In the second half of the 1800s, The United States turns her attention to the demands of Manifest Destiny, which include killing or containing the tribal people of the Northwest and establishing a transcontinental Anglo nation.
          Among the last tribes impacted are those in the Columbia River Valley and on the Columbia Plateau, in an area now comprised of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and western Idaho. The tribes there, as elsewhere, are subjected to a practice known to the Indians as The Gun and The Cross, wherein survivors of the former are ultimately destroyed by the latter.
          At the same time, three major social movements sweep across the land in reaction to the ascent of the Anglo-Americans. These are the Peyote Church, the Ghost Dance Movement, and Washani - the last being the least known and which has both religious and secular followers.
          The latter two movements are restoration movements, wherein a ripple in time and space will occur, swallowing the White people and returning the dead Indians and all the slaughtered animals, restoring the continent to how it was before the arrival of the Europeans.
         The spiritual leader of Washani is a shaman and prophet of the Wanapum tribe named Smoholla, 1813-1895 (the subject of Smoholla Dreaming, nonfiction, same writer, already written and hopefully coming soon). His following grows and his philosophical influence on the resistance of other tribes becomes enormous. One of these many tribes is the Yakima, of eastern Washington, and this tribe is one of two featured in the story.
          Among the Yakima is a great leader named Kamiakin, who is a secular follower of Smoholla, and he differs with the prophet on the issue of depending on the Great Spirit to rid them of the White people.
          Kamiakin sees their only hope is to start killing the invaders right now, before there are too many, and not to stop until there are no more; which could have worked pretty well in a tribal conflict, but this new foe is something no one on this continent has seen before - a vast, consolidated, rapidly growing and seemingly inexhaustible nation. What ensues is named by the victors as the Yakima Wars, 1855-1859.

