Eulalia Perez: A California Mission

Eulalia Perez was a housekeeper in a California mission. The source, written in 1823, is an account of the lives of women in the missions. Perez’s account helps people from later on learn about life in Spanish colonization of Mexico. Perez starts off by saying “the duties of the housekeeper were many” (Mintz 35). This signifies that during this time, women stayed at home while men were spending plenty of time away from home. Shortly after, Perez writes that “...she was responsible for the distribution of supplies to the Indian population” (Mintz 35). This tells us that, one, the Indians were very much present in the missions, and, two, since they were handed supplies, the Indians were there to do work.
Perez then goes on to to say that women were “...in charge of cutting and making the Vaqueros’ outfits...” (Mintz 35), and “...those who rode in saddles were dressed the same way as the Spanish-speaking inhabitants...” (Mintz 35). She also says the the outfits were “...for the vaqueros that rode in saddles” (Mintz 35). Since the vaqueros required the nicest clothes, clothes as nice as their Spanish colonizers, the vaqueros were likely of special importance. However, since this applied only to the vaqueros in the saddles, this shows us that the vaqueros who rode bareback were of lower importance than the ones on the saddles, possibly signifying that the vaqueros had some type of ranking system.

This shows us even further that women were always in the house, away from the heavy jobs that were left to men. The latter statement means either there were not enough women in the missions to do all of the house work, or the work the women had to do was too hard to manage and is a sign of mistreatment in the