This book reveals how powerful undercurrents of sex, gender, and culture helped shape the history of the American frontier from the 1760s to the 1850s. Looking at California under three flags -- those of Spain, Mexico, and the United States -- Hurtado resurrects daily life in the missions, at mining camps, on overland trails and sea journeys, and in San Francisco. In these settings Hurtado explores courtship, marriage, reproduction, and family life as a way to understand how men and women -- whether Native American, Anglo American, Hispanic, Chinese, or of mixed blood -- fit into or reshaped the roles and identities set by their race and gender.