          James Wilbur grows up in Upstate New York, the son of a Presbyterian minister. Most, it not all, of our founding fathers were Presbyterians. Princeton University was founded by Presbyterians. James is raised subject to his father's dual assumptions that God is a Presbyterian and Methodism is a lesser religion.
          To outsiders, the difference between Methodism and Presbyterianism is like the difference between Minnesota and Manitoba; but there are some issues between them, especially concerning evangelism, which most Presbyterians hold in low regard and many Methodists of the day consider an integral part of religious practice.
          Naturally, when James eventually finds his way, it is to what his father considers the Devil's trifecta: Methodism, the Methodist ministry and missionary work.
          James Harvey Wilbur marries Lucretia Ann Stebens on 3/9/1831, and they begin their married life at the same and tender age of nineteen. They have a daughter named Ann, and James drifts into Methodism, which takes them from Upstate New York to New York City and the general offices of that church.
          Lucretia Wilbur is not a church-chosen partner for James. She rolls her own cigarettes, is partial to good whiskey and is a plain-talking freethinker. However, there aren't many volunteers beating down the church doors looking for missions, so this little family is eventually sent west by ship to build the first church in Portland, Oregon, and to tend to that flock.
          Thirty years go by. Ann grows up, marries and later dies of influenza. The Wilburs are both then forty-nine. Instead of retiring and going back east, like normal people, they head to the Columbia Plateau and begin a new life with the Yakima.
          James and Lucretia arrive at the Yakima Indian Reservation in 1859. While they have both come to teach the children English, James is also supposed to convert the Indians to Methodism.
          The Yakima call him Father Wilbur, right from the start; not out of immediate affection, as is historically recorded, but apparently as a joke, his being so afflicted with paternalism and prone to pontification.
          By 1864, Reverend Wilbur has gone to Washington, D.C. and so hounded Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Yakima, who are being robbed by the reservation agent, that President Lincoln appoints James to be the agent, mostly to be rid of him.
          Father Wilbur now adds his agency power to his missionary power and uses the combination to further his own agenda for the Yakima, which is assimilation through commercial agriculture. He figures on offering people another form of viability, to replace what they are losing. However, neither his church nor his government has authorized or knowingly funded this program.
          He comes to realize that isolation and death are the true intentions of the reservation system, and that his helping the Christianized Yakima to transcend that pernicious intent and successfully assimilate is considered an abomination by almost all the other White people on the continent. Neither realization in any way dissuades him from his purpose.
          Reservation life in the 1800s is marginal, and people are hungry. Father Wilbur offers food, jobs, education and land, in exchange for religious conversion. He teaches English in the morning, agriculture in the afternoon, and Methodism all the time.
          Teams of oxen, John Deere plows, seeds, fruit trees, cattle, homestead claims; it just keeps growing, as the converted Yakima (eventually about 25% to agriculture and a lesser percentage to Methodism) become established in the world of market agriculture.
          Almost immediately, these farms and ranches are self-sustaining. However, to pay for the start-up program and maximize its impact, Father Wilbur turns to misallocation of government funds, redirection of government supplies, and outright theft - all done in God's name and for God's children.
          Father Wilbur comes to the reservation with some maniacal rules, and both of his main rules conflict with the experience and traditions of the people.
          The Yakima, like many other tribes of that time, have a social security system that depends on polygamy. In these tribal cultures, widows and orphans are woven back into the community, also sheltering the aged in the process. This isn't about sex, power, politics or religion; it's about survival through remarriage and adoption.
          Father Wilbur thinks of polygamy in Mormon terms, and gets hopelessly stuck on the sexual aspects of it. The existence of happier men, having better sex, more often and with multiple partners, is just too much for most American men to accept, and he is one of those unaccepting men.
          There is a comparison of these two forms of polygamy, as well as a thumbnail sketch of Mormon History. There is also an examination of P.M.S., a subject the writer shares initials with and about which he is unusually well versed. The impact of this natural phenomenon on human development is noted.
          The land of the Columbia Plateau is initially fertile, and Father Wilbur has no trouble marketing the produce of the new Yakima farmers, because more settlers are coming to Oregon every day.
          After 1884, Indians can file homestead claims off the reservation, and Father Wilbur helps his converts do that. Before then, all the thriving Yakima farms were on the reservation, but now some of these thriving folks are at large.
          The Yakima are a conservative people, and they are also adaptive, having lived well there for 12,000 years. Some have selectively adopted aspects of the rising culture and could now stand in two worlds, but it is as if standing on stilts.
          Most of the Yakima reject Christianity and market agriculture. These people, known as Traditionals, are referred to by Father Wilbur as "blanket Indians;” and they, of course, do not recognize his rules concerning monogamy and Methodism. Their opinion of him is further diminished by his initial unwillingness to see their culture.
          To turn away from your spiritual base must be difficult, but to turn away from the people you love is too much to be asked of anyone. Yet, that is the deal Father Wilbur puts on the table, and it's a pretty hard sell.
          If you want the supplies and assistance available through the mission, the agent's office and the agriculture program, you may have only one spouse. For Father Wilbur, it's a simple trade of survival for conversion, but for those Yakima who feel they have no choice, it's a heart-wrenching experience.
          The other main rule, about Methodism, has more rules attached to it. No leaving the reservation, no drinking, no gambling and no dancing are among them. That the Yakima don't swarm this man and beat him to death is a testament to their high character.
          He adds to the cruelty of his insistence by demanding these changes be both immediate and absolute. He is in the business of saving souls. If you don't want to become a Methodist, he figures you might as well just die right now.
          Father Wilbur's brand of grand theft blends with that of many other agents in the West, for whom their jobs are more like businesses. The only difference is that James Wilbur has never kept a dime of the proceeds for himself.
          James gets away with this thievery and despotism for six years, until 1870, when the army returns after the beginning of Reconstruction and feigns shock at discovering his many crimes, then fires him as agent and restores most of the rights he has taken away.
          In an instant, he has fallen from power. Even his church casts a dubious eye on him and suggests he might better contribute in a less noticeable function, perhaps by contacting non-treaty (unsurrendered) Indians in the wilderness.
          There is talk of a new missionary couple being sent from New York, but Lucretia convinces the church's leaders that she can best watch the flock while James is away, her already having rapport with the people. They agree, and Father Wilbur heads out to save the souls of the heathen hordes of the inland Northwest.
          What happens next in this story involves a band of Nez Perce and a dead secular Jew named Sam Rathckowscki, as well as an examination of the story of Abraham and Isaac, which is at the core of this book.
          Abraham's conceits are two: that he owns his children, and that God speaks to him. Abraham and his family enter the story. Catherine the Great, her final lover, and her son Paul the Nut also make cameo appearances.
         Sam' s story is told, taking him from northern Russia to New York City, and then west with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, where he is invited to join the band of Nez Perce just mentioned. He remains there and marries four Nez Perce women.
          What happens to Father Wilbur in the wilderness and what transpires in his month with the Nez Perce cause changes in him. If you want to know how those changes occur and about his subsequently drinking antebellum whiskey at the White House with President Grant (in a meeting that actually took place) you may want to read this historically accurate and slightly fictionalized story, most of which is true.

