Dedication:Last of the Californios is the third Copley Book on California"s neighbor to the south. In a historical sense, Baja California is the "mother" of the California in which so many millions of us live today. Here began the trail that led to our California. Here in the mountains survive ways of life we once knew. Here, too, are found primitive art treasures our own state cannot match. With these books we have striven to enrich the knowledge and renew the relationship and understanding between the peoples of the two Californias. - Helen K. Copley Preface: CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS generations old often linger where people are separated from the mainstream of change. In the eastern United States, in parts of Appalachia and on sand islands of Chesapeake Bay, are communities where people still follow the ways of their ancestors. A similar situation found in the West - in Baja California - is the subject of this volume. High in the mountains, isolated from roads, resorts, and coastal cities, are small enclaves where people live much in the manner common to the area two centuries ago. How and why some early settlers of Baja California, of largely European descent, retreated into the mountain fastnesses and remained apart is examined in this book. In it, we glimpse something of the way of life in both Alta and Baja California nearly ten generations ago. - RICHARD F. POURADE Table Of Contents: 1. A Day At Sierra Ranch. 2. Gente De Razon. 3. The Contest For Land. 4. Picturing The Californios. 5. The Sierra De Guadalupe. 6. New Lamps For Old. 7. A Man Of The Mountains. Epilogue. Acknowledgements. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.