Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Random House, 2005. Also 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York, Random House, 2011.

· McLaughlin, David J. Soldiers, Scoundrels, Poets & Priests: Stories of the Men and Women Behind the Missions of California. Scottsdale, Arizona: Pentacle Press, 2004.

· Milliken, Randall. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810. Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1995.

· Mora, Joseph Jacinto. Californios, the saga of the hard-riding vaqueros, America’s first cowboys. Doubleday & Co., 1949

· Newcomb, Rexford. Spanish-Colonial Architecture in the United States. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1937 (exact reproduction published by Dover, 1990).

· Neuerburg, Norman. The Decoration of the California Missions. Santa Barbara: Bellerophon Books, 1991.

NEW FAVORITE: Paine, Lincoln. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. New York, Knopf, 2013. This amazing book is a magisterial labor of scholarship and love for the subject, dealing as it does with maritime history going back to the very beginning. Paine encourages us to look at history in a whole new light. It's heavy, so I got a second copy on Audible and listen to it whenever I can. Highly recommended.

· Phillips, George Harwood. Vineyards & Vaqueros: Indian Labor and the Economic Expansion of Southern California, 1771-1877. Oklahoma City: The Arthur H. Clark Company, an imprint of the University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.

NEW FAVORITE: Reséndez, Andrés. Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of Age of Discovery. New York, Harper Collins, 2021. A fabulous tale and a page-turner of real history—researched in the archives of Mexico City and Madrid and from countless forgotten sources—of the Black mariner who conquered the east-to-west route across the vast Pacific Ocean even before his fellow pilot, the famous friar-mariner Andres de Urdaneta. Because of their discovery, the California missions were (eventually) born. Don't miss!

· Portola, Gaspar De. Diary of Gaspar De Portola Of 1769-1770. Kindle Edition, Amazon Digital Services.

· Robinson, W.W. Land in California: The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters, Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip, Homesteads. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948 (originally published in the series The Chronicles of California). First Paperback Printing 1979. This "sleeper" book was found by a friend at a garage sale; it's an indispensable history of land ownership in California, and explains a lot.

· Sandos, James A. Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

· Spaulding, Edward W. Adobe Days Along the Channel. Grizzly Edition-The Schauer Printing Studio, 1957.

· Van de Grift Sanchez, Nellie. Spanish and Indian Place Names of California: Their Meaning and Their Romance. San Francisco, A. M. Robertson, 1930 (1st Ed. 1914).

· Webb, Edith Buckland. Indian Life at the Old Missions. University of Nebraska Press, 1952. Still the essential book on this subject; recommended by an anthropologist friend.

· Zimmerman, Tom. El Camino Real and the Route of the Daylight. Los Angeles: L.A. Railroad Heritage Foundation, 2013.