          In the second half of the 1800s, The United States turns her attention to the demands of Manifest Destiny, which include killing or containing the tribal people of the Northwest and establishing a transcontinental Anglo nation.
          Among the last tribes impacted are those in the Columbia River Valley and on the Columbia Plateau, in an area now comprised of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and western Idaho. The tribes there, as elsewhere, are subjected to a practice known to the Indians as The Gun and The Cross, wherein survivors of the former are ultimately destroyed by the latter.
          At the same time, three major social movements sweep across the land in reaction to the ascent of the Anglo-Americans. These are the Peyote Church, the Ghost Dance Movement, and Washani - the last being the least known and which has both religious and secular followers.
          The latter two movements are restoration movements, wherein a ripple in time and space will occur, swallowing the White people and returning the dead Indians and all the slaughtered animals, restoring the continent to how it was before the arrival of the Europeans.
         The spiritual leader of Washani is a shaman and prophet of the Wanapum tribe named Smoholla, 1813-1895 (the subject of Smoholla Dreaming, nonfiction, same writer, already written and hopefully coming soon). His following grows and his philosophical influence on the resistance of other tribes becomes enormous. One of these many tribes is the Yakima, of eastern Washington, and this tribe is one of two featured in the story.
          Among the Yakima is a great leader named Kamiakin, who is a secular follower of Smoholla, and he differs with the prophet on the issue of depending on the Great Spirit to rid them of the White people.
          Kamiakin sees their only hope is to start killing the invaders right now, before there are too many, and not to stop until there are no more; which could have worked pretty well in a tribal conflict, but this new foe is something no one on this continent has seen before - a vast, consolidated, rapidly growing and seemingly inexhaustible nation. What ensues is named by the victors as the Yakima Wars, 1855-1859.

