Borah got the job in the speech department and was grateful to Bolton. “Four people have written about the fine letter you sent the committee, and its great value in getting the appointment approved,” Borah acknowledged. He taught in that department until 1962, when he transferred to the history department.18 Bolton no doubt would have criticized the 1962 move as too long delayed.
The University of Texas engaged Bolton to teach in its Mexico City field school in the summer of 1946.19 Bolton, who was back on retirement pay, was glad to get the money and equally happy about going to Mexico at the university's expense. Summer teaching in Mexico also afforded him the opportunity to make an active contribution to what he called Pan-Americanism. “True Pan-Americanism,” he wrote, “consists in an appreciation by each part of the Hemisphere of the culture and common interests of all other parts, and a friendly effort of each to promote the best interests of each and all.”20 His thinking had come a long way from that of the provincial Yankee greenhorn who in 1902 marveled that Mexico City compared favorably with Milwaukee.
As always, Bolton worked on many tasks at once. He got some help with the Chronicles of California when John Caughey accepted an appointment as coeditor.21 Bolton handled the authors in the north, while Caughey dealt with Southern California historians. An editorial board approved projects and made general policies for the series. On June 17, 1947, Bolton called a snap meeting of the editorial committee in Berkeley. It was announced on such short notice that Bolton did not bother to invite Caughey, who would not have had time to get there from Los Angeles. “We missed you and hope you will approve what we did,” Bolton wrote.22
Caughey knew when he was being brushed aside and would have none of it. A full professor and editor of the Pacific Historical Review with books and articles to his credit, Caughey was well established in the historical profession and at UCLA. He was no more inclined to accept overbearing treatment from Bolton than Bolton had been to accept it from Dickson. He was especially chagrined because the committee had approved Bolton's proposal to accept manuscripts by unproven authors, including a master's thesis by Bolton's secretarial assistant Maxine Chappell.23 Her thesis and proposed book had the rather unpromising title “Bodie and the Bad Man: Historical Roots of a Legend.”24 Bolton also had gained committee approval for an expanded undergraduate paper and a doctoral dissertation for inclusion in the series.25
“I do not approve the action taken,” Caughey bluntly informed Bolton. “I believe the series must start with…the ranking California historians.” If the series included “monographs on such limited subjects as Bodie,” Caughey thought, it would surely fail. He also wondered what his role as coeditor truly was. He had no part in administering the budget or in signing new contributors. “I do not want to be a mere figurehead,” he concluded.26
Samuel Farquhar, the manager of the university press, also had reservations about the direction that Bolton was taking.27 Bolton put on a brave show and tried to make his case. He was especially keen on publishing Chappell's tome on Bodie, which he expected a mining company near Bodie would purchase in large numbers. “As a matter of business you may wish to make a memorandum of this,” Bolton prompted.28 He argued that Chappell's scholarship was as good as the established authors, who included such distinguished historians as Paxson, Hicks, Caughey, and Bolton himself. The “literary quality” of her manuscript was “much higher than is usual with professors,” he wrote.29
Bolton failed to ram the new titles through. In his attempt to rein in Bolton, Farquhar demanded that Bolton's secretarial assistant for the series, Chappell, be moved to the press to do her work.30 Chappell, of course did much more for Bolton than work on the Chronicles, so her removal would have been a real loss for him. Bolton got the message, dropped her from the series, and Chappell stayed put. “I am as anxious as you to have volumes in our series by ranking historians,” he reassured Caughey, who had suggested some new authors. Bolton gave his former student authority to work directly with them. He made sure that Caughey had plenty of notice for the next meeting of the editorial board.31 In short order, Caughey became the wheelhorse for the series both as author and editor.32
Bolton had shown very poor judgment by forcing on the editorial board a bunch of green writers who happened to have been Berkeley graduate students. The dustup between him and Caughey made a remarkable contrast to Bolton's dealings with Dickson just a few years earlier. He had justly objected to Dickson's dictatorial ways, but in the later situation, did not seem to understand that his manipulation of the editorial committee seemed like railroading to Caughey. This was the sort of blindness that came from having been indisputably in charge of history at the University of California for many decades. In the 1930s few faculty in the university (including UCLA) would have had the courage to challenge Bolton as Caughey did in 1947, when Bolton was seventy-seven with the clock ticking. Professor Caughey was not risking anything that the calendar would not put right. Bolton no longer had the horses to command the field, not even when he was on his home turf.
