5. The Creation of an Aristocratic Family
James Reavis put in a lot of work to create a documentary trail of the aristocratic Peralta family. In addition to Mexico City, he traveled to Guadalajara and Spain. In Madrid, he spent days on end in museums and archives to learn the style and feel of old documents. He experimented tirelessly with various inks and chemicals and papers, to figure out the best materials and processes for producing forgeries that would seamlessly fit in with original old documents. He even scoured Spanish flea markets, where he bought old portraits of random people, whom he then designated – with the requisite forged documentary support – as members of the Peralta family.
That was just the start for this Gilded Age crook. After he created the fictional aristocratic Peralta family, Reavis decided to hedge his bets and create an even closer connection between himself and the Peralta land claim. So he married into the aristocratic Peralta family. The fact that the baronial brood was fictional was not a problem for the brazen Reavis. He came across a sixteen-year-old orphaned Mexican girl named Sophia, and convinced her that she was a descendant of the noble Peraltas.