          James Wilbur grows up in Upstate New York, the son of a Presbyterian minister. Most, it not all, of our founding fathers were Presbyterians. Princeton University was founded by Presbyterians. James is raised subject to his father's dual assumptions that God is a Presbyterian and Methodism is a lesser religion.
          To outsiders, the difference between Methodism and Presbyterianism is like the difference between Minnesota and Manitoba; but there are some issues between them, especially concerning evangelism, which most Presbyterians hold in low regard and many Methodists of the day consider an integral part of religious practice.
          Naturally, when James eventually finds his way, it is to what his father considers the Devil's trifecta: Methodism, the Methodist ministry and missionary work.
          James Harvey Wilbur marries Lucretia Ann Stebens on 3/9/1831, and they begin their married life at the same and tender age of nineteen. They have a daughter named Ann, and James drifts into Methodism, which takes them from Upstate New York to New York City and the general offices of that church.
          Lucretia Wilbur is not a church-chosen partner for James. She rolls her own cigarettes, is partial to good whiskey and is a plain-talking freethinker. However, there aren't many volunteers beating down the church doors looking for missions, so this little family is eventually sent west by ship to build the first church in Portland, Oregon, and to tend to that flock.
          Thirty years go by. Ann grows up, marries and later dies of influenza. The Wilburs are both then forty-nine. Instead of retiring and going back east, like normal people, they head to the Columbia Plateau and begin a new life with the Yakima.
          James and Lucretia arrive at the Yakima Indian Reservation in 1859. While they have both come to teach the children English, James is also supposed to convert the Indians to Methodism.
          The Yakima call him Father Wilbur, right from the start; not out of immediate affection, as is historically recorded, but apparently as a joke, his being so afflicted with paternalism and prone to pontification.
          By 1864, Reverend Wilbur has gone to Washington, D.C. and so hounded Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Yakima, who are being robbed by the reservation agent, that President Lincoln appoints James to be the agent, mostly to be rid of him.
          Father Wilbur now adds his agency power to his missionary power and uses the combination to further his own agenda for the Yakima, which is assimilation through commercial agriculture. He figures on offering people another form of viability, to replace what they are losing. However, neither his church nor his government has authorized or knowingly funded this program.
          He comes to realize that isolation and death are the true intentions of the reservation system, and that his helping the Christianized Yakima to transcend that pernicious intent and successfully assimilate is considered an abomination by almost all the other White people on the continent. Neither realization in any way dissuades him from his purpose.
          Reservation life in the 1800s is marginal, and people are hungry. Father Wilbur offers food, jobs, education and land, in exchange for religious conversion. He teaches English in the morning, agriculture in the afternoon, and Methodism all the time.
          Teams of oxen, John Deere plows, seeds, fruit trees, cattle, homestead claims; it just keeps growing, as the converted Yakima (eventually about 25% to agriculture and a lesser percentage to Methodism) become established in the world of market agriculture.
          Almost immediately, these farms and ranches are self-sustaining. However, to pay for the start-up program and maximize its impact, Father Wilbur turns to misallocation of government funds, redirection of government supplies, and outright theft - all done in God's name and for God's children.
          Father Wilbur comes to the reservation with some maniacal rules, and both of his main rules conflict with the experience and traditions of the people.
          The Yakima, like many other tribes of that time, have a social security system that depends on polygamy. In these tribal cultures, widows and orphans are woven back into the community, also sheltering the aged in the process. This isn't about sex, power, politics or religion; it's about survival through remarriage and adoption.
          Father Wilbur thinks of polygamy in Mormon terms, and gets hopelessly stuck on the sexual aspects of it. The existence of happier men, having better sex, more often and with multiple partners, is just too much for most American men to accept, and he is one of those unaccepting men.
          There is a comparison of these two forms of polygamy, as well as a thumbnail sketch of Mormon History. There is also an examination of P.M.S., a subject the writer shares initials with and about which he is unusually well versed. The impact of this natural phenomenon on human development is noted.
          The land of the Columbia Plateau is initially fertile, and Father Wilbur has no trouble marketing the produce of the new Yakima farmers, because more settlers are coming to Oregon every day.
          After 1884, Indians can file homestead claims off the reservation, and Father Wilbur helps his converts do that. Before then, all the thriving Yakima farms were on the reservation, but now some of these thriving folks are at large.
          The Yakima are a conservative people, and they are also adaptive, having lived well there for 12,000 years. Some have selectively adopted aspects of the rising culture and could now stand in two worlds, but it is as if standing on stilts.
          Most of the Yakima reject Christianity and market agriculture. These people, known as Traditionals, are referred to by Father Wilbur as "blanket Indians;” and they, of course, do not recognize his rules concerning monogamy and Methodism. Their opinion of him is further diminished by his initial unwillingness to see their culture.
          To turn away from your spiritual base must be difficult, but to turn away from the people you love is too much to be asked of anyone. Yet, that is the deal Father Wilbur puts on the table, and it's a pretty hard sell.
          If you want the supplies and assistance available through the mission, the agent's office and the agriculture program, you may have only one spouse. For Father Wilbur, it's a simple trade of survival for conversion, but for those Yakima who feel they have no choice, it's a heart-wrenching experience.
          The other main rule, about Methodism, has more rules attached to it. No leaving the reservation, no drinking, no gambling and no dancing are among them. That the Yakima don't swarm this man and beat him to death is a testament to their high character.
          He adds to the cruelty of his insistence by demanding these changes be both immediate and absolute. He is in the business of saving souls. If you don't want to become a Methodist, he figures you might as well just die right now.
          Father Wilbur's brand of grand theft blends with that of many other agents in the West, for whom their jobs are more like businesses. The only difference is that James Wilbur has never kept a dime of the proceeds for himself.
          James gets away with this thievery and despotism for six years, until 1870, when the army returns after the beginning of Reconstruction and feigns shock at discovering his many crimes, then fires him as agent and restores most of the rights he has taken away.
          In an instant, he has fallen from power. Even his church casts a dubious eye on him and suggests he might better contribute in a less noticeable function, perhaps by contacting non-treaty (unsurrendered) Indians in the wilderness.
          There is talk of a new missionary couple being sent from New York, but Lucretia convinces the church's leaders that she can best watch the flock while James is away, her already having rapport with the people. They agree, and Father Wilbur heads out to save the souls of the heathen hordes of the inland Northwest.
          What happens next in this story involves a band of Nez Perce and a dead secular Jew named Sam Rathckowscki, as well as an examination of the story of Abraham and Isaac, which is at the core of this book.
          Abraham's conceits are two: that he owns his children, and that God speaks to him. Abraham and his family enter the story. Catherine the Great, her final lover, and her son Paul the Nut also make cameo appearances.
         Sam' s story is told, taking him from northern Russia to New York City, and then west with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, where he is invited to join the band of Nez Perce just mentioned. He remains there and marries four Nez Perce women.
          What happens to Father Wilbur in the wilderness and what transpires in his month with the Nez Perce cause changes in him. If you want to know how those changes occur and about his subsequently drinking antebellum whiskey at the White House with President Grant (in a meeting that actually took place) you may want to read this historically accurate and slightly fictionalized story, most of which is true.

