Vineyards & Vaqueros - 9780870623912

Ethno-historian Phillips (professor emeritus, history, university of Colorado, Boulder), who has published widely on the history of the Indians of California, here fills the gap between polarized impressions of the role of Native labor in early colonial Southern California. For the most part, he argues, the focus has been on the colonizer/oppressor with the Native as the passive oppressed. Phillips instead concentrates on the economic achievements of Indian workers. While not making light of their exploitation by the Franciscan missionaries, Spanish farmers and ranchers and, finally, the American government, he looks at the ways in which Native talent and intelligence was a major factor in the growth of the wine industry, the maintenance of the missions and the success of farming and ranching. Phillips believes that, by looking at the Indians as workers, although usually unwilling ones, they can be studied as individuals, some resigned to their state, others rebellious and still others determined to learn the system and benefit from it. In his research Phillips is able to cut through the cultural bias of the record-keepers to see the importance of the skills of the people who did the actual work. This is an excellent example of objective historical reporting. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)