How did the Spanish settlers in Alta California view the Peninsular​ wars with Napoleon, and, following, the Mexican War of Independence? submitted 23 minutes ago by alaskalainen I'm an author working on a novella set in Alta California and the more threads of research I follow the more complex the situation in Monterey in the early nineteenth century seems! In addition to being curious about how/where the californios saw themselves fitting into the Spanish Empire and its descendants, I'm also wondering how much direct contact existed between Alta California and Spain by 1800 -- was everything/everyone filtered through Mexico? I have the impression that many of the "Spanish" officials​ in Alta California were actually "criollos" born in Baja/Antigua California or Mexico, rather than European-born "peninsulares". I'm reading The History of Alta California, written in 1851 by Antonio María Osio, who was a customs official in Monterey and whose brother-in-law Luis Argüello was governor for a while, but he seems to assume the reader has all the context already. There are sentences like, "One of them was a Spaniard, a lieutenant in the Royal Regiment which had surrendered in Mexico in 1821." Even the notes on the primary text are similarly unhelpful: "The Asia [a ship] had been involved in the events of 1821." The history I'm most familiar with is Russian and Russian-American so I had to look up what the events of 1821 were... I looked at this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2bph8v/what_foods_were_eaten_andor_grown_in_california/ and will likely look for the De La Perouse text mentioned. I already have David Weber's The Spanish Frontier and am working through it.