Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:

Please find below the prompt for the coming assignment for next week.  Some of this may seem clearer after we take some time to discuss the readings in class Thursday. I'll post this as an assignment after we discuss it in class. 

To get started on your short essay assignment for next week, I’d like you to first consider how stable the Spanish social system was in California. For instance, the system was anchored by the controlling authority of the missionaries (backed up by soldiers), but it was threatened by cultural misunderstandings, active and passive resistance from Indians, and the toll of epidemic disease, and the brutality of Spanish soldiers, to name a few.

Next, think about what we've looked at in class, and the assigned readings (like Dana and the textbook) to consider the social system that replaced the missions in Mexican California by the 1830s. For instance, in Mexican California, the missions were secularized (turned into parish churches) and their vast landholdings were distributed to several hundred recipients of vast land grants who exploited Indian labor. The Spanish government had prohibited Californians from trading with foreign merchants, but the Mexican government threw open California’s ports to merchant ships from around the world. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the new social system and economy created by these and other changes?

Once you’ve thought through those topics, write a short paper that addresses this question: Was Mexican California’s society more or less stable (in other words, more or less vulnerable to either internal or external threats to its persistence) than Spanish California’s society had been? Why or why not? I hope it’s obvious that there’s no objectively “correct” answer to this question; what I’m interested to see is the strength of your argument in support of one position or the other.

Your paper should be around 750-1000 words in length and should contain all the elements of an academic paper, including an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement that expresses your answer to the question (including the “why or why not” part); body paragraphs that present and analyze specific, cited evidence in support of your argument; smooth transitions that link one paragraph to the next; and a conclusion that reflects upon the significance of your argument. Support your argument with specific evidence from the readings: the textbook, de La Pérouse, Life in a California Mission; and Dana, Two Years Before the Mast (chapter XIII). Cite all quotes and specific information drawn from these sources with a simple parenthetical citation, as in (Rolle and Verge, 23) or (Pérouse, 68) or Dana (Chapter XIII) at the end of the relevant sentence. We'll consider lecture material to be common knowledge, so you need not cite it.