        Writing about Mexico is seldom easy; the country’s dynamics make it almost impossible to isolate any bit of data without having it grow obsolete in a very short span of time. Sometimes its hard for a Mexican to understand our own cultural idiosyncrasies, it is complex for a person of a different nationality to do so.

        I began writing my weekly column in a very interesting time for Mexico. The country was passing thru the beginning stages of shedding its inadequate “Third World” status and struggling to evolve and become a modern State.

        It is very diffi cult for a person unfamiliar with Mexican History or Culture, to judge and at times avoid being prejudicial for the relative slowness of the process toward advance; in an effort to place my readers into a proper frame of mind, I have taken the liberty of borrowing a term not customarily used in political science, I often refer to Mexico’s progression as “Evolution”, this term implies perfectly the three key characteristics of the development process . . . Transformation, Survival and Time.

        After time some observers have come across another frequent and disconcerting feature . . . . Concurrency; the Mexican theater has many stages and each one has a different drama, author and actors. To make matters more complicated all plays are playing simultaneously in different acts.

        Explaining the Mexican drama to non-Mexicans is quite a challenge. Trying to translate words from one viewpoint to another only requires language skills (This can be easily accessed with any English-Spanish dictionary); but communicating concepts and ideas if they are to be understood, needs the foundation of what call I “Cultural Interface”.

        For understanding Mexico, “Cultural Interface” is an essential requirement; Mexican words or expressions although adequately translated seldom mean the same, political terminology never does.

        Being Mexican and having been raised in the Mexico-U.S. Border I acquired the vantage point of a Bi-cultural perspective. This quality made “Cultural Interface” easy and clear; but understanding is a two way street, it requires knowledge and comprehension by both sides; as a wise old uncle once told me “Manana is never Tomorrow, and next Monday never comes after Sunday” . . . . That’s it in a nutshell!.

        After years of writings on different topics regarding Mexico, I felt that there was enough material to summarize the political transcripts into an attempt to explain the weekly progressions and retreats that are transforming the Mexican political system into what we hope that in time, will be a modern Democracy.

        The title (300 WEEKS) does not refer to 300 weekly writings; to be frank I never counted the columns selected for this book. The term loosely refers to a Mexican political benchmark, “The Sexenio” (or “The six years”) which is the duration of a Mexican presidential term (The reader must remember that “No reelection” is one of Mexico’s sacred political commandments). Therefore “300 WEEKS” refers to a particular political era of transformation in which Mexico’s turbulent transition to democracy began and still continues.

        Writing about Mexico is seldom easy; the country’s dynamics make it almost impossible to isolate any bit of data without having it grow obsolete in a very short span of time. Sometimes its hard for a Mexican to understand our own cultural idiosyncrasies, it is complex for a person of a different nationality to do so.

        I began writing my weekly column in a very interesting time for Mexico. The country was passing thru the beginning stages of shedding its inadequate “Third World” status and struggling to evolve and become a modern State.

        It is very diffi cult for a person unfamiliar with Mexican History or Culture, to judge and at times avoid being prejudicial for the relative slowness of the process toward advance; in an effort to place my readers into a proper frame of mind, I have taken the liberty of borrowing a term not customarily used in political science, I often refer to Mexico’s progression as “Evolution”, this term implies perfectly the three key characteristics of the development process . . . Transformation, Survival and Time.

        After time some observers have come across another frequent and disconcerting feature . . . . Concurrency; the Mexican theater has many stages and each one has a different drama, author and actors. To make matters more complicated all plays are playing simultaneously in different acts.

        Explaining the Mexican drama to non-Mexicans is quite a challenge. Trying to translate words from one viewpoint to another only requires language skills (This can be easily accessed with any English-Spanish dictionary); but communicating concepts and ideas if they are to be understood, needs the foundation of what call I “Cultural Interface”.

        For understanding Mexico, “Cultural Interface” is an essential requirement; Mexican words or expressions although adequately translated seldom mean the same, political terminology never does.

