When the United States acquired California at the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848, most Americans assumed the land was empty territory. "In the hands of an enterprising people," American travel writer Richard Henry Dana wrote, "what a country this might be." In fact, that "country" has more than 10,000 years of human history, more than fifty years of Spanish dominance, and another twenty years of Mexican ownership. During these periods, the Native Californians, Spanish, and Mexicans grafted their own ideas and ideologies onto the landscape of California. After the acquisition California, arriving Americans simultaneously challenged and adopted these historic arrangements. The outcome of that process of cooption, cooperation, and conflict, was modern California. NEH Summer Scholars will explore the dynamics of this process through intensive readings, lectures, and site visits.
Although the topic of both the Mexican War and the annexation of California are given relatively short shrift in popular textbooks, those events exercised a profound influence over subsequent United States history. Not only did the United States acquire the largest landmass since the Louisiana Purchase, it also absorbed territories with rich histories of their own. The Spanish and Mexican influences on California were many and complex, but NEH Summer Scholars will develop a close and critical understanding of five (5) specific ones: land use, religion, architecture, ethnic conflict, and historical memory. Each day will be organized around one of these themes. The thematic approach of this workshop will not only benefit NEH Summer Scholars from a wide array of disciplines by providing them with new humanities-based interpretive tools for their own teaching, but will also allow them to make strong contributions to the workshops' discussions during their weeklong tenure.