When he wrote the passage above to his wife, Josefa Moreno, Pablo de la Guerra probably did not expect that more than a century later historians would be mulling over the more personal and earthly realities of his much celebrated public life. A politician whose career spanned the Mexican and Euroamerican periods in Alta, Calif., he is the subject of a number of articles and one dissertation. Most of these studies deal with his civic contributions and those of the de la Guerra family. Indeed, de la Guerra’s letters to Josefa Moreno de la Guerra provide a rare window through which one can explore the microcosm of family, gender, and generational relations within the context of political, economic, and cultural turbulence, which followed the American conquest and annexation of California. Because of his role as a statesman, Pablo was an absentee husband, father, and businessman who heavily relied on Josefa in order to complete his socially constructed and expected duties as a patriarch.

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