Yet he was not entirely bereft of power and influence, nor had he lost his ability to work a situation to his advantage. While the Chronicles contretemps was going on, Bolton was arranging for the publication of his Coronado manuscript, which was almost finished. For years he had promised Hammond the book for his University of New Mexico Press series, but when the editor-in-chief of Houghton Mifflin inquired about the book in 1946, Bolton replied that he would be pleased to publish with him. On the same day, he wrote, “I should be happy to have the book brought out by so good a house as Harpers,” to an editor from that firm.33 Bolton was shopping his manuscript to a more prestigious (and probably more profitable) publisher than the small and poor New Mexico.
In 1947 (at just about the time he was at cross-purposes with Caughey and Farquhar) a new suitor came to Bolton's door. Whittlesey House, a division of McGraw-Hill, was offering a $1,000 fellowship award and publication of the best manuscript with a southwestern theme. Bolton jumped on it. Within weeks he signed a contract with Whittlesey that provided for a $2,500 advance on royalties upon submission of the manuscript. Once the manuscript was in hand, the judges gave Bolton the $1,000 fellowship award and another $1,000 royalty advance.34 All in all, it was a fine arrangement for Bolton, but there would be complications.
Bolton felt free to jump to Whittlesey, because he had never signed a contract with New Mexico. Still, there was no denying that he had promised the book to Hammond. Too, Hammond had raised $1,000 for the book, although it is not clear if the money went to Bolton directly, or if it funded trail research, or if it was in the nature of a publication subvention. Whatever the disposition of the money may have been, Hammond and Fred Harvey, the University of New Mexico Press director, had good reason to be aggrieved. Bolton could discount the wrath of Hammond, who as director of the Bancroft was in no position to make a stink. Harvey was another matter. He was hopping mad and enlisted the aid of Clinton P. Anderson, U.S. secretary of agriculture and future U.S. senator from New Mexico. The secretary had accompanied Bolton and Hammond on Coronado expeditions and was completely familiar with Bolton's gentleman's agreement to publish with New Mexico.35 Anderson had used his good offices to outfit Bolton's Coronado excursions with federal equipment, personnel, and supplies. Now the secretary felt that he had been jobbed. Bolton sent him a meek letter. “I am greatly embarrassed at having caused you and Mr. Harvey such disappointment,” he wrote. “It implies more importance than I have ever imagined might be attributed to my work,” he disingenuously added.36 Perhaps they could work something out that would be satisfactory to all parties, he added.
