“The Yankees, Señor General, Are Not Like Us:” Vallejo, Bancroft, and the Construction of California History

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the relationship between Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vallejo was one of the most important contributors to Bancroft’s massive History of California. He entrusted to Bancroft thirty-six volumes of primary source documents and his own five-volume manuscript on California history. He also encouraged other Californios to share their own family documents with Bancroft and to provide oral histories of the Mexican era. Vallejo believed that he was working in partnership with Bancroft, who would in turn compose a sensitive and community-based account of pre-U.S. California. But Vallejo was deeply upset about Bancroft’s finished product, which he believed deliberately suppressed the Hispanic contribution. The conflict between Vallejo and Bancroft lays bare a series of issues revolving around inclusion, omission, and the nature of historical authority that have remained crucial in the construction of Western history.