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Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers
Indians Missionaries and Merchants The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers Author:Kent G. Lightfoot California's earliest European colonists -- Russian merchants and Franciscan missionaries -- both depended heavily on Native American labor to build and maintain their colonies, but they did so in very different ways. This richly detailed book brings together disparate skeins of history -- including little-known oral histories, native texts,... more » ethnohistory, and archaeological excavations -- to present a vivid new look at how native cultures fared under these two colonial systems. In addition to providing a new window on California's colonial past, Kent Lightfoot's innovative work, incorporating the holistic methods of historical anthropology, explores the surprising ramifications of these long-ago encounters for the political status of native people in the state today. « less