Harvey complained to William E. Larned, the director of the Whittlesey House division. Larned was taken by surprise and demanded an explanation from Bolton. Bolton relied on the letter of the law. There was no contract with New Mexico. He also argued that he had written a very different book than the one that he had agreed to write for Hammond and Harvey. Still, Bolton wished to avo
id trouble, so he broached an idea for Larned's consideration. If New Mexico wanted a book, give it to them. “You print [Harvey's] large pages and sell them to him on satisfactory terms.” Such an arrangement would “make him friendly and help promote your sales.”37 In the end, Harvey, Anderson, and Larned agreed to Bolton's plan for joint publication.38
There is no question that Bolton acted on naked self-interest in the Coronado controversy. He had reneged on his unwritten promises to Hammond in order to make more money and gain more honors. While this episode does not flatter Bolton, many an academic author might silently cheer him for taking control of his work so that Bolton, the creator, benefited as much as possible from his creation. Bolton, after all, had spent years researching, trailing, writing, and rewriting. Why should he not maximize his financial rewards? Now that he was in his second and permanent retirement from Berkeley, he needed the money. Even with royalties Bolton's retirement income fell considerably short of his former salary.39
So Bolton got his money, the Whittlesey House fellowship, and publication by two houses at once. In 1949 Whittlesey brought out the book as Coronado, Knight of Pueblos and Plains, while New Mexico titled its book Coronado on the Turquoise Trail, Knight of Pueblos and Plains. Under any title Coronado was Bolton's finest book. Although the Time magazine reviewer winced at Bolton's “neo-Rotarian style,” everyone (including the Time reviewer) recognized it as the crowning work of a major scholar writing for a popular audience.40 The book fully justified the immense amount of time and energy that Bolton had expended in the archives and on the trail. In 1950 General Dwight Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University, notified Bolton that Coronado had won the prestigious Bancroft Prize, an award that no doubt pleased Harvey and Anderson as well as Bolton and Larned.41
Bolton's Coronado was not his last book, but it may be regarded as the culmination of his writing style and historical perspective. As usual, Bolton paid special attention to the details of trail location, campsites, and topographical features. A map of North America printed on the endpapers shows Coronado's route stretching from Mexico City across the border to New Mexico and then to central Kansas. Two smaller maps illustrate some of the geographical details that Bolton had described in his letters to Gertrude. Still keenly aware of local patriotic pride, Bolton included an awkward paragraph about the California gold rush in his preface. Today it seems a stretch to say that “not altogether unlike that of Marshall's discovery in California, Coronado and his followers made known the great Southwest and contributed to its permanent settlement.” In his by now familiar way, Bolton portrayed Coronado as a transnational hero, “an immortal link between the republics of Mexico and the United States.”42 Nor could he refrain from his habit of inflating the significance of certain events. For example, in introducing Pedro de Castañeda's description of the Grand Canyon, he wrote that “Castañeda's next paragraph is one of the most precious passages in all the writings ever put on paper with respect to discovery in North America,” because it briefly recorded the first European attempt to reach the bottom of the great defile.43 One wonders, if the Spaniards had actually succeeded in reaching the bottom, what super-superlative language Bolton might have employed to celebrate their descent.
Despite such excesses Coronado is a pleasure to read. Bolton tells the tale in high romantic style and creates a narrative arc that carries his hero from great expectations to a tragic end. The Pueblo Indians and other Native Americans are something more than mere objects. Bolton gives them names, motivations, and importance in the story. They too experience tragedy as result of Coronado's exploits. And as if to underscore their importance, Bolton included an appendix, “Pueblo Society,” that described their towns, dress, irrigation, agriculture, and religion and other aspects of their culture. He gave special attention to the roles of Pueblo women. He thought they were “well advanced in many elements of civilization.”44 Bolton's statement inferred that other Indian societies were not as civilized as the Pueblos, but he meant it as a compliment. Perhaps in his old age Bolton was circling back to find a place for them in the borderland confluence of civilizations—Native American as well as European. Indian civilization was appended to Coronado, but at least Bolton was thinking about them.
Bolton's final retirement was not all about book writing. In 1947 he agreed to teach two courses at San Francisco State College—about two-thirds of the teaching load that he had carried at Berkeley. He reckoned that he would make $174.40 a month before taxes. He also taught summer school at Mills College in Oakland.45 As Bolton explained to the secretary of the Carnegie Foundation, “retiring allowances fixed in pre-war days are altogether inadequate now, in view of post-war prices.”46 Bolton had no intention of teaching part-time until he dropped in his harness.
Despite his penurious situation Bolton continued his ambitious research itinerary with funds from several sources. Cal continued to give Bolton some support. The American Philosophical Society provided research funding beginning in 1947.47 He received a grant for Spanish-American history from the Hurley Marine Works for research, editorial work, and travel support.48 (Bolton generously used some Hurley money to assist young scholars' travel to Latin America.) He also expected to get a substantial royalty from the Escalante volume when it was published.49 The National Park Service and State Department paid for official trips for Bolton's research. He therefore could draw on many different funding sources, each small on its own, but together enough to carry on his scholarly agenda.