        Being Mexican and having been raised in the Mexico-U.S. Border I acquired the vantage point of a Bi-cultural perspective. This quality made “Cultural Interface” easy and clear; but understanding is a two way street, it requires knowledge and comprehension by both sides; as a wise old uncle once told me “Manana is never Tomorrow, and next Monday never comes after Sunday” . . . . That’s it in a nutshell!.

        After years of writings on different topics regarding Mexico, I felt that there was enough material to summarize the political transcripts into an attempt to explain the weekly progressions and retreats that are transforming the Mexican political system into what we hope that in time, will be a modern Democracy.

        The title (300 WEEKS) does not refer to 300 weekly writings; to be frank I never counted the columns selected for this book. The term loosely refers to a Mexican political benchmark, “The Sexenio” (or “The six years”) which is the duration of a Mexican presidential term (The reader must remember that “No reelection” is one of Mexico’s sacred political commandments). Therefore “300 WEEKS” refers to a particular political era of transformation in which Mexico’s turbulent transition to democracy began and still continues.

        Writing about Mexico is seldom easy; the country’s dynamics make it almost impossible to isolate any bit of data without having it grow obsolete in a very short span of time. Sometimes its hard for a Mexican to understand our own cultural idiosyncrasies, it is complex for a person of a different nationality to do so.

        I began writing my weekly column in a very interesting time for Mexico. The country was passing thru the beginning stages of shedding its inadequate “Third World” status and struggling to evolve and become a modern State.

        It is very diffi cult for a person unfamiliar with Mexican History or Culture, to judge and at times avoid being prejudicial for the relative slowness of the process toward advance; in an effort to place my readers into a proper frame of mind, I have taken the liberty of borrowing a term not customarily used in political science, I often refer to Mexico’s progression as “Evolution”, this term implies perfectly the three key characteristics of the development process . . . Transformation, Survival and Time.

        After time some observers have come across another frequent and disconcerting feature . . . . Concurrency; the Mexican theater has many stages and each one has a different drama, author and actors. To make matters more complicated all plays are playing simultaneously in different acts.

        Explaining the Mexican drama to non-Mexicans is quite a challenge. Trying to translate words from one viewpoint to another only requires language skills (This can be easily accessed with any English-Spanish dictionary); but communicating concepts and ideas if they are to be understood, needs the foundation of what call I “Cultural Interface”.

        For understanding Mexico, “Cultural Interface” is an essential requirement; Mexican words or expressions although adequately translated seldom mean the same, political terminology never does.

        Being Mexican and having been raised in the Mexico-U.S. Border I acquired the vantage point of a Bi-cultural perspective. This quality made “Cultural Interface” easy and clear; but understanding is a two way street, it requires knowledge and comprehension by both sides; as a wise old uncle once told me “Manana is never Tomorrow, and next Monday never comes after Sunday” . . . . That’s it in a nutshell!.

        After years of writings on different topics regarding Mexico, I felt that there was enough material to summarize the political transcripts into an attempt to explain the weekly progressions and retreats that are transforming the Mexican political system into what we hope that in time, will be a modern Democracy.

        The title (300 WEEKS) does not refer to 300 weekly writings; to be frank I never counted the columns selected for this book. The term loosely refers to a Mexican political benchmark, “The Sexenio” (or “The six years”) which is the duration of a Mexican presidential term (The reader must remember that “No reelection” is one of Mexico’s sacred political commandments). Therefore “300 WEEKS” refers to a particular political era of transformation in which Mexico’s turbulent transition to democracy began and still continues.

Killing Joaquín begins in 1519 with the arrival in Mexico of Joaquín's ancestor Juan Murrieta, who is part of the Spanish invasion force led by Hernan Cortez.

The early part of the book relates the family's background in Mexico and the social reality that motivates the northward migration of the Murrietas during three centuries of avoiding the Spanish boot their own family had once worn.

The political structure in Colonial Mexico is as follows: Spaniards born in Spain, Spaniards born in Mexico, Mestizos, and Indians, in order of descending power. The people in Spain think of the Spaniards in Mexico as subordinate intermediaries necessary in the extraction of wealth from the colonized country.

Time widens the gap, and the colonists become separate from the people who had originally sent them to Mexico as agents of subjugation and avenues of revenue.

