Intimacies of Conquest: The Del Valle Household in Southern California, 1840–65

This paper reconstructs the del Valle household in the context of the Euro-American conquest of California. When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, the del Valles' owned an adobe home in the Los Angeles plaza as well as their large landholding, Rancho Camulos. Neighboring other Spanish Mexican families and Euro American newcomers, the del Valle household in the plaza held a central role in the hub of Los Angeles' social, political, and economic interactions. Comprised of godparents, laborers, servants, visitors, business partners, political allies, as well as family members, the del Valle household functioned as a very fluid space defined by relationships pertaining to personal relations, business negotiations, political maneuverings, and cultural accommodations. As US economic, political and legal systems dominated the social landscape of southern California in the 1850s, most Californios faced political and economic displacement through the dispossession of their large land holdings. In response to this, the del Valles' permanently moved their residence from the plaza to the rancho. Under the leadership of matriarch Ysabel Varela del Valle, they recreated the intimate social dynamic of their plaza home at the rancho. Equipped with the support of select lawyers and businessmen, team of rancho laborers, and familial relations spanning the region, the del Valles' warded off threats to their land and ultimately their social status. This focus on the ‘intimacies' of conquest- encounters that were at once personal, economic, and political- builds on Ann Laura Stoler's definition of intimacies “as a social and cultural space where racial classifications were defined and defied, where relations… could powerfully confound or confirm the strictures of governance and the categories of rule.” I argue that examining the ‘intimacies' established in the plaza and utilized on the rancho, reveals a clearer understanding of how the del Valle family negotiated conquest and colonization.