The late Michael Burgess was the retired head of technical services and collection development at California State University, San Bernardino. He was the author of numerous reference works, and also wrote literary and historical fiction. He lived in San Bernardino, California.

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Here are seven previously uncollected documents relating to the history of California, from its early days as a Mexican territory to the first fifty years of statehood as part of the United States. José del Carmen Lugo, a native-born Californio, tells of his life as a ranchero in San Bernardino and elsewhere, and the coming of the Norteamericanos in the 1840s. Benjamin Davis (Benito) Wilson recounts many of the same events from the perspective of an English-speaking settler who intermarried with one of the early land-owning Mexican families, and later supported the U.S. side during the Mexican-American War of 1845-48. Alexandre Holinski touts the virtues of frontier California and San Francisco during the Gold Rush days, as seen from a foreigner's unique perspective. Mark Lafayette Landrum, who settled in California during the early days of statehood, relates his rise to power as a local politician in Northern California. Amos Carpenter Rogers gives us an account of a rough voyage 'round the tip of South America to the Gold Rush fields. Alexander H. Todd and William T. Ballou provide further illumination with their brief accounts of life in early California and the Pacific Northwest. For the student of California history, these first-person narratives will open a window onto a period now long forgotten. Complete with Notes, Bibliography, and detailed Index. MICHAEL BURGESS is a Professor Emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino. MARY WICKIZER BURGESS was the co-publisher for many years of Borgo Press. Between them they have authored over 135 books.