Their lowered status compounds the far greater duality that is soon caused by the genetic blending of Spanish and Indian people throughout Mexico, whereby the majority of the population becomes both the oppressor and the oppressed, which is a major component of the Mexican Dilemma.

In 1776, there are fewer than one hundred non-Indian people in the entirety of California, and not all of them are Hispanic. The children born here to the largest of these settler groups are the first generation of the Califorñios - people born in California of Spanish-speaking parents.

The Califorñios, like the Murrietas, seek a life free from Spanish rule, and they are a group comprised of ethnically Spanish Mexicans and culturally Spanish Mestizos, more of the former than the latter. The earliest arrivals also include some pure Indians whose family members have intermarried with the Spaniards.

The Califorñio culture develops separately from Mexican culture and establishes itself during a hundred years of living in grace, being far enough from the seats of power in Spain and Mexico to ensure the benign neglect in which that culture prospers.

By the 1840s, the Califorñios have established California as an autonomous region of Mexico and are moving toward independence, hounded by the external predation by foreign nations and an internal revolution by a mostly Anglo-American group that wants to establish California as an independent republic called the Bear Flag Republic, as Texas had earlier done.

All those aspirations are crushed by the United States, when the 1848 Treaty of Guadalúpe Hidalgo ends what we call the Mexican War by moving forty percent of Mexico to the United States, at which time California experiences a sudden population shift, with Anglo-Americans streaming into the newly acquired territory and changing everything for the mostly Indian and Hispanic Californians. Later that same year, gold is discovered and Paradise is lost.

The Mexicans native to California see this influx as a terrible immigration problem, as they themselves still are to the more than 300,000 California Indians, while our predecessors don't consider themselves immigrants.

Having just taken the place from Mexico, they see themselves as moving into their own house, entitled by Divine Providence and Manifest Destiny to possess this land and supplant the long-established cultures here.

To that end, the federal government passes laws encouraging Anglo settlement and driving non-Anglos from the gold fields. In 1850, California statehood finalizes the acquisition.

In 1851, the Spanish and Mexican land grants are broken, negating the pre-1848 land titles held almost entirely by Hispanics. This allows those properties to be divided into homesteads and claimed by Anglo settlers without payment to the owners; thereby disenfranchising the resident population, ensuring the demographic predominance needed to consolidate the gain, and completing our nation's transcontinental expansion.

That is the historical context for this true story of the transfiguration and death of Joaquín Murrieta, who comes here in 1849 to go into the wild horse business with his half-brother Joaquín Carrillo (Murrieta). The plan is to capture the horses in California and take them to Mexico, where the horses sell for half again as much as they do here.

But bad things happen, including a rape and a murder. In taking revenge for those acts, Joaquín Murrieta becomes a known outlaw, with no possibility of turning back.

The horse gangs (work crews) become raiding gangs, robbing the miners and sending the gold to Mexico with the monthly horse drives.

Other Mexican miners, meeting with the same government-supported mistreatment experienced by Joaquín, also become outlaws, whose activities are then blamed on Joaquín. He becomes a symbol of what the Americans fear in California.

The federal and state governments desperately want Anglo-Americans to move to California and settle the just-stolen state, and no one is going to move in until the bandits are moved out. If the authorities can kill Joaquín, the needed migration will occur.

How this true story unfolds from there is to be found in the pages of Killing Joaquín, which is available through Xlibris or wherever else books are sold.

Killing Joaquín begins in 1519 with the arrival in Mexico of Joaquín's ancestor Juan Murrieta, who is part of the Spanish invasion force led by Hernan Cortez.

The early part of the book relates the family's background in Mexico and the social reality that motivates the northward migration of the Murrietas during three centuries of avoiding the Spanish boot their own family had once worn.

The political structure in Colonial Mexico is as follows: Spaniards born in Spain, Spaniards born in Mexico, Mestizos, and Indians, in order of descending power. The people in Spain think of the Spaniards in Mexico as subordinate intermediaries necessary in the extraction of wealth from the colonized country.

Time widens the gap, and the colonists become separate from the people who had originally sent them to Mexico as agents of subjugation and avenues of revenue.

Their lowered status compounds the far greater duality that is soon caused by the genetic blending of Spanish and Indian people throughout Mexico, whereby the majority of the population becomes both the oppressor and the oppressed, which is a major component of the Mexican Dilemma.

In 1776, there are fewer than one hundred non-Indian people in the entirety of California, and not all of them are Hispanic. The children born here to the largest of these settler groups are the first generation of the Califorñios - people born in California of Spanish-speaking parents.

The Califorñios, like the Murrietas, seek a life free from Spanish rule, and they are a group comprised of ethnically Spanish Mexicans and culturally Spanish Mestizos, more of the former than the latter. The earliest arrivals also include some pure Indians whose family members have intermarried with the Spaniards.

The Califorñio culture develops separately from Mexican culture and establishes itself during a hundred years of living in grace, being far enough from the seats of power in Spain and Mexico to ensure the benign neglect in which that culture prospers.

By the 1840s, the Califorñios have established California as an autonomous region of Mexico and are moving toward independence, hounded by the external predation by foreign nations and an internal revolution by a mostly Anglo-American group that wants to establish California as an independent republic called the Bear Flag Republic, as Texas had earlier done.

All those aspirations are crushed by the United States, when the 1848 Treaty of Guadalúpe Hidalgo ends what we call the Mexican War by moving forty percent of Mexico to the United States, at which time California experiences a sudden population shift, with Anglo-Americans streaming into the newly acquired territory and changing everything for the mostly Indian and Hispanic Californians. Later that same year, gold is discovered and Paradise is lost.

The Mexicans native to California see this influx as a terrible immigration problem, as they themselves still are to the more than 300,000 California Indians, while our predecessors don't consider themselves immigrants.

Having just taken the place from Mexico, they see themselves as moving into their own house, entitled by Divine Providence and Manifest Destiny to possess this land and supplant the long-established cultures here.

To that end, the federal government passes laws encouraging Anglo settlement and driving non-Anglos from the gold fields. In 1850, California statehood finalizes the acquisition.

In 1851, the Spanish and Mexican land grants are broken, negating the pre-1848 land titles held almost entirely by Hispanics. This allows those properties to be divided into homesteads and claimed by Anglo settlers without payment to the owners; thereby disenfranchising the resident population, ensuring the demographic predominance needed to consolidate the gain, and completing our nation's transcontinental expansion.

That is the historical context for this true story of the transfiguration and death of Joaquín Murrieta, who comes here in 1849 to go into the wild horse business with his half-brother Joaquín Carrillo (Murrieta). The plan is to capture the horses in California and take them to Mexico, where the horses sell for half again as much as they do here.

But bad things happen, including a rape and a murder. In taking revenge for those acts, Joaquín Murrieta becomes a known outlaw, with no possibility of turning back.

The horse gangs (work crews) become raiding gangs, robbing the miners and sending the gold to Mexico with the monthly horse drives.

Other Mexican miners, meeting with the same government-supported mistreatment experienced by Joaquín, also become outlaws, whose activities are then blamed on Joaquín. He becomes a symbol of what the Americans fear in California.

The federal and state governments desperately want Anglo-Americans to move to California and settle the just-stolen state, and no one is going to move in until the bandits are moved out. If the authorities can kill Joaquín, the needed migration will occur.

How this true story unfolds from there is to be found in the pages of Killing Joaquín, which is available through Xlibris or wherever else books are sold.

Rich in period analysis, here is fascinating historical perspective covering 250 years of existence primarily of a 1750 Spanish settlement originally called “Villa del Señor San Ignacio de Loyola de Revilla” and now known as "Guerrero Viejo." Although many books cover the genealogical aspects of families that originated in this city, the historical contributions of the early pioneers, their descendents, and the controversy related to land grants, called “Porciones” -- awarded by the King of Spain -- have, for the most part, remained in the background. This, then, is the principal objective of this book. The book provides summaries on the evolution, history, wars, and problems of Mexico. Using some of his ancestors as a sample, the author shows the hardships they endured and discusses their contribution in the formation of the two great nations that the United States and Mexico have become.

At the same time, the book shows that the land grants (and heirs) took one of two alternate roads -- depending on their location -- when Texas and other territories were ceded to the United States. People and land grants located on the Mexican side were victims of the violent and blood soaked history that Mexico has had. On the other hand, those located on the U.S. side, were subjected to mischief and flagrant violations of the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Sadly, in 1953, the Falcon Dam inundated Guerrero Viejo and many of the land grants.

Thus, for all intents and purposes, the heirs of most land grants met the same end and a financial obligation (of $193.0 Million plus interest) exchanged between the U.S. and Mexico has remained unpaid for over 80 years. The reader will long-remember the amazing facts developed in this book.