Before completing Escalante, Bolton attended to the Serra Cause. He was enthusiastic about the project because Serra was the sort of pioneer missionary that Bolton had long portrayed in a heroic light. Serra was a bit of a guinea pig in a new canonization procedure that had been established by the Vatican.50 The Church wished to introduce historical scholarship into the review process (as well as authenticated miracles, though these were not Bolton's concern).51 In December 1948 an ecclesiastical court met in Fresno to hear the Serra Cause. Father O'Brien instructed Bolton to deliver the documents that the commission had and to comment on their completeness and reliability. Then Bolton would be asked to add any remarks that might be useful to the authorities who would review the case in Rome. The Fresno court was merely “a receiving station for information and documents,” O'Brien explained. He sent Bolton the articuli, the reasons for Serra's canonization that O'Brien would attempt to prove from the documentary evidence. There was “no need for detailed discussion” of the articuli, but Bolton should familiarize himself with them so that “when the judges inquire…you can say that you agree or disagree…on the basis of your acquaintance with the documents.”52
Bolton duly appeared in Fresno arrayed for the occasion in his scarlet Toronto doctoral robes. He delivered approximately two thousand documents by Serra. In January 1949 the court met at the Carmel mission, where Bolton delivered the documents about Serra and gave whatever additional testimony was required. Then the documents and testimony were shipped to Rome, where they would be minutely examined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites.53 “Knowing the long memory of the Catholic Church,” O'Brien told Bolton, “you can be sure that…your name will live on in the records at Rome.” No doubt glad to know that his work would be enshrined in the Vatican, Bolton was also glad to receive a payment for his trouble. “The enclosed check, of course, is only a token of the debt of gratitude which the Franciscan Order in California owes to you.”54 The amount of the check was not stated.
The complete transcript of Bolton's testimony has not been released, but Bolton no doubt spoke positively about Serra at Fresno and Carmel. He claimed that the Devil's Advocate (the prosecutor who spoke against Serra's canonization) had subjected Bolton to sarcastic, “withering scorn.”55 Surely Bolton did not accept this dramatic treatment in silence. In a fragmentary typed response to the court's questions Bolton called Serra “the greatest of all [the] galaxy of Apostles to the heathen in North America.”56 As usual, Bolton hoped that superlatives would carry the argumen
t. Such words seemed positive and harmless to him in 1948. Decades later his language would mark him as an unrepentant apologist for the missionaries who participated in Spanish colonial conquest, abuse, dispossession, and destruction of California Indians.57
There was no organized opposition to Serra's canonization in the 1940s, but a critique of the California missions and Serra was beginning to appear. Between 1940 and 1943 biologist and historical demographer Sherburne F. Cook, a member of the Cal faculty, published a series of detailed essays about California Indian population decline during the Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo eras.58 Cook did not question the religious motives of the missionaries, but his work damned the secular results. He demonstrated that the missions were pestholes where Indians died in droves. Indeed, more Indians died than were born in the missions, which depended on a continuing influx of new Indian converts if the institutions were to survive. The original essays, published in the University of California Press series Ibero-Americana, were larded with statistics and testimony drawn from the Bancroft Library's vast holdings, some of which had been collected by Bolton and his students. Cook provided a stunning new ecological interpretation of the California missions that continues to be influential not only in California but also in world history.59 In later years Cook teamed with Woodrow Borah to write their three-volume Essays in Population History, which extended Cook's original ideas to North America.
Cook did the heavy scholarly lifting, and Carey McWilliams provided a readily accessible popular account in 1946. McWilliams, editor of The Nation, used incendiary language to characterize the missions. Commenting on Cook's data on population decline, McWilliams wrote that “the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps.” “From the moment of conversion,” he declared, “the [Indian] neophyte became a slave.”60 There was not much room for Catholic saints in the hellish vision of the missions that Cook and McWilliams limned.
Herbert Eugene Bolton_Historian of the American Borderlands Page 35