This volume makes available a remarkable body of writings, the only indigenous account of early nineteenth-century California. Written by Pablo Tac, this work on Luiseño language and culture offers a new approach to understanding California’s colonial history. Born and raised at Mission San Luis Rey, near San Diego, Pablo Tac became an international scholar. He traveled to Rome, where he studied Latin and other subjects, and produced these historical writings for the Vatican Librarian Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti. In this multifaceted volume, Pablo Tac’s study is published in the original languages and in English translation. Lisbeth Haas introduces Pablo Tac’s life and the significance of the record he left. She situates his writing among that of other indigenous scholars, and elaborates on its poetic quality. Luiseño artist James Luna considers Tac’s contemporary significance in a series of artworks that bring Pablo Tac into provocative juxtaposition with the present day. Transcribed by Marta Eguía, Cecilia Palmeiro, Laura León Llerena, Jussara Quadros, and Heidi Morse, with facing-page translation by Jaime Cortez, Guillermo Delgado, Gildas Hamel, Karl Kottman, Heidi Morse, and Rose Vekony

Learn about the rich history of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia: how it started, the people who ran it, the indigenous population, and its legacy today.

This copious collection of reminiscences, reports, letters, and documents allows readers to experience the vast and varied landscape of early California from the viewpoint of its inhabitants. What emerges is not the Spanish California depicted by casual visitors—a culture obsessed with finery, horses, and fandangos—but an ever-shifting world of aspiration and tragedy, pride and loss. Conflicts between missionaries and soldiers, Indians and settlers, friends and neighbors spill from these pages, bringing the ferment of daily life into sharp focus.