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This book centers on the ways in which aesthetics and commercialism intersected in officially sanctioned public collections and displays in late nineteenth-century Mexico. The book approaches questions of origin, citizenry, membership, and difference by reconstructing the lineage of institutionally collected objects around which a modern Mexican identity was negotiated. In doing so, it arrives at a deeper understanding of the ways in which displayed objects become linked with nationalistic meaning and why they exert such persuasive force. Spanning the Porfiriato period from 1867 to 1910, the text illuminates the creation and institutionalization of a Mexican cultural inheritance. Employing a wide range of examples—including the erection of public monuments, the culture of fine arts, and the representation of Mexico at the Paris World’s Fair of 1889—the text pursues two strands of thought that weave together in surprising ways: national heritage as a transcendental value and patrimony as potential commercial interest.

This book argues that despite the physical dislocation and death the missions represented, they became sites of indigenous authority, memory, identity, and historical narration. Becoming Indian in California involved being renamed and reclassified as indio and neofito and receiving the status of a minor under the law, confined to a mission except when given a pass. But within the missions, native translators, artisans, and traditional and new leaders used native forms of authority, knowledge, and power to seek redress and to sustain the community. Native painters influenced the narrative space of the missions, giving meaning to the visual order. With Mexican Independence in 1821, indigenous politics took many forms, including the Chumash War of 1824. Chumash histories explained the war through indigenous forms of leadership and thought and in relation to the many types of cruelty and violence pervasive at the missions. More common than revolt, indigenous leaders during this era sought a return to indigenous ancestral territories and to gain possession of the missions and the right to exercise freedom. Indigenous citizenship became entwined in California with the emancipation and secularization policies that governed the region because of its missions. A group of indigenous citizens and landowners emerged in California during the Mexican era. But much of this indigenous colonial and Mexican history became obscured outside of native communities until now.