Dreams of Small Countries: How Californios, Land Conflicts, and Race Shaped the Golden State (The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History)

Prior to US conquest, a group of elite, mixed-race Mexicans called Californios nurtured the dream of patria chica (“small homeland”) in what is now the state of California.Californios' settler dreams of wealth and privilege depended upon controlling Indigenous land and labor, but after Anglo settlers and the US Army arrived, Californios struggled to hold onto their own way of life. Camille Suárez shows that rather than challenge the new regime, elite Californios allied with both the US Army and Anglo settlers, whom they viewed as racial counterparts, to ensure that their dream survived.Despite their differences, Californio and Anglo settlers initially worked together to subjugate Indigneous peoples and exclude non-white residents.However, Californios failed to see that their own lands and power stood in the way of the white settler state.Over time, the legal regime Californios helped shape undermined their own political power, whiteness, and claims to the land.By centering Californios