For the decade of the 1780’s in my American history journey, I read Colt of Destiny, a book in the LAND OF THE FREE series (Winston) set in the early days of California. Since most of the U.S. historical fiction set in early U.S. history centers around the East coast and the original thirteen colonies, this story was a welcome change of scenery.
“Young Jaime Otero, forerunner of a family famous in California history, plays an important part in the early days of the development of the Golden State. It is Jaime who captures Starlight and her mate–two of the wild horses that roamed the plains and valleys of this part of America.
Jaime fights cruel Spanish landowners and savage Indians to bring civilization to the West Coast, and supports Father Junipero Serra in establishing the chain of Franciscan missions. Against a background of unrest and superstition, he painstakingly trains horses that were bred into a strain invaluable to later American pioneers.”
As indicated in the blurb, the Native Americans (Pima and Yuma) in the story are mostly portrayed as uncivilized, ignorant, and and savage, but they are also seen as real people with their own culture and wisdom, who at one point take Jaime into the tribe and attempt to adopt him and teach him to live as the natives do. The Spanish overlords don’t come off much better than the natives, as they enslave and mistreat the Yuma in particular. One Spanish landlord, Don Soberbio Ribera, is the real villain of the piece, and the Spanish government in California allows him to get away with abusing the Natives who are supposed to be under his care for far too long.
As I researched the background for this story, I found that Father Junipero Serra himself is a somewhat controversial figure in some circles. He is accused by historical revisionists of mandatory conversions and spiritual, perhaps physical, abuse of the natives. In this book, Father Serra is the protector and benevolent guardian of the California natives, and he grieves that he cannot do more to help them. His vision is a string of Franciscan missions all along the California coast where the Native Americans can be protected by the Church and learn the gospel of Jesus Christ in safety. It’s a vision that did come to pass, however imperfectly, and it seems to me that Father Serra was a good man, who did his best to serve God and the people of California. He was canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2015 by Pope Francis.
Then, there are the horses–Starlight and Avispon and other horses, both wild and tamed, who are a central part of this story and of the history of California and the western United States. The story begins by showing how the wild horses came to live in the hills of California and later how they were captured and trained by the Spanish and by the Native Americans to become the principal means of transportation, war, and work for both the European settlers and the Native Americans.
Anyone interested in the history of horses in the New World or the Spanish missions or California history or Spanish-speaking Americans would do well to search out a copy of Alida Malkus’ tale of early Spanish America. Unfortunately, it’s a bit pricey, as are most of the books in the LAND OF THE FREE series, but if the subject matter interests you, this one is worth reading. I do have a copy of this book in my library, and I also have a biography of Father Junipero Serra that I would like to read at some point to get a fuller picture of the man and his times.