Describes changing white views of native California Indians as Spanish victims, useful laborers, and, finally, obstacles to white expansion

Eyewitness account from a twenty-one year old Bostonite of his hide and tallow trading days in Mexican California.

Re-examines the life of John Sutter in the context of America's rush for westward expansion in a fully documented account of the Swiss expatriate and would-be empire builder and his times.

Series statement from author's Material dreams. Bibliography: p. 460-479.

For more than two centuries the peaceful grasslands east of the Gabilans in San Benito and south Santa Clara counties have captivated Californians. East of the Gabilans is a unique history of this special land.Here is the record of the Spanish and Mexican land grants, the ranchos of pre-American California, the lives of the Spanish and Mexicans, and the advent of the Americans in the 1840s and 1850s -- the Castros, the Breens, the towns of San Juan Bautista, Hollister, Gilroy, and Tres Pinos, and Henry Miller, the Cattle King,