Voices from California: Spanish–Mexican and Indigenous Women’s Interventions on Empire and Manifest Destiny

Abstract:This article examines California Spanish-Mexican and Indigenous women’s counternarratives and critiques of U.S. geopolitical conquest in the former Catholic Spanish and Mexican northwest. California women’s testimonios (oral accounts) and written observations in the nineteenth century repudiated the notion that the West under Spanish and Mexican rule had not already undergone imperial projects of cultural civilization and political progress. They questioned the validity of Anglo assertions of cultural superiority, honor, and progress. While their testimonies reveal parallels between Anglo and Spanish-Mexican aims in colonizing California, these women offer unique perspectives of geopolitical conquest in the age of Manifest Destiny and U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, their accounts directly challenge Anglo American women’s hagiographies of U.S. military men’s exploits in California.