the region in the nineteenth century. Within that demographic scheme, social roles, determined by sexuality and gender, helped determine the shape that societal transformation assumed. One aspect of this in regard to the confrontation of Indian and white cultures was that before the American influx in the nineteenth century, there had already been a Hispanic influx. Hurtado explains that Spanish imperial settlers engaged in both "illegitimate sexual liaisons" (Hurtado 23), which can be connected to the ethos of conquest, and marriages, which can be connected to an ethos of (faute de mieux) building a stable society.
To be sure, Hispanic values and peoples were meant to predominate and indeed to "supplant native ways" (23), which included polygyny (multiple wives) and other non-Catholic social customs. However, the Spanish imperialist project, to the degree it was governed by missionaries of the Church, was in part one of conversion, not just conquest, and not only to the Church but also to the economic livelihood of the mission. This explains the recruitment of native laborers from interior California as initial native laboring populations were decimated by disease.
The moralistic world view that was a part of this explains the fact that "single women were locked in sleeping rooms" (24) at the mission, which in turn explains why such wome
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