Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-14
NEW PUBLICATIONS.


HISTORY OF THE PACIFIC STATES OF AMERICA
History of California, Vol H. IS0l-lS24. Works
OF Hubert Howe Bancroft; Vol. XIX. A. L.
Bancroft & Co, San Francisco.
HISTORY OF THE PACIFIC STATES or AMERICA
History OF California, Vol. III, 1S25-1Sf0. Works
OF Hubert Howe Bancroft; Vol. XXX. \. l..
Bancroft d Co, San Francisco
We have read these two volumes COM
pletely without making the usual notice of
their issuance III order of appearance
Various causes have conspired to this re-
suit But as the two run in the same
historical channel they may well be consid-
cred jointly. The sama general excellence
that has marked the labor of Mr. Bancroft
in previous volumes as an adept in histor-
zeal research, characterizes these. They are
exhaustive historical brief books For CO.
piousness of reference and elaborateness
of authoritative annexation, they are mar
Vicious examples of patient labor and I'M
firing devotion TO q purpose. AS to the
methods of expression, the style, we adj
here to our last remarks upon this subject
that the author improves in conciseness OF
expression and compactness of thought
1t cannot now be said with justice that
there is about his text the tlorid tone
which. in the earlier history of the series,
some critical reviewers esteemed q defect
The record of the History of California has
now passed, under Mr.. Bancroft's hands,
into the period when it confrontS the living
witness, and challenges possible issues
with other active workers in our local
historical fields and the mass of records
available in every considerable library
upon the coast. We can not dis
cover that Bancrofs volumes have
awakened adverse criticism from the
standpoints of fact. Indeed, when the
reader opens these volumes, he finds the
testimony SO fully evolved, and the evil
dence on every doubtful or disputed point
so marshaled, that the text is massed be-
hind phalanx of data that cannot be
shaken, howeversmuch it may be assailed,
though it has not even been questioned to
this date, 1t appears to us, that as Mr..
Bancroft has approached the period of the
present era, when he must assume the
sternest Of Judicial attitudes, and anticipate
the joining of issue with others who have
written of early California history, his
caution has augmented, and that he has
been more than solicitous to reach conclu-
siOns that shall remain inyulnerable, and
be hedged about by an exceeding great
array of indisputable proofs. The second
volume takes up the thread of history with
the opening of the present century, and
completes the history of California as a
province of Spain, and enters upon the ex-
Mexican Empire, and down to the begin
ming of republican rule in 1924 the closing
chapter treating of institutionary and stat
istical matters. The population of Califor-
MIA in 1920 was but 3,270 and down to 1890
had reached but go. OF these and sim
liar interesting statistics the final chapter
consists, including view of the condition
OF mining and agriculture, the hide and
tallow trade church matters, the pueblos
Il, = IL, g.l
government, which, under Mexican dom
ination, differed but little from that of
Spanish rule. The volume is supplemented
by chapter that viii prove of especial in
terest to the early settlers of California and
to their descendants. 1t consists of a part
OF register and index-a homographic
chart Indeed-of the pioneers from 1912 to
1913. The compass is from a to and
through +. In the third volume it is ex-
tended through II. 1t will run through
the volumes to come to the end
matter, prefaced by a full list of pioneers
who came here before the close of the year
1880, comprises a personal and historical
record that will prove of profound interest,
and augment in value as the years roll on.
The third volume opens with the events
of the year 1926, and brings the record
down TO and into 1870 at which time the
settlement of Yerba Buena, the embryo of
the present metropolis of the coast con-
sisted of but few more than half q dozen
structures, and was not vet ten years of age.
The annals of the San Francisco district
form one of the most important subdivis-
ions of the volume. The most stirring
chapter however, is that relating to the
rule of Alyarado and the political compli-
cations of the years 1889 and 1910, in which
General NJ. q. Vallejo, still living, played
such a prominent part. With the preced-
ing chapters, treating in detail the local
military and civil conflicts, the revolts, de-
fections of leaders, defense of missions,
sectional strife, collisions of arms, etc, the
period covered by the fourteenth, fifteenth.
sixteenth and up to and including the
nineteenth chapter there is made up a
romantic record that parallels in its ap-
parent importance and its deep interest
the reyolts, struggles and conquests
Of great nations in contemporaneOus and
in earlier periods. The historical record is
as grave, full and complete regarding the
fractional stTifes of a handful of hot-blooded
Spaniards and more stubborn Mexicans, as
if il concerned the affairs of nations of
millions of people, the battles of armies
numbered by the hundreds of thousand of
men, instead of the campaigns of Generals
and Governors and revolutionists, backed
by soldiery scarcely ample enough to
form q militia battalion of this day. Ex-
cept for the grave importance of these
early conflicts in the moIding of country
as vast in area as the then United States of
America, they would appear farcical to the
reader of the record. But the volumes clearly
set forth the direct influence of these lilli-
putian revolutions and conflicts upon the
future of California, which is to US the
present. That so romantic q field as is
here opened should have been so
long neglected by the romancist
and dramatic author excites some
surprise. The excuse, however, of the
questionableness of the facts, will no long
er avail, for Mr. Bancroft has COM
pletely exhausted all documentary and
parole evidences, and in these two volumes
has given all worthy of examination, and
out of the mass of authorities and an inter
minable confusion of testimonies has
drawn clear-Cut and concise veIdicts of fact
and judgments upon the issues that con-
vulsed early California under Mexican
rule. Out of this text the future novelist
and the dramatic author will extract plots
for romances and dramas fateful and
thrilling.