Refusing the Favor: Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880

Refusing the Favor unveils a method for understanding how Mexico's northern land, New Mexico, came under the authority of the United States and what role women played in the political game of takeover. By not losing sight of the Spanish-Mexican women of Santa Fe, the most populated town west of the Mississippi until the California Gold Rush, it places gender squarely in the middle of the dialogue about conquest.

Table of Contents:
Prologue 1: Women in the Courts: Conformity and Dissonance before the War, 1821-1846 2: Women under Siege: Sexuality and the Gendered Economies of Colonization, 1840-1852 3: Women's Survival Strategies: Gifts and Giving as Methods of Resistance, 1846-1880 4: The Politics of Disidentification and Recuperation: Notations about the "New" Western American History Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

Review :
"Deena González's Refusing the Favor is an essential for understanding the history of New Mexico. This is a capstone work in the field, put together by a thoughtful and brilliant scholar who gives us an insight into the role women played in the survival in two separate universes, that of the conquered and the conqueror."--Rodolfo F. Acuña, California State University at Northridge "At long last, a history of the American conquest told from the perspective of Spanish/Mexican women. A leading Chicana feminist theorist, Deena González pushes the interplay of gender, race, class, sexuality to the absolute edge by demonstrating the impact of colonization on the daily lives of Spanish/Mexican women in Santa Fe. She compels historians to reconsider the conventional scholarship with regard to the allegedly accommodating atmosphere surrounding the conquest and the assimilative nature of intermarriage. With power and conviction, she articulates how women, such as Dona Maria Gertrudis Barcelo, were both 'shapers of conflict and choreographers of outcome.' Rich in archival sources and historical insight, Refusing the Favor is a significant contribution to Chicana/Chicano history, western history, and gender studies."--Vicki Ruiz, Professor of History and Chicana-Chicano Studies at Arizona State University "González reads the accommodation and alleged complicity in the conquest that conventional interpretations have assigned to Spanish-Mexican women, as well as the images of Hispanas reproduced in Western American frontier literature and histories, within the context of global representations of women in the colonialist gaze. Incisive and brilliantrly argued, Refusing the Favor sets new methodological, theoretical, and interpretative standards of historical study."--Antonia I. Castañeda, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas. "[M]icro-history at its best."-- Bulletin of Spanish Studies "This book is an engaging study that furthers knowledge of western history and women's lives in the West...Recommended for undergraduates and general readers."--CHOICE