5.4.3b Testimonios: Early California Through the Eyes of Women, 1815-1848

Eulalia Perez, a Mexican California woman who spent her life in Southern California, was interviewed in 1877. She passed a year later at the age of 110. The mother of 12 children, she worked as part of the mission system — and is credited with inventing lemonade that the missionaries shipped overseas. As a result of her labor, mission authorities granted her a great deal of land around modern-day Pasadena. As a manager at Mission San Gabriel, Perez played an important role in the development of California. She also accumulated a great deal of wealth and land for herself, her family, and the Mexican government. In this excerpt of an interview she gave as a very old woman, she described how she worked for the Spanish mission system to create goods that would be bought and sold. What does her life story reveal about how and why people settled in North America?

Eulalia Perez, a Mexican California woman who spent her life in Southern California, was interviewed in 1877. The photograph was also taken at the time of her interview. She had 12 children, worked as part of the mission system, married a wealthy Spaniard, and was granted a great deal of land around modern-day Pasadena. She played an important role in the development of California by working as a manager at Mission San Gabriel (established 1771). She also accumulated a great deal of wealth and land for herself, her family, and the Mexican government. Perez’s life story provides one way for your students to understand the economic purposes of California as a Spanish colony, even as it became part of Mexico and eventually the United States. In this excerpt of an interview she gave as a very old woman in the 1870s, Perez described how she worked for the Spanish mission system to create goods that would be bought and sold.

“All work having to do with clothing was done by my daughters under my supervision. I would cut and arrange the pieces of material and my five daughters would do the sewing. When they could not keep up with the workload, I would let the Father know. He would then hire women from the pueblo of Los Angeles and pay them.

In addition, I had to supervise the area where soap was made, which was very large, and also the wine presses. I supervised and worked in the crushing of olives to make olive oil. Domingo Romero would drain off the liquid, but I would supervise him as he did this.

Luis, the soapmaker, was in charge of the actual soap production, but I supervised everything.

I supervised the distribution of leather, calfskin, chamois, sheepskin… red cloth, tacks, thread, silk, etc. – everything related to the making of saddles and shoes, as well as everything that is needed in a saddle workshop and a shoe